100 Family Media Literacy Activities, Ages Pre-School through Teen Years

Are You a “High Hopes” Parent?

Attending to Our Children’s Attention Span

Building the Foundation for Resiliency Skills

Live and Play in Your World: Stimulus Addiction and the Growing Brain

Looking for Meaning in All the Right Places

Parenting Today: The World Has Changed, Have We?

Parenting as a Living System

Reading the Screen

Screen Time and Obesity

Screen Violence: Impact on Self as Relational Being

Teaching Children Gratefulness

Live and Play in Your World: Stimulus Addiction and the Growing Brain (cont.)

5.         Teach children how to go inside themselves.
When kids know how to meander in their internal landscapes, they are more self-directed. They can entertain themselves more easily. Give children and teens time to just sit and think—even if for only five or ten minutes at a stretch. Just a tiny practice starts the bud blooming. Kids will come to need this kind of “inside time.” Before asking a question you can say, “Before you respond honey, I want you to take a minute to think about your answer.” Consciously giving “think-time” provides a powerful model that it’s important to take the time necessary to carefully consider an idea. Most video games are fast. They do not grow that part of the brain that is used in thoughtful reflection. This takes time. It’s not a quick decision. By encouraging children and teens to do some slow pondering inside themselves, parents counter gamer addiction.

6.         Help children stay connected to the 3-D world.
When Play Station commands: “Play in Our World”—you better believe they know what they’re doing. This is a well-thought out phrase to make children and teens believers that the video game world is the best world to play in. As illogical it may seem to most adults, youngsters do not have the thinking capacity to understand the long-term ramifications of this ad on attitude formation and the manufacturing of a need. To be “cool” a person better “play in their world.” Playing video games with our kids can go a long way to modeling proper use of this great tool for a fun time-out for the real-world. But like anything else, it’s a question of balance. If kids aren’t getting enough exercise outside, for instance, their lives are out of balance in favor of the screen-machine. If kids don’t find their competence in various 3-D world activities, they might as well be tethered to the 2-D world. Parents who take a breather to kick or toss a ball, bike or hike, model for kids the value of life beyond a small screen. By nurturing our children’s innate propensity to explore the natural world, parents move kids out of the world of video games and give them the know-how and the spirit to create a better world—a world we will all enjoy playing in!

References

1.         “Video-game-player saturation hits new level,” Seattle Times, September 18, 2008, p. A6.

2.         “First-person shooter: The video gamer's addiction,” D. Tournemille, from http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1030135158281_3?s_name=&no_ads

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