Video Game Limits | Parenting Uncovered | Dave & Ashley Willis

Foreign. Hello, and welcome back to Parenting Uncovered. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and today we are going to talk about how to handle kids and video games. And you guys, we are coming at you as people who are always learning about this, because first of all, we have all four children who love to play video games. Right. To different degrees, I would say. But also the reason we are always keeping our finger on the pulse of this is because I feel like just when we think we understand the impact of video games or kind of limits we should put on video games, the data is changing because there's other options, like VR, which is virtual reality. You know, there's. There's all this information coming out. And so right out of the gate. Can I go ahead and share kind of some stats on video games? I found a great website, and this comes from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. If you want to look up this article, it's@aacap.org and the article is entitled Video Games and Children Playing with Violence. And they talk about how there's a lot of video games where it's just fun. Like, our kids love to play Roblox, where they come up with their own avatars. They can design characters for our little kids, you know, which are 8 and 11 right now at this recording. And those aren't violent. Those are just like different places they go and do. And it's different scenarios, but there's a lot of games that are violent. And they said, you know, some of these, or killing people or animals, the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol, these are more popular with the older kids. Older. Well, really teenagers. And then, like, young adults, some even mimic criminal behavior, disrespect for authority and law, sexual exploitation and violence toward women, racial, sexual, or gender stereotypes, and even foul language and obscene gestures. And I've heard some parents say, well, yeah, some of that's in there, but I can put a certain setting on it. Like, I remember years ago, Call of Duty was, like, all the rage. And I think there's all these different.

Well, and then you got stuff like Grand Theft Auto. I'm really not even in the know of what is, like, trending right now, but I know, like, the Grand Theft Auto whole franchise had a lot of, like, violence, sexual situations, sexual situations. You were, like, incentivized for committing crimes. And. And I think that just, I don't know, celebrating in a virtual way something that is very unhealthy in a literal way is always dangerous. It's one of the reasons why pornography's dangerous. We're talking about that next week.

Right.

Because it just desensitizes us. Right? I mean, it does. And I'm not one of these people that blames all society's woes on video games. I think they can be a lot of fun. Our kids like playing it. I grew up playing video games. But if we lose ourselves in a digital reality, and then especially when that digital reality is bent toward the violent or just the objectification of people, the dehumanization of people, whether it's through sexual situations or through just killing people for sport in a digital way, it does have an impact. I mean, it does, it does.

And I'm going to tell you actually what these people who work in the psychiatry and mental health, you know, fields are finding among kids. Cause it's pretty astonishing. And so just just to kind of see kind of where. Where we are, it says that spending excessive time playing video games. And we're gonna talk about that in a little bit, it can lead to these things. It can lead to less time social, socializing with friends and family. Because a lot of these games are increasingly becoming less about playing alongside your friend. It's a lot of online playing, very isolating. So this leads to poorer social skills, time away from family, from schoolwork and other hobbies. They see a correl games, video games excessively often have lower grades. There's less reading because they'd rather play games than read. There's less exercise. And so a lot of kids are experiencing like childhood and adolescent obesity. Also decreased sleep and poor quality sleep because their brain, it's hard to turn that off. Especially if they have a gaming system in their room, then all they want to do is play games like all through the night. And then lastly, and this one is really concerning to me is aggressive thoughts and behaviors because, you know, it's doing something to your brain. There's often like a dopamine hit from the excitement you get from playing these games. And so sometimes when it's taken away or when you have to turn it off, they can be aggressive and so really concerning. But we do have some tips for parents. And so before we get to that, what do you want to add to that, sweetie? Because I mean, this is something that has been an ongoing conversation in our family because we know what the stats say, but we also don't want to make it, you know, video games completely off limits. Because I do. Especially during, like when we moved away and also during COVID I saw it as something that our kids were able to still interact with Friends, like, even though it's online, I mean, there is some interaction. Like with Roblox, they would play with their cousins, and sometimes they would even facetime them while playing Roblox and be like, oh, I want to see your avatar. And, oh, are you going to. What's this tip? You have to do this one, you know, part of the game. How do you get into this part of the game? Or, you know, and our kids have played, like, Mario. I mean, they love. I mean, going all the way back to, you know, Nintendo's Mario. And so I don't think that they're all bad. I had to learn, you know. Cause I used to think they were all bad. Like, I.

She did.

I really did. I used to really think that she.

Had a lot of prejudice against any form of video game, which is part of the reason why I don't really play is because I.

You play with our kids sometimes I.

Want her to not be repulsed by me.

I don't find it repulsive.

Every now and then I'll jump on. She did. She really did. But I will say, like, I've seen. So when I was growing up, video games didn't have the tech that they have now. There was no Internet, really. The game technology, the way that it's developed, it really is. It's amazing. I mean, I get. I mean, I was, like, hooked on really simple Super Mario games and different things back in the day. But even that I had friends in college that nearly failed out of school because they were up all night playing Mario Kart, you know, just sitting in, like, the dorm lobby playing games like that. So anything that gets out of balance can quickly just make things fall apart. And so if you have the kind of personality where you don't have good natural limiters, Video games is one of those areas, especially for men, it seems like. Especially for young men and men of all ages, I suppose, and increasingly women. And increasingly women, where girls and women.

Who love to play it.

It's easy to just lose ourselves in. In that reality or in that game. And I think some of it is a hiding from actual reality. It goes from just being a hobby or a diversion or something that you enjoy to, like, no, I get this world. I get this digital world. And I want to spend as much time here as possible, because here I feel like I'm thriving, I'm winning. And out in the regular world, I feel like I'm not. I don't understand the rules. In the regular world, it's harder. I don't like it. So I'm going to just hide in this digital world. And that, for me, is one of the biggest dangers of it. It's not even just the violent and the sexualized games, but any game, even a game that seems innocent, if it pulls you in and you want to live in that digital space and you're trading a virtual reality for an actual reality, it cuts you off from relationships. It makes it harder for you to engage with real human beings in real settings. And we're losing out. I think kids are losing out on some very basic life skills because their head is in a screen so much that they don't know how to interact without a screen. They don't know how to exist without a screen. And so one of our jobs of parents in this digital age is, yeah, helping kids be able to leverage technology because it's gonna help them with their job. It's gonna be part of their life, whether we like it or not. Technology is gonna be a big part of all of our lives. But helping them find limits to realize that technology isn't everything. People are still most important relationships. Your relationship with God and with people. And you can't automate all that. You can't put all that just digitally. You have to be able to interact face to face. You have to be able to put the phone down and be okay and not be fidgety and twitchy. You got to be able to enjoy life without a screen.

It's so true. And I know that sounds simple enough, right? But so many of us, even as adults, struggle with this. Maybe it's not even a gaming system. Maybe it is. But I think with these. These things right here that we love, that can be a great tool, but it's a poor master, and we really have to keep it in its proper place. And I think it really, you know, my probably first piece of advice with this from learning through trial and error, and a lot more than from error than through success. Right. Is I think we have to really. I think we need to prolong the introduction of video games. Like, not that it's just. And you need to stay away from it, but I think that there's a lot of neuroscience behind this. Like, the more that we can prolong screens from our kids, the better their brains are.

Early formative years.

Early formative years, just popping them. Sometimes it's easy to just put them in front of a screen. And I'm not saying, like, back in the day when we were raising our kids, there was. What was it called? Like, Baby Mozart or something or what did they call that baby Einstein? Baby Einstein, baby genius stuff? And we even did sign language videos, like baby sign language videos. And we would, like, limit it to 20 minutes a day or something, like when they're real little. And I know that even nowadays, I think they're saying, like, don't even let them be in front of any screen for as long as possible. And I mean, we tend to be more kind of. Listen, I don't think having a little program for your young kid is going to hurt them. But I think if it constantly becomes the thing that we push him in front of and let him get on the iPad, because we want a moment, and believe me, I get that sentiment. I get just wanting a moment. But if it becomes too much and then they're crying for the iPad, because that's how it starts. Are iPads. I see little kids with iPads or Kindles or whatever the little contraption is all the time. Like, I get every now and then, you know, doing that. And maybe it's an educational game. That's great. There are some great educational games. But I think if it's constantly, like, no, no, no. You just go on a screen, it's really teaching them the wrong thing because it can be highly addictive.

Oh, sure.

And I mean, there's been times with our kids where we've always limited video games. Like, it's never been a free for all. Like, do it whenever you want from it. Like from the time they start playing it, which usually starts with, oh, goodness. I think it was leapfrog. Leapfrog devices, because we love how they teach the Alphabet and first words, and it's a lot of educational things, but it's still a digital device. And we had, like a little leapfrog little activity pad, I think is what it was. But we still found very quickly, you know, even at, like, 4 years old, that we had to limit that. And so it started off we limited it to, like, a certain amount per day. You know, if you did all the things you're supposed to do, you know, you get this amount of time on your little leapfrog pad. And then, you know, in elementary school, we found that it was easier just to say, you know what? No video games until the weekend. You know, and you get this amount of time on the weekend to play your video games as long as you've done all the things you're supposed to do at home and all your things you're supposed to do at school. And that's really worked. That's kind of where we Are right now with our younger two is they don't get video games until the weekend. Now, if they did really well on the report card, you guys heard us say, I believe it was last week or the week before that. We pay our kids in high school for their grades. We do not pay our elementary schoolers or middle schoolers for good grades, but we do give them a bonus. Gaming time.

Yeah. Which is all the currency they care about.

It's gold to them, like, to be able to play games.

Oh, yeah.

They're like, oh, my gosh. You know, so that's been helpful, and it's something that they look forward to. But there's a lot of weekends where we have a lot of activities. And so, you know, maybe their game time that they're. If we didn't have a lot of activities one weekend, they get a lot of game time, you know, more than maybe the weekends where we have a lot of activity. And we're very quick to tell them, like, listen, being outside and being with friends and going somewhere with your family or whatever, way more fun than a video game. Way more fun and way more important to do, you know, because we're engaging in relationship. And I think it's just, you know, anytime we see especially Chandler, I feel like he's our sixth grader, and he's so good at games. He's an excellent student, very studious, gets it done. He's our one that's going to be an Eagle Scout. He's in Scouts right now, working through his Thanksgiving, which has been great for.

Him because he's so drawn to screens that to be engaged in something that is screenless, essentially, you know, you're doing outdoor stuff. You're working toward projects with your hands, building relationships. It's been great for him.

It has. And it gives him other things to be motivated to do. And school's pretty easy for Chandler right now. So it's been, you know, he doesn't have a lot of homework. He's able to get stuff done pretty quickly. And having these scouting projects has been good. And he's an achiever by nature, so he's really working through that list. But there's been times, has there not, sweetie? Especially on vacation weeks, where they get a little more time than usual, where we'll have to shut it down, because I'm just noticing those impulsive behaviors and where it's hard for him to walk away. And I remind him, I will literally say, this is like, this is addictive behavior, you know, And I'm like, can you see how upset this is making you, this little screen? His isn't little usually. I mean, it's usually he's working on his little computer. He has, like, a laptop game. It's usually Roblox. And I'm like, this screen is making you feel this way. I'm like, do you see the correlation here? And so I try to reason with him, like, we need to scale back even more on the games. And so it's a constant conversation, and. And we're monitoring and adjusting quite a bit. Right, sweetie?

Monitor and adjust. You've heard us use that language. Marriage, parenting, really, I think all parts of life, we didn't come up with that, but we heard someone say that, and we're like, yeah, that resonates. We need to always be monitoring and adjusting. Know what's going on. You know, know the condition of things. In the Proverbs, it says, know the condition of your flocks talking to shepherds. Or you got to know. If you're taking care of these sheep, you got to know their condition. Are any of them sick? Any of them lost? Any of them not eating enough? You got to know the condition, and you have to adjust. And in parenting, it's the ultimate form of shepherding. You got to know the condition of your kids. What are they into? What are they drawn to? What are they thinking about? And if everybody's just retreating to their own screen all the time, then we're missing out on the engagement. We're missing out on those parenting moments. And really, we're opening up our kids to a world where they could be exposed to a lot we don't want to be exposed to. And we'll continue that part of the conversation next week with the pornography discussion specifically, which is a huge issue. Kids are being exposed to that earlier and earlier. Usually they're not even looking for it. It finds them. And we'll talk about that next week. Not to scare you, not to be alarmist, but just, we need to know as parents what's out there and what our kids are being exposed to and how to protect them. But coming back to this video game thing, I think that it's gonna look different not only in every family, but maybe even for every kid, because each child is different. Each of our kids have been drawn to different levels to the video games, and you're gonna have to. What works in one season might not even work in another. So monitor and adjust. You know, change rules as you need to. And. Yeah, and I just hope that, like all these episodes, we're Just trying to help you have new thoughts and new conversations that could help.

That's right. And I would say a few things that have worked for us and we've already shared a couple. But I would add to it by saying we really decided long ago to not let our kids have TVs in their rooms. I feel like that's been a really good thing because, you know, we talked about how extra gaming decreases reading just.

Because they can have books.

No TVs, right, exactly. And they read at night. Like that's when they read, which is great. And we're like, we'll go to the library, we'll go on Amazon. We'll get you books, you know, and so that's been a really good thing. So because they don't have TVs, they also don't have gaming systems in their room. All of our gaming systems are out in the open. Even Chandler's little laptop is out in our family room. And because we want it to be open to where we can hear it, we can see it. We also have filtering software which we'll talk about next week that filters out any kind of like pornographic or it even does stuff like having to do with violence, having to do with alcohol and drugs. I'll give a real quick plug to this and we'll talk about it more next week. But we like the filtering system Custodio with a Q. The Custodio app, we found it very easy to use. There's another one called Bark that I know a lot of people have success with and there's one called Covenant Eyes. But it'll basically, it'll block anything that is violent, that is sexual, that is alcohol and drugs, or even mature, you know, a certain level. And, and they'll report it to you, but also block it from your kids and it leads to a good conversation. But I wanted to come back to this article by again, it's called the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology. They have some great tips on here at their website, aacap.org and some of their suggestions for parents are to avoid video games in preschool age children, which we kind of already talked about. But also this is a really good thing to remember is that we need to check the ESRB ratings to select appropriate games. Because sometimes, just like with movies as parents, they might have a rating, but we don't understand the nuance like of what is within that rating. Because to be honest with you, like some PG things are pretty like they don't have a whole lot in them. They're PG because of one word. And it may not even be like a cuss word, but it's just PG because of a situation. Whereas other PG movies might have these other things that we wish we had known about. And there's so many great websites out there where you can check these kind of ratings. One that we go to a lot is called Common Sense Media. And I think it's just dot com. And they rate movies, they rate books, and they rate games. And not only that, but they tell you all the different situations and why they gave this rating. Like, how many times they say the word stupid or like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it could be. Or if there's any kind of racy situations. And another great website we would recommend is from Focus on the Family. And that website is called pluggedin.com. they also kind of tell you what's. And different things that you can go through as a parent and give it ratings. And it's specifically from a Christian perspective. So you have that faith component as well. Whereas Common Sense, I don't think it's necessarily Christian, but it's honest. Like, they just tell you every little story.

It's very practical. It lets you know exactly.

It does.

So you're not surprised by a game, a movie. Like, okay, sometimes you're taking your kids to a movie and there's some scene that just really stands out and surprises you. Like, whoa. Wasn't expecting that, right? I wish I'd have known that was coming.

Like, we would have never gone to this or we would have never let him play this game.

Common Sense Media is a great resource to.

It's been really good.

What's happening.

Another suggestion they have is playing video games with your children to share the experience and discuss the game's content. I love this one because I know years ago, you and Chandler again, our sixth grader, I think this was when he was probably like 8. You guys beat the game's splatoon together. Do you remember that? And it was so fun.

It was like a bonding moment.

It was very bonding.

Or when we found this video game place that had all these old vintage games and I was playing like the old Street Fighter games with the boys and stuff that I grew up playing and just showing them and they instantly were like, better than me somehow.

I even played Street Fighter with them. It was really fun.

I know.

I really enjoyed it.

So it can be a bonding thing. We're not saying, like, video games are evil. We've had fun and even bonding moments with the kids over it.

Yeah. Another suggestion they have, and this is going to be a theme throughout Parenting Uncovered, is pay attention to your own gaming habits, because we are modeling what's appropriate.

And social media habits.

And social media. Right.

And just being online in general.

Exactly. And even screens. Because I love you guys. I love just having the TV on. And I'm challenged sometimes because I grew up with the TV in my room, and I would just sometimes be watching it, but sometimes just in the background that sometimes I'll feel. It'll feel weird not having that noise. And you've really challenged me on this and been like, listen, we need to be okay with silence.

Yes.

And, you know, with our kids there, it's rarely silent, obviously, but it's good to have silence, quiet moments in your day.

I crave it.

And I think it's good for kids to have quiet moments, to just not have to be stimulated all the time. I think another one, they said other things that we already suggested is in this article, but I think here's one more I want to add is monitoring online interactions and warning children about potential dangers of Internet contacts and playing games online. This is a huge one that with our older boys. I remember when Discord, which is an app where gamers kind of go back and forth when that became. When that came on the scene. I remember when it happened. And I just told our boys, if you're going to be part of this, we have to have access to it as well. And I would go occasionally and check the Discord conversations. And I would always tell the kids, and you would, too, listen. That person who's claiming to be 12 is probably 45 and might be trying to lure you in. You never tell your real name. You never tell where you live. You never give personal information, like you don't know who's on the other side of that screen. And they'd always be like, mom, you tell us this all the time. And I'm like, because you can't forget it. It's so easy to get comfortable and just think, well, they're my friend. I play them all the time on Roblox. They're nice. But you don't know. You really don't know what you're gonna get. And there's been whole gaming systems shut down because people have found loopholes to get in and lure kids. And so I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but it is a real thing like this does happen. They've had, you know, FBI sting operations. They've shown on, you know, different TV shows. So I Mean, it's. It does happen. So just be really. I think the main thing is we need to have. We need to be aware of where they're going online. We need to have the filtering systems and keep that conversation going.

So good, guys. Been a great conversation, but we never end an episode without dad joke from Dave and a fascinating fact from the lovely Ashley. So you want to go first?

You go first, because I'm going to. There's so many to pick from this, so I'm so many to pick it out.

All right, let me try to. Try to do a video game tie in. All right. Why does breaking your thumbs both make it hard to play video games and also make it likely that you'll have anxiety?

I don't know why?

Because you can't get a grip on things.

Oh, that was good. And perfect timing. I love it. Can't get a grip on things. I love it. All right, again, I'm gonna share two. They're kind of all related. Fascinating facts. Okay? And this again is from fact retriever.com. you guys may have heard of the term soccer mom or helicopter mom, which. There can be a soccer dad and helicopter dad, right? Am I right? I mean, this can happen. But these gained traction in the 1990s, as moms, in particular, would sign up their kids for as many extracurriculars as possible. That's where you get those terms soccer mom and helicopter mom and, of course, helicopter mom.

You're hovering.

You're hovering like you're kind of, you know, never giving your kid any space there. Okay. Involved in every little facet of their life, you know, when they're older and probably should have some things independently. But there's this other term that I've never heard before, and maybe you guys have heard of this, but it's called the lawnmower parent. Okay. Or the lawnmower parenting style. Have you heard of this?

No.

Okay. I haven't either. But it's defined as going to. Whatever links are necessary to mow down adversity, struggle, or failure for the child. So never allowing your kids to fail. Have you heard of that? I'd never.

No. That's a new one. Lawnmower parent.

So you don't want to be those things like soccer mom. To me, a soccer mom is kind of sweet. Yeah. Going to the games, supporting your kids, activities. I am a soccer mom right now because Chatham's in soccer. I guess so.

Yeah.

But our kids aren't in as many extra careers to do one thing at a time, one thing each season. Yeah, yeah. So one like sport, they get to pick. They can be in like a school club that meets after school in like one sport outside of the home or outside of school or home, you know, where we have to drive and all that kind of stuff. But I thought that was neat lawnmower parenting.

You learn something new. I always learn something new with you. Hey, guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Do us a favor, connect with us on Instagram. We're at Dave and AshleyWillis. We love your suggestions for episode topics. We would love your dad jokes, your fascinating facts question, or any questions that you got. It's just great to connect with you over there in real time if you're not already. Also check out our Naked Marriage podcast, which is the, the original podcast we've been doing for years. We have a of lot, lot of fun with that as well. So if you're not subscribed to that one, subscribe there and here, of course. And keep up the great work you're doing growing to be a better parent. We're on this journey with you. God bless. We'll see you next time.