How to prevent children from becoming addicted to gaming during long holidays?
Children and young people today are inseparable from their smartphones nowadays, the issue of gaming addiction is becoming increasingly prevalent, it may become worse especially during school holidays.
Appropriate amount of play benefits mental health
While playing healthy electronic games is harmless, overindulgence can lead to problems, because addictive behaviour affects the brain's prefrontal cortex and the mechanism of dopamine release, continuous stimulation of the reward pathway in the brains, not only will it create a sense of dependence, it will also affect people's everyday lives. In fact moderate gaming can bring numerous benefits, including increasing enjoyment in life, temporarily relieving stress, providing a sense of achievement when completing levels, and stimulating social conversations with others. In fact, moderate gaming can bring numerous benefits, including increasing enjoyment in life, temporarily relieving stress, providing a sense of achievement when completing levels, and stimulating social conversations with others.
How to keep children from gaming addiction?
Strategy 1. Maintain Daily Routines
Busy concentrating on study in daily lives, more or less making ones have the "I-have-to-play-till-I-have-enough" mindset as compensation during holidays. Therefore, it is essential to maintain daily routines during school holidays, and don't let gaming disrupt life.
Strategy 2. Make family activities more fun
Boring life compels children to gaming to kill boredom. Engaging more in fun activities as a family, can help children discover happiness beyond gaming, and improve parent-child mutual conversations and intimacy. Good parent-child relationships can keep children from gaming addiction effectively, it will also increase the motivation for children to work with parents.
Strategy 3. Understand the Psychological Needs Behind Gaming
Is it necessary for children to rely on gaming and the players' words to gain praise and recognition? Do they rely on gaming to get rid of troubled thoughts and stress? Understanding the real causes why children spend long hours gaming, to provide guidance accordingly, can help parents guide children towards healthier ways to fulfil their psychological needs.
Strategy 4. Establish a sense of purpose in Life
The joy of gaming is temporary, spending more time reading about other people's meaningful stories, can broaden children's visions, help children understand that they can get lasting happiness and a sense of achievement through meaningful activities.
Strategy 5. Set gaming limits together
Establish rules about when and how much gaming is allowed, put them into effect continuously. The agreements should be clear about when gaming is allowed, the consequences for breaking the agreements, and the date for reviewing the effectiveness of the agreements.
Strategy 6. Adjust Parenting Styles
Parents should strike a balance between being authoritative and understanding, to care about their children’s psychological needs, while setting reasonable rules for their behaviours, in order to increase children's motivations for controlling their own gaming behaviours.
Strategy 7. Lead by Example
Parents should demonstrate responsible internet and smartphone use to set a good example for their children, children will then be more likely to obey, to learn from parents’ restrained behaviour.
Student Health Service, Department of Health
December 2023