8 Tips for Raising Children Who Play Online Games

These days, many children and adolescents are engaged in online and offline games. Gaming is considered one of the common pastimes for children and teenagers. Even adults, when they have free time, use games for entertainment and to pass the time. Childhood and adolescence are recognized as sensitive and critical age groups for growth and development. During this period, individuals gain various experiences, and significant mental development occurs. However, online games may limit the opportunity to experience the real-world environment, and for some children, this opportunity is reduced to a minimum. Therefore, it is natural for you, as a concerned parent, to seek ways to raise children who are passionate about online games.

Below, we discuss details regarding online games, how to raise children, and how to deal with teenagers interested in online gaming.

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What is the Concept of Online Gaming?

We refer to games that are played collectively or individually on an internet-based, designed platform as online games. Online games are typically accessible via gaming consoles and computers. In some simpler types, smartphones can also be used for online gaming. Many people love online games because they allow competition with other users and are played on a designed platform. Sharing experiences, teamwork, and similar activities are all parts of online gaming that attract teenagers, young adults, and even children.

Learn More: Guide to Parental Care for Children on the Internet Based on Age and Ensuring Their Safety

How Serious is the Impact of Online Games on Mental Health?

In this article, unlike many others, we aim to help you understand that online gaming is not always bad! Sometimes, it is a healthy and beneficial pastime for your child, provided they adhere to limits and boundaries to protect their privacy and themselves. This way, everything remains in perfect order. If online games are used without rules and considerations, they will undoubtedly disrupt daily tasks and activities. Over time, you will notice the individual drifting away from real-life environments. Reduced social and friendly interactions are also part of the issue. These undesirable effects have led many to view the impact of online games on the mental health of children and teenagers negatively! However, these issues stem from a lack of proper education on using these facilities. Your informed approach can create a safe environment for entertainment and the use of online games without causing any dangers or problems. Having control through applications like Imino creates conditions for healthy parenting of children. However, for teenagers, this matter has specific dimensions that make consulting with psychologists essential.

The Impact of Online Games

As you know, various experiences in today’s world show that online games can be a double-edged sword, revealing their adverse effects with the slightest lack of awareness. The impact of online games on children’s mental health is entirely serious. Negative social experiences during gaming can cause psychological harm to children and teenagers. For example, if your child has upsetting interactions with other players on an online platform or receives negative messages about their identity, gaming can negatively affect their mental health and influence their social dimensions. After all, a real person is behind the account or avatar of an online game user. This can change the safe and suitable home environment for the child. In such situations, no matter how much time you dedicate to meeting their needs, it is not enough because the psychological harm comes from an area you hadn’t even considered! Therefore, you must be vigilant and guide the use of these spaces during childhood with safe supervision.

The Positive Impact of Online Games from the Audience’s Perspective

As mentioned earlier, online games do not only have disadvantages! The benefits of online games are also numerous. A real survey and user feedback revealed that online games can be highly effective and beneficial in some cases. One gamer stated, “For me, gaming has become a specific place where I can escape from my academic degree, life, and mental health conditions during tough times. Gaming has provided me with the opportunity to carry out the necessary steps to treat depression and anxiety and observe its positive effects.” Another gamer said, “If gaming allows you to stay away from stress and anger and implement all these mechanisms in a safe environment like a game, it’s definitely worth considering keeping gaming as a daily pastime.”

These cases highlight the positive effects of playing on online platforms, provided moderation and principles are observed.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Games on the Health of Children and Teenagers

Awareness is always the best solution for raising children. Therefore, you must take verbal interaction seriously to increase their awareness. To start this crucial interaction, always begin with the word “I.” For example, you can say, “I’ve noticed that you’re playing a lot more than usual lately, and I thought we could talk about it?” Starting a conversation during a shared activity can evoke a greater sense of empathy. This way, your child can be assured that you take their identity seriously!

After this stage, you should discuss the serious risks that exist for your child. Explain the culture of using these facilities and build suggested frameworks together through consultation. These actions will allow you to confidently lay the groundwork for proper parenting.

The Impact of Online Games on Children’s Health in Childhood

• Improved Education and Growth: Online games offered for children’s age groups these days can significantly help with cognitive abilities. Through these online games, you can teach children various skills and scientific topics in an entertaining format and provide knowledge.
• Positive and Negative Social Impacts: If online gaming is done with parental supervision and proper groundwork, it expands the child’s social interactions and strengthens teamwork. However, the negative effects of online games without sufficient education and parental supervision lead to reduced interaction with the environment and friends. Lack of interaction, isolation, and lack of socialization are consequences of this issue. Even games teaching begging have been developed and are available on domestic platforms, easily corrupting the pure minds and upbringing of children.
• Psychological Impacts: Playing online games, especially in cult-like, scary, or highly action-packed genres without time restrictions, will increase stress and depression in children. Therefore, parental supervision and the use of parental control applications are recommended in this regard.
• Physical Health Impacts: Online games may reduce children’s physical activity. This way, the child is constantly engaged in entertainment that requires no movement and operates only with simple buttons! This leads to obesity, various diseases, and disorders in children.
• Reduced Sleep Quality: Excessive use of online games or scary and terrifying games can reduce a child’s sleep duration, paving the way for learning disorders, lack of focus, and aggression.
• Severe Addiction: Some online games, especially in battle royale or narrative genres, can create severe addiction in children! This leads to psychological harm and numerous conflicts with parents.
• Fear and Terror: Some games induce high levels of fear and tension in children, resulting in adverse effects on their psyche. Nightmares and similar issues are consequences of violent and scary games. Remember that the seeds of violence and killing in some of these games are planted in children’s minds, and continuing this trend normalizes killing and harming others.
• Inappropriate Content: Sometimes, inappropriate content exists in the graphics, various game stages, and hidden areas of games. Therefore, you should download and use games from verified sources. Another way to select more suitable games is to pay attention to age ratings and game reviews.
• Tendency Toward Extremist Cults and Religions: Hidden investments behind some games stimulate children’s inclinations and mindsets to be drawn to extremist cults and religions. Therefore, you should study game reviews or investigate the companies producing them.
• Reduced Activity: Online games can lead to reduced activity in children. This can have a negative impact on their physical health.

The Impact of Online Games on Teenagers’ Health

Online games have various impacts on the mental and physical health of your teenagers. The positive effects of these games include developing social skills and improving brain performance in problem-solving! However, the style of using this space also matters. If gaming is not regulated and within a set of specific behaviors, it will undoubtedly lead to undesirable effects. The emergence of violent behaviors, lack of social balance, and psychological issues are all consequences of not managing teenagers properly in using games correctly.

8 Tips for Raising Children Who Play Online and Offline Games

Awareness of important parenting tips regarding the use of online and offline games helps you become a knowledgeable parent and make smart decisions. This is the most critical part of ensuring that, by considering all aspects, you can guide your child’s upbringing in a desirable way. In this section, you will find 6 key tips for raising children.

1. Experience the Games

One exciting way to improve closeness with your child and gain a deep understanding of how games work is to join them. Ask them what they enjoy about the game and what they gain from it. Try to evaluate the type of game. Assess its challenges or achievements. Try to suggest better games without outright opposition or show enthusiasm for continuing if you approve of the game.

2. Set Boundaries for Children’s Online Games

As mentioned throughout, games can have many positive and negative aspects. Through gaming, you can experience numerous achievements. So, understand that it’s entirely natural for children to want to spend time gaming. However, your responsibility lies in controlling this time so that your child attends to all their duties and tasks. Therefore, you must instill boundaries for gaming from childhood. This way, the child’s behavior in adolescence will also be regulated, and they will respect the limits of using such games and entertainment. Sometimes, setting boundaries for phone and game usage can turn your relationship into a battlefield. But this is when you need to be vigilant and, with the advice of child and adolescent psychologists, follow an appropriate approach.

3. Set Limits That Ensure Sleep

One of the vital parameters for children and adults is the amount of daily sleep. You can easily set rules for using online and offline games by establishing limits for your child or teenager. Parental rules must be smart! In fact, you need to know which rules can define your child’s usage boundaries. Limiting mobile and tablet use in bed is one of the best mechanisms to protect quality sleep. Setting rules should be equally smart and vigilant!

4. Discuss the Costs Spent on Games

In many cases, online games are influenced by certain costs. Purchasing gift cards to progress in a game is one of the main actions taken by children and teenagers. There have even been cases in parental experiences where a child resorted to undesirable actions to cover these costs! Therefore, you must educate them consciously and emphasize the importance of informing parents about such decisions.

5. Present Gaming as a Reward for Performance

Children should be encouraged through parental actions to perform well in all areas. When parents smartly issue permission for gaming and tie it to completing daily tasks, school assignments, positive actions, and good interaction with parents, gaming becomes a reward, and its usage time is defined. This way, you can reinforce children’s positive actions throughout the day and provide the dopamine needed for their excitement and joy through gaming. However, this method is only suitable for children and requires consultation with a psychologist for teenagers.

6. Seek Games That Enhance Skills and Knowledge

As mentioned earlier, games can significantly help enhance skills and provide entertaining yet educational information. Therefore, as a parent, you can be meticulous from the earliest childhood games and make principled, smart choices. This way, you can confidently observe the best and highest-quality impact from online and offline games. Some games designed for children even teach how to behave in online spaces, and over time, children can act smartly in the virtual world, staying safe from various dangers while increasing their awareness.

7. Take Age Ratings for Games Seriously

One issue often overlooked by parents is considering the age ratings of games. The level of violence, graphics, and details in games are produced and offered for different age groups. You should select games appropriate for your child’s age based on these details. Although in some cases, these age ratings are not precisely specified, you should personally review the game and evaluate it through reliable sources.

8. Make Children Aware of Identity Theft

Identity theft is one of the consequences of children’s presence in the virtual world. Unfortunately, children’s lack of awareness facilitates this abuse. Therefore, you can prevent it by educating your child and explaining the consequences of this event. By raising awareness and educating children, parents can reduce the risk of such issues and make children cautious about sharing important identity information about themselves and family members.

Recognize Warning Signs

Some signs can alert you that something is wrong! By noticing these signs, you can easily plan, review, and seek help from a child and adolescent specialist. Warning signs always give you enough time to take action. Therefore, you must take their identification and review seriously. Some of these signs include the following:

• Observing constant fatigue throughout the day.
• Difficulty focusing on school or university tasks!
• Lack of priority for essential daily tasks like hygiene, sleep, rest, bathing, and eating!
• Not talking or socializing with family or peers can be a warning sign of addiction to online and offline games.
• Constantly carrying a phone and focusing on it is also a warning sign.
• Exhibiting violent or aggressive behaviors.
• Lack of interaction and communication to solve daily life problems.
• Lack of desire to be in spaces outside the home and a tendency toward silence and using a gaming console or mobile phone.

Permissible Parental Actions in Warning Situations

If any of these warning signs are present in your child, you definitely need to take a set of actions. These actions will help you act smartly in every area and guide your child’s upbringing and growth without mistakes.

1. Consult with Psychologists

If you’ve noticed some of these signs in your child, it’s definitely time to seek help from child and adolescent psychologists. This action helps you raise the issues that have arisen and take steps toward improvement with deep scientific insight. Usually, ending a gaming session is difficult and upsetting. This action triggers reactions like aggression, frustration, anxiety, and similar issues. However, by explaining the situation and receiving guidance from specialists, you can effectively manage such events.

2. Take Emotional Support Seriously

Sometimes, constant gaming indicates various problems and suppressed needs in your child or teenager. Therefore, you must take support seriously and investigate your child’s needs. If your child needs to talk, make sure to dedicate time to them and try to focus on hobbies other than gaming. This approach can divert your child’s focus from games and allow you to propose other practical solutions.

3. Review Academic Performance

In some cases, parents’ concerns about their children’s gaming are excessive, and everything seems magnified in their minds. Therefore, for more serious and precise follow-up, you need to review your child’s academic performance and inquire about their situation in the classroom. This information helps you understand exactly what is happening. Is your child lacking focus due to constant gaming? Has a severe addiction formed? Understanding the answers to these questions will clarify everything for you.

4. Review the Rules

If you are a rule-oriented parent who has set a specific framework for your child’s gaming from childhood, you definitely need to review the situation again and identify any potential flaws. You need to know exactly where the mistake lies if your child isn’t following the rules! Try to review the rules and assess how they are being implemented. This way, you have a high chance of taking actions for a safe family environment.

5. Foster Culture and Value Setting

Your children should recognize and internalize high values in the safe family environment. Cultural development is also a crucial part of this process. Imagine a child, from the earliest days of understanding the world around them, observing a family that spends a lot of time on their phones! The result of growing up in such an environment without cultural development and adherence to rules is raising children and teenagers who are constantly using their phones. This way, they feel no need for socialization and experience few friends around them. These issues create undesirable consequences that severely impact the child or teenager’s life negatively. However, imagine raising a child in a family where everyone gathers together during meals, dedicates specific times for phone use, and limits phone usage during gatherings by keeping devices in bags or pockets; the outcome will be entirely different. Such an individual accepts gaming and entertainment within a framework of rules and embraces a healthy lifestyle with all its details, activities, and priorities. Therefore, fostering values and cultural development for using various technological devices is very important.

Conclusion

Considering all the points mentioned in this article, you must dedicate time to prepare your children’s minds for a mysterious and sometimes vulnerable world to raise children who experience online and offline games. Awareness of how to deal with children and teenagers, along with proper education, is essential.

1. Always show genuine interest, both inwardly and outwardly, in your children’s games to understand what features or parts of the game they enjoy and what they are engaged with.

2. Ask them who they play with and what they talk about during the game. Even inquire about the topics and tone of their conversations. Ensure your child is aware of and informs you about offensive or socially inappropriate behavior and speech.

3. Your children know how to exit airplane mode on their phones, so to disconnect the internet, you need to use parental protection apps to ensure your child plays offline, does not make in-app purchases, and does not interact with strangers during games.

4. Learn about the age ratings of different games. CommonsenseMedia, IMDB, Organizations like Chibino, ESRA and Kodomo have partially done these ratings. Talk to your children to make them understand why some games are not suitable for their age.

5. Mobile games can be highly addictive, so determine how many hours they are allowed to play and with whom they are permitted to play online. Remind them that people may hide behind fake profiles and may not be who they claim to be.

6. Make sure to talk to your children about not letting friends they play online games with enter their social media circles, neighborhoods, or other parts of their lives. Cultural differences are not discernible through online games. Even sharing personal information like place of residence, income, family life, or parents’ jobs during online games is highly risky.

Imino offers a “time lock” feature for parents to set gaming hours on mobile devices and, through the “app internet management” feature, parents can enable or disable internet access for apps.

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