This post was last updated on March 8th, 2025 at 10:16 am
Our home doesn’t have a video game console, and there are no plans to buy one even as our kids approach their teen years, the prime age for gaming. That being said, parents who want to limit video games cannot stop at the console itself, the piece of hardware that connects gamers to large game collections. Video games have saturated our culture through many devices other than consoles. Indeed, for many kids, their first gaming experiences happen on a smartphone or tablet. They play games stored in the cloud, which can stream to any device.
One of the challenges for parents today is to recognize the gaming landscape looks nothing like it did when they were kids. Because gaming has become so pervasive, a total ban may not be realistic for many families. However, it’s still possible for parents to greatly limit access to the most addictive and immersive video games. All that’s needed is a little long-term planning.
From my vantage point in observing how children play video games, it’s unlike years ago when playing meant sitting in front of a TV hooked up to a console with a slot for game cartridges. Back then, if you wanted to play with another person, that person had to be in the same room with you. Today, cartridges are no longer a thing (and haven’t been for many years). Players can meet up to play each other from anywhere in the world, thanks to those interwebs.
Because of the offline nature of gaming years ago, gaming was its own separate activity. Your gaming console was either “off” or “on,” and once you finished playing, it was time to do something else. Today, the transition between gaming and performing other digital tasks, whether texting or scrolling on TikTok, is seamless. Kids can game one minute and fire off a text message the next. Then go back to gaming. It can be a never-ending cycle for some people.
Limiting video games is all about access, access, and access
The ease with which children can access video games complicates the job of concerned parents. How you envision your child using a device and how it actually ends up being used can prove very different. When it comes to restricting access to video games, parents must begin with the device itself, whether a smartphone, tablet, or console. These are all potential gaming pathways. As soon as a child receives a device, the Pandora’s box can pop wide open. But if you can limit your child’s access to devices, the job of limiting video game play becomes much easier.
Read: How to raise a smartphone-free child
Admittedly, the most vigilant parents can become frustrated because many kids have opportunities to play video games outside the home, particularly at school. Many schools provide laptops or tablets to all their students, who carry these devices from class to class. Ironically, some kids spend more time on screens at school than they do at home. For this reason, it may be unrealistic to try to completely ban video games and maybe not advisable because many of the video games accessed at school are relatively harmless. Some are legitimately educational. My wife and I allow our kids to occasionally play some of the same video games that they play at school on our home computer. It’s a compromise that we find acceptable because the games’ link to school.
Gaming culture targets boys, pressures parents
Girls and boys alike play video games, but I’ve noticed gaming as a pastime is more common among boys. While girls tend to gravitate to social media, many boys become passionate about first- or third-person shooter games such as Fortnite. I’ve never seen a girl wearing a t-shirt boasting of her gaming prowess, though I’ve seen plenty of boys wear these shirts. For instance, one shirt that I saw a couple weeks ago featured an image of a game controller and declared: “100% gaming. 0% listening.” Our daughter recently spotted one that stated: “I paused my game to be here.” It’s mind-boggling to think that some kids openly embrace gaming’s addictiveness (and their parents are apparently OK with it).
This is the world we live in, and unfortunately many well-meaning parents end up feeling pressured to buy their child the latest and greatest games. The pressure builds when their child’s friends start to become immersed in a particular game and talk about it at school. Parents in this situation may feel like they have no good options: They can deny their child Fortnite, or some other game du jour, and risk their child feeling left out. Or, they can buy the game and risk their child wasting countless hours playing it and potentially losing interest in other activities, which the parents know to be healthier.
Winning the video game battle requires advanced planning
Navigating this difficult parental terrain requires long-term planning. We began talking to our son about video games when he was about 6 years old, long before his peers became involved in gaming. We told him what the future would look like: That some of his friends would soon start to spend large chunks of time playing video games at home. They would also start talking about games, maybe as soon as third grade. We encouraged him to talk to us about what his friends were saying about these games, and that it was natural for him to feel excluded. At the same time, we told him that we would do our best in helping him find fun things for him to do other than playing video games.
Because we’ve been openly communicating about this issue for several years, he’s been quick to accept the tight restrictions we’ve placed on video games. There have been no battles or arguments at our house about this topic. We communicated expectations long before he had the thought of possibly wanting to play video games (other than those that he associates with sometimes playing at school).
To be sure, I’m not saying it’s easy to be one of the only ones at school without a story to tell about their favorite game. That’s why I believe it’s crucial for parents to fill that void for their child by providing plenty of opportunities to pursue other passions. I am happy to pay for the summer camps, sports lessons, Lego sets, and all sorts of board games. Whatever it takes to keep our children engaged in the real/offline world, I want to make it happen. At the same time, I’m OK if the result is a little boredom. Teaching kids how to cope with boredom is a skill worth developing, in my opinion.
Yes, video games may have benefits…. So what?
At this point, some parents might ask: Why go through so much trouble to steer my child away from video games? Are they really that bad? To be honest, I am open to the idea that video games can be beneficial, in some respects. Many of them are like complex puzzles, and they can help develop problem-solving skills. Still, I believe the positive effects of experiencing life and developing skills in the real/offline world far outweigh any benefits that might come from habitually gaming.
Look, if we were talking about Pac Man or Pong, I wouldn’t be so concerned. I played those kinds of games as a child and enjoyed them. But I also had no trouble stepping away from these games because they didn’t create an alternative reality that I found more appealing than the real/offline world.
That’s one of the big differences with games today: They’re creating worlds that are so immersive that many kids seem to prefer them to the actual world that they were born into. Many of them seem to build their sense of self inside these games, and I’m not convinced that’s healthy. Compared to the computers that were powering the games that I played, today’s gaming systems are, perhaps, several orders of magnitude more powerful. A child is ill-prepared to grasp the implications of what he’s doing when he becomes a “gamer” today.
Another big concern is that many of these games are more stimulating than offline activities. It’s no coincidence, in my opinion, that many kids don’t enjoy playing outside or reading books. These activities cannot compete with the level of visual and auditory stimulation offered by video games. By limiting access to video games (and digital media in general), children are left with little choice than to engage in the real/offline world. They must figure out how to use their imaginations and find creative ways to entertain themselves. I’m perfectly content with this outcome for our kids, even if that missing out on some of the so-called benefits of gaming.
Why turn our kids into AI’s guinea pigs?
My last and perhaps greatest concern relates to the addictive qualities of some video games, and the possibility of AI being used to make games even more addictive. We still don’t know exactly how the gaming industry will take full advantage of AI, but you can bet the result will be to make games more immersive than they already are.
The danger, from this parent’s perspective, is that video games will become alternative realities, through which AI is used to fulfill every perceived desire of each gamer. To some degree, that’s already happened without AI, as many video games have become communities for gamers seeking connections with others. In the future, AI alone might provide these connections or broker them in ways that, ultimately, leave the gamer finding the real/offline world completely inadequate by comparison.
Do we want to invite our children to enter a kind of world in which they might see no good reason to leave, a world in which AI may control? With AI’s rapid advancement, we may be closer than many people think to gaming taking on an utopian (really, dystopian) quality whose draw is too powerful for kids (and many adults) to resist.
How to not become that unwitting parent
The sad part is many parents are unwittingly leading their kids into technological traps. Some of these parents’ judgement might be compromised by their own addictions to digital media. In other cases, some parents might have simply neglected to give the issue much thought. They have their own childhood memories of gaming and believe that it’s mostly innocent entertainment. Or, they might think that technology’s rapid advancement is natural and that, therefore, the effects on their children are natural, too. As the proliferation of t-shirts celebrating video games has shown, gaming obsessions have become widely accepted, if not encouraged.
While I agree that not all video games are created equal and that playing certain games can be an innocent use of free time, our job as parents is to do our best to make those distinctions. The addictive and pervasive nature of digital technology today means that parents are wise to exercise caution.
Keep in mind, it’s much easier to control the narrative on gaming if you begin discussions with your child long before they start asking for video games. Early discussions will also serve to demonstrate to your child how important this issue is to you. These discussions should remain positive, in that they’re also used to help your child cultivate other interests.
Because of your advanced planning, you may discover your child never pops the “video game question.” They won’t because they will already know the answer. But more importantly, they won’t ask it because they won’t want video games. Ideally, they will recognize for themselves that they have more to gain by investing in activities in the real/offline world.