2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Now more and more often I hear from many parents and teachers that their children, starting from the age of 10, or even earlier, get carried away with computer games, so much so that it develops into an addiction.
The child does not crawl out of gadgets, does not eat, does not sleep, does not communicate with friends, parents, does not go out, does nothing except play. And at this moment, many parents understand that at some point they missed the child, panic begins …
The child does not react to all the arguments to spend time differently. Time to limit games does not help, but only dodges aggression in response.
Let's figure out what's going on and how to distinguish addiction from hobby?
Children between the ages of 10-14 can often and strongly get involved in something. And since almost all schoolchildren have a computer, the first and most accessible hobby is a computer game. There, by the way, you can communicate with other players. And if the child can calmly play, then do other things, communicate with friends and calmly reacts to the time limit of the game, then everything is fine!
This means that playing for him is one of his hobbies, which, with a competent approach, can be changed to another hobby.
If you are a parent of such a child, then try looking for other sections, circles, communities of interest. Now there are whole groups of children who enjoy playing board games, which is just as interesting and useful! There are theater studios, children's theme camps and many other hobbies.
In this adolescence, the environment of children, with whom they communicate, is insanely important, and if his circle of friends has no hobbies other than computer games, then your child will play games, simply because to be accepted into this society. And simply because now it is fashionable and everyone does it, and adults too.
We talked about one category of children. There is not everything as scary as it seems) And there are other children prone to addiction. And if an adult can become addicted to alcohol and other chemicals, slot machines, food, then the child most often finds solace in games.
He just goes away from contact with reality, with the help of virtual worlds. What in this reality is so intolerable for a child? What does he want to hide from in the world of World of Tanks, World of Warcraft and others?
And think about this, that the world created by dependent parents, there are dependent children. Maybe it's easier to look at your life, maybe you also have an addiction? From TV shows, work, food, alcohol and more. And it's worth starting with yourself.
Dependency criteria:
- the child only wants to play and nothing else, any persuasion to change to other activities and hobbies are accompanied by aggression towards you.
- the child devotes most of his free time to games, forgetting about important chores, lessons at school and other responsibilities.
- it destroys the personality of the child, he does not eat, does not sleep. loses weight or, on the contrary, gains weight, becomes nervous and emaciated, vision deteriorates.
- it interferes with other family members and his environment, he violates boundaries and does not notice others around him.
If there is even one criterion, then there is a tendency towards dependence.
What to do in this case?
* First, pay attention to your addictions, do you have them? If there is, then perhaps the child will.
* Second, it is to talk to the child, tell scary examples, give pictures of what happens to addicts and how it ends. * Third, expand the arsenal of useful hobbies for the child, try different things.
* Fourth, limit the time of games.
* If all this did not help, then it is better to take the teenager to a child psychotherapy group or to a psychologist.
And do not think that you need to work only with the child, because he has problems, you need to remember that the whole family system will have to work and change the environment around and change something in yourself, the attitude towards something. Only in this way is the path to recovery possible!
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