GuardianGamer : Level up Your Parenting in A Gaming World!

The GuardianGamer Podcast

Episode 5: How Gaming Shapes Modern Parenting: An interview with Lorrie, parent of a 7th Grader.

Producer: Sarah Lai Stirland

Engineer: Gabe Grabin

On the GuardianGamer platform we prioritize the parent first, because of their lack of solutions to increase their engagement and need for more visibility. Recent research by FOSI shows that parents in the US monitor their kids' online activities for 11 hours per week already.  When our Founder Heidi herself was looking for a solution in the market when her son was starting to game more, her family couldn't find solutions beyond surveillance. She wanted to guide and help her son sometimes but the systems they already had in place to limit online time, could not provide me with any insight into what was going on in the games. Her family then started to invest time experiencing the parent journey from being reluctant to becoming a game positive parent. We talked a lot about the gaming. Since she is an engineer, and built platforms and technology for a variety of complex problems in my other companies, she was and still am determined to design and build the right tools to help other families.

INTRO: You’re listening to the GuardianGamer podcast. GuardianGamer is a new service that offers kids the age of seven and up mentorship and a safe space to play video games.

I’m Sarah Lai Stirland. I’m a co-host of this podcast. We’ve talked a lot about what happens within online video games in past episodes. But what about how games affect kids and families in the quote-unquote offline world?

That’s what we explore in this episode. I’m talking with Lorrie this week. She’s the mother of a 7th grade boy who loves playing Fortnite and Minecraft.

Video games were affecting Lorrie’s son starting around Fifth Grade — even when he wasn’t playing them.

As you’ll hear, her son wasn’t allowed to play Fortnite back then. But after he complained that he felt left out at school because everyone else was playing, Lorrie relented.

Then the pandemic hit. As for many of us, games became the safe place for her son to carry on his social life.

As parents, we all worry about the impact of video games on our kids’ health. That’s why we thought it would be great to kick off a conversation about the subject with Lorrie, a parent of a son who has an avid interest in video games.

Lorrie talks about how she manages manages that interest. She also talks about how gaming has affected his perception of the world.

We thought it would be interesting for parents to compare notes.

SARAH: So Laurie Tell, tell our listeners a bit about yourself.

Schrier talked to GuardianGamer about why she thinks games like Fortnite and Red Dead Redemption can be useful teaching tools.

Dr. Karen Schrier is an associate professor and founding director of the Games & Emerging Media program at Marist College. She is also the director of the Play Innovation Lab. For the 2018-2019 year, she worked on a project related to games, empathy, and bias reduction as a Belfer Fellow with the ADL’s Center for Technology & Society.

Before becoming a professor at Marist, she spent over a decade producing websites, apps, and games at places such as Scholastic, Nickelodeon, and BrainPOP.

Schrier has written over 40 publications, is the editor of the book series Learning, Education & Games, published by ETC Press (Carnegie Mellon), co-author of a UNESCO whitepaper on empathy and games, and co-editor of two books on games and ethics.

She has co-created digital properties such as Awesome Upstander, an anti-bullying mobile game, and the Daytime Emmy-nominated Mission US: For Crown or Colony? She holds a doctorate from Columbia University, master’s degree from MIT, and a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College.

Her new book, "We the Gamers," shows teachers and parents -- or anyone else-- how they can use video games to teach ethics and civics. The book provides lesson outlines, tips, case studies, and design toolkits.

Production notes: This episode was produced by Sarah Lai Stirland and engineered by Gabe Grabin.

Listeners meet GuardianGamers Alex Cridlig, Coen Poelmann, Ian Cory. They learn about the different kinds of Guardians they can hire.

Production notes: This episode was written and produced by Sarah Lai Stirland and engineered by Gabe Grabin. Music: The Fortnite Song (Lucas Fader Dubstep Remix.) Lucas Fader: https://soundcloud.com/lucas-fader, https://www.youtube.com/user/LucasFaderOfficial, Distância, The View, by Pyrosion, https://soundcloud.com/pyrosion, Constantinople, by Vendredi, https://soundcloud.com/yt-audio-library/constantinople-vendredi-audio-library-release-free-copyright-safe-music, Sneaking, by jiglr, https://soundcloud.com/jiglrmusic/sneaking and Cloudy, by KODOMOi, https://soundcloud.com/kodomoimusic/kodomoi-cloudy

This episode is for those who want to find out more about becoming GuardianGamers. It's also for parents who want to find out a bit more about what Guardians can do.

What does it take to be a Guardian, and what's behind the Guardians' 7 pledges? What is the spirit that drives our Guardians?

Production notes: This episode was produced by Sarah Lai Stirland and engineered by Gabe Grabin.

Music: Architecture, Isle of Rain, Release, The Line of Beauty, Ultra, Why, by Savfk; Guardians [Classical], by Evan King; 8bit Dungeon Level ♫, by Kevin MacLeod, ♫ NO COPYRIGHT 8-bit Music; Chopsticks, by Jorge Hernandez, ♫ NO COPYRIGHT 8-bit Music; The Grand Affair, by Coupe ♫ NO COPYRIGHT 8-bit Music. /

Welcome to GuardianGamer’s podcast. This is a show that explains what parents and their children need to know to game safely online. We will explain who and what GuardianGamers are and what they do.

Production notes: This episode was written and produced by Sarah Lai Stirland and engineered by Gabe Grabin.

Your child is online , and learn about who they are connected with? 

“Gaming has given players a platform to experience joy, hardship, teamwork, and frustration. They also learn to strategize and develop critical thinking skills.”