December 09, 2013

Parent Well in our Digital World – Prevent Video Game Addiction

56 minutes

Part One: Guest Interview

Gloria, founder of The Parent Coaching Institute, and author of Parenting Well in a Media Age, talks with Andrew Doan, M.D., author of the book, Hooked on Games: The Lure and Cost of Video Game and Internet Addiction. This is not a dry summary of research on video game addiction. It is Dr. Doan’s personal story of his own addiction. His description of the process of being caught in the addiction, and what it took to escape, is told with great insight. For Dr. Doan is a practicing M.D. in ophthalmology, and has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. As he struggled for over three years, with the help of his wife, family, church, and friends to escape the undertow, he also researched what it was that he was trying to escape. The story he tells could not have been told without the combined insights of his personal experience and history, as seen through his medical and scientific training.

Did you know that one in eleven teens is hooked on video games to the point of obsession? That means they will spend most of their waking hours immersed in a game, even when there is no external reward—no one praises them for playing. No one gives them a recognition medal—a common practice now with most kids’ sports participation. No one delivers a pizza to their door each time they successfully get to the next level. Yet, without any of these typical types of external rewards, they keep playing. Often oblivious to their surroundings, they may regularly skip meals, living off snacks and energy drinks to ward off sleep in order to keep playing. What is it about a video game that compels this kind of investment of time and energy? Is it just for the “fun?”

Gloria, co-author of the popular book, Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie, and Video Game Violence, is as passionate about this issue as Dr. Doan is. Consequently, this discussion is quite lively as they both get fired up to help parents understand not only how to pro-actively address the video game habit with their children, but also what moms and dads can do to prevent it from becoming an obsession in their children’s lives.

Part Two: The Parent Coaching Corner

Gloria’s provides the final coaching session for Lindsey who has gone through a series of PCI coaching with Gloria to support healthy media habits for her young daughters. In this session, Gloria highlights the key strategies that have worked for Lindsey and Lindsey discusses her successes, along with some delightful, unexpected surprises. Even though both are sad to come to an end of the coaching series, Lindsey is excited and energized by the all the positive changes she has seen over the last three months. Tune in to hear what she plans to do to keep the positive changes going!

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