“Here’s your water bottle, James!”

The eight-year-old snatched the bottle hard out of his mother’s hand and said, “give me that!” A chorus of nervous laughter followed from the parents nearby, including the boy’s mother. James sauntered off, without acknowledging his mother’s offering, or the presence of the other parents in the group.

We were attending a youth basketball game, and the hallway outside the gym was filled with parents and revved up kids. This kind of interaction between children and their parents is not unusual today. We all see examples of kids acting more aggressively around their parents. And unfortunately, we all see examples of their parents doing little to change it.

Greetings! According to a recent study of 1,178 children in the US, almost 9 percent of child gamers are pathologically or clinically "addicted" to playing video games.

However, 23 percent of youth say that they have felt "addicted to video games," with about one-third of males and a little more than one in 10 females reporting the sensation, according to the survey by Harris Interactive.

Forty-four percent of the youth 8 to 18 also reported their friends are addicted to video games, the survey said. The average child 8 to 12 plays 13 hours of video games per week, while teens age 13 to 18 year play 14 hours of video games per week, according to the survey.

Your children need to play. They need to play for many reasons. Many fathers today remember spending countless hours playing with siblings or friends during their childhood. Parents would drop you off somewhere and your imaginations would take over as you became soldiers, famous ballplayers, dinosaur hunters, etc.

There are many factors that make it more difficult for children to play in today’s world. There is an emphasis on early academics. There is more TV watching today by children than ever before. There is the seductive attraction of video games. There is also the need for constant supervision of our kids in urban environments.

These factors and others have helped to create children who sometimes have forgotten how to have imaginative play. They’ll have a house full of toys but say “I’m bored” or that they have nothing to do. They may look to their parents to entertain them, rather than creating their own play.

Having to make informed decisions about video game playing is a reality for practically all parents these days. I just reviewed two reports by the PEW Institute ... and was amazed at the statistics reported by them. Here's a selection:

* 99% of teenage boys and 97% of teenage girls play video games (either consoles, computer or mobile based)
* average # of hours spent playing video games: 8h [source]
* 63% of teens who play games report seeing or hearing “people being mean and overly aggressive while playing,” and 49% report seeing or hearing “people being hateful, racist, or sexist” while playing
* 32% of gaming teens report play at least one game rated Mature (M) or Adults Only (AO)
* 12- to 14-year-olds are equally as likely to play M- or AO-rated games as 15- to 17-year-olds

And what about the parents ... :

We are the kind of parents who try to address a so-called ‘healthy balance’ with our kids, between reality and unreality. We don’t encourage them to develop obsessions with computer games, nor do we obsessively attempt to isolate them from the temptations of the gaming console. The thing that gets me though, is the colossal waste of time and effort that goes into learning computer games. In fact, I would suggest it isn’t learning at all, simply because it is relevant only to a specific and imaginary world.

Kids and video games – a match made in heaven? As dads we’re often faced with having to decide whether to:

1) Get our kids a video console in the first place (and if yes – which one!)
2) How long they get to play on it
3) Which games are appropriate

There is an ongoing debate about the first two – see our article and comments about video games and stats. To answer the 3rd question most parents check the rating of a game (if the game has one). But apart from the actual game related content we are now dealing with another component – advertisement.

I want to share a letter with you that Focus on the Family recently received …

Hi my name is Emily,

The other night I awoke at 2 in the morning after hearing a noise downstairs. Nervously, I slipped quietly toward the mysterious sound. Anxiety turned into anger as I approached the faint but distinct music of my sons’ favourite video game—the same game that I’d told him to stop playing hours earlier in order to go to bed.

At that moment, I couldn’t decide whether to scream or cry. Anyway, I unplugged the video-game system, walked onto my second-story deck and threw hundreds of dollars worth of equipment over the railing. With a great sense of relief, I listened for the sweet sound of crashing electronics below.