For many parents, it’s hard to find the balance between what your kids want to spend their time doing and what you’d choose for your kids to spend their time doing. While you might have dreamed of having children who could spend all day reading educational books to themselves or being creative and crafty without destroying your house, these types of things aren’t the reality for most families. Rather, it’s much more likely that your children will want to spend hours sitting in front of the TV or playing video games. But luckily, there are things you can do to give your children a bit of what they want while simultaneously getting what you want. To show you how, here are three ways you can make gaming healthier for your kids.
Think About Their Bodies
When it comes to playing videos games, this activity can actually be much harder on your child’s body than simply watching TV or a movie. According to Troy Bedinghaus, a contributor to VeryWellHealth.com, playing videos games can cause a lot of eye strain in your child. This can manifest itself in things like problems focusing their eyes and irritation from not blinking enough. Furthermore, screen displays can emit blue light. This can affect people’s eyes too, and it can cause sleep distruptions. To avoid these health issues, parents could always suggest that children wear blue light glasses to reduce the risks of blue light. Additionally, holding a controller in certain positions can put stress on the hands, wrists, and elbow joints. Knowing this, you should try to help your child rest their eyes from the screens every so often and provide them with a chair or seat that will help them sit comfortably and reduce pressure points.
Keep The Games In Moderation
Just like with everything, playing video games excessively isn’t something you want your child involved in. However, playing moderately hasn’t necessarily been found to cause issues in children. According to a study reported on by CBSNews.com, teens and children who played a moderate amount of video games were seen to be more well adjusted than those who didn’t play any video games or those who played more than three hours per day. With this study in mind, try to help your child indulge in video games only moderately if possible.
Supply Games That Will Result In Learning
Depending on the financial resources of your child, you might be the sole person supplying him or her with access to video games. If this is the case, you might want to try giving video games that will result in some type of learning after the playing. According to Dr. Peter Gray, a contributor to Psychology Today, video games and television shows can often help a child think in new ways and uncover further depths of learning. So if you can find games that emphasize problem solving or educational objectives, all the better.
If you’re concerned about how much your child is playing video games, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you and them find a more healthy balance.
