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Gaming offers immense benefits for children, including boosting their learning, health, and social skills. But video gaming can also be detrimental for children without the proper parental guidance. As the online video gaming community is growing rapidly, parents need to be concerned about issues like gaming addiction and bullying. If your child loves playing video games, there are some things you can do to help ensure that they healthily enjoy this hobby. Here are some tips you can use.
- Set limits
The WHO has officially recognized addictive gaming as a gaming disorder that exposes your children to various risks. A gaming disorder can negatively affect your child’s social life, mental health, and even fitness. In most cases, the primary cause of gaming addiction is failing to have limits to gaming time.
As a parent, you owe it as a duty of care to your child to set gaming limits to prevent any form of gaming disorder. You can create a timetable to control how many hours your child spends behind a game. You can also set rules to ensure that they take care of all their daily tasks such as home chores and doing their homework.
- Play games together as a family
Sometimes, the best way to introduce healthy gaming habits to your children is by playing together as a family and setting a good behavioral example when playing—doing this will teach your kids how to cooperate with their siblings when playing, what language to avoid, and how to behave regardless of the type of game.
- Be mindful
If your child already knows how to download their video games, you need to be mindful about what type of media content they’re exposing themselves to. Be sure that the content doesn’t negatively affect their mood, behavior, choice of words, sleep pattern, and so on. Also, make sure that they understand online games usually come with hidden messages and ads that can collect personal information. Choosing a good video gaming VPS that offers good security online and 24/7 support will be wise. You might also consider finding a cheap VPS provider that offers all the security benefits without eating into your monthly budget.
- Teach your child to identify online bullying
Online bullying extends to online video games, as many video games today allow players to play with or against each other. That means your child will be interacting with other people they might not know. Beyond the risk of sharing personal information online, such online interactions can also expose a child to online bullying, which can have severe psychological effects on any child who falls victim.
You might not be able to control how other children behave online, but you can teach your child to identify such behaviors and how best to react or avoid them. On the flip side, your child could also be the bully. So it would be best if you taught them how to interact healthily, cordially, and respectfully with other players.
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