Has Anyone Notice Agressive Behavior in Kids With PS2?
We have notice a pattern with our 12 year old. When he plays the PS2 his personality changes for the worse. When we take him off, he levels out. Our neighbors took their kid off all together. Last night our kid’s eyes were dylated after playing WWF on PS2. Has anyone else experienced this behavior or made this connection?
Stop. It is very important for you as a parent to understand video games more. Your child will instantly dismiss your opinions, advice, caring, and anything else you have to say on that topic as unjustified nagging. You child has most likely become dependent on video games in general. This instantly gratifying form of entertainment is always accessible and attentive. If he plays a lot he is most likely replacing certain aspects of his life that are essential to him both physically, mentally, and socially. Psychologically playing video games for a long period of time makes you grumpy. Moody in unexplainable ways just like angsty teens. For whatever reason they do. I would strongly compare it to watching TV for 14 hours. You just feel terrible afterwards. Some times children do not recognize this or connect playing for too long to their current mood. So when they do come out of it, you may be telling them to get off and as such they will start to connect that bad mood to your nagging and then blame you. Insensible but a child’s logic is what it is. Playing video games exercises only certain areas of your brain. The other areas usually ‘turn off’. Unfortunately some of those areas happen to be directly involved with important somatic and autonomic functions of the body as well as emotions (thus making the child more emotionally volatile). You are the most collected when your brain has had time to reorganize itself after sleeping, but imagine your brain is a ‘daze’ like state waiting to be used and then suddenly firing up. Lack of exercise will also negatively affect your child’s mood. When the body stays dormant for long periods of time certain chemicals such as adrenaline and testosterone are produced more infrequently. We all know the affect a change in testosterone can have on a child, especially one entering puberty. It should be noted that video games are also calming and very good for ‘decompressing’ stress. Thus video games should be used in moderation if your child enjoys them. It’s like TV, too much is not good, but a little won’t make a difference. The best way to get your child off video games or at least less dependent on them is to become more involved in their life and to find other things they are interested in. A musical instrument, soccer, animation programs on the computer, acting, art, film making. Go the distraction route rather than the prohibition route. Be involved and help them find things they may like. Don’t just tell them to stop playing a video game and go play outside. As a 12 year old film making and acting never existed in my life. Going outside meant riding my bike which wasn’t something I wanted to do all the time. Be the one to be involved, I can’t stress this enough. You will never be as effective as the child freely choosing to do something else. EDIT: I’m back. After looking at the various responses and seeing how the thumbs ups and thumbs down are going it’s very obvious there are two camps here. The parents of children who play video games and the people who play video games. The parents are clearly thumbs downing the posts that are saying violent video games do not cause violence and also thumbs upping the posts that are in support of their argument. Alternatively, the video gamers are thumbs downing the parents and thumbs upping posts they can relate to. As someone who grew up playing a lot of violent video games I have to ask all those parents if they themselves have ever sat down for 4 hours to play GTA or Halo? Sincerely given them a chance and tried to have some fun? I would say almost all of them have not. How can you judge a video game when you’ve never tried it yourself. Give it a try. I’m willing to bet that after playing you’re not going to feel like killing your family and neighbours. You may feel worked up, frustrated perhaps, definitely your eyes will hurt and body will be stiff, but violent nature? Probably not. Kids are irresponsible, but it doesn’t mean emotionally they are growing up faster than you think. We are being exposed more and more to an adult world at a faster age. It may not be good but we’re an entire generation that has survived it. They have ratings because the content may be mature, but that doesn’t mean 13+ will cause violent behaviour in kids under 13. Often it means the game is far too complex. Look at violent movies, adults, teenagers, and people all over the world watch them. Every time I see a James Bond film I don’t walk out of the theatre with this urge to gun a bunch of people down. Believe me I have been there. I stopped seeing my friends, always argued with my parents when I was living at home, neglected my life due to video games and overall it made me depressed, moody, and volatile but it was not the content of the video games. One of my favourite games was Mario Kart, but what was affecting me was the amount of time I spent doing it while doing nothing else. You risk alienating your child if you start taking away his entertainment for what he will undoubtedly see as unjustified. You’ll tell him what he’s feeling, and he will be feeling something else inside (and not what you’re telling him). I can’t tell you how to raise your kid, but I can tell you to loose the violence argument. There’s with out a question too much time on video games is bad, that is your argument but at least if you come down to a level where you can relate to your child and they can relate to you, you’ll be on the right track.
