video games – Beijing Kids

Caging the Predator: How the Gaming Industry Targets Your Kids

Julie Wolf — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 03:00:31 +0000

Recently, there’s been a lot of attention paid to online gaming in China. For a bit of context, however, according to Limelight Networks, Chinese gamers averaged 12.4 hours a day, well over the global average of 8.5 hours. It is particularly concerning for children and a recent Xinhua article went so far as to blast the industry for pedaling “spiritual opium.” As a result, the government has announced a slew of new laws over the past few months, regulating everything from the amount of time children can play to the ways in which companies can monetize gaming services.

To get a different perspective and find out if the industry is really as predatory as it’s made out to be, I spoke with industry insider Ben “Books” Schwartz, a narrative game designer who previously worked with Microfun Inc. in Beijing.

China claims video games are addictive and designed to be so. Do you think there are industry practices that encourage addictive behavior?
Unfortunately, yes. Many Chinese game companies use wildly unethical and predatory design approaches, many borrowed from casinos and other forms of gambling. They lure in players with false promises of huge rewards (often carefully worded to avoid actually promising anything), they block off exciting content behind paywalls, and they make progress impossible without powerful characters and upgrades that can only be won from what is essentially a slot machine (a gachapon, in industry terms). These problems are also not unique to China and are being handled differently in different parts of the world. In some countries like Japan, these practices are regulated by the government; in other parts of the game industry, these practices are regulated by community morality. In China, they are unfortunately widespread and show no signs of abating. Notably, these practices almost never come from the actual game designers, as they make the games much less fun to play! Instead, they come from the monetization and marketing departments, following directives from company heads and outside investors who are just out to make as much money as they can from their players.

What do you think about the limits placed on gamers under 18?
I think it’s a complicated situation. There is very much a current push in media and government in China demonizing video games as having a negative influence on youth and consuming their time and money. On the other hand, many games in China are in fact predatory and manipulative towards their players, many of whom are young.

Do you think they will have an effect on limiting kids’ screen time?
To an extent, but I also know that kids are smart – they’ve been finding ways around similar restrictions for years, and I’m sure they’ll figure out ways around these too. (For example, many just register accounts in their parents’ names, avoiding the limits on under-18 players.)

Do you think it will have an effect on the gaming industry? How?
Absolutely, yes. Many Chinese game companies are frustrated with the regulations placed on games released in China, and so are pivoting to focus more and more on making games that will appeal to players outside China. It’s much easier in a logistical sense to release games for Western markets, but the hard part is making games that Westerners actually want to play. This is where people like me come in – Western designers brought in by Chinese game studios to help them do just that.

With 720 million gamers active in China the industry isn’t going anywhere and will continue to evolve. Tencent has already begun using facial recognition software on its wildly popular Honor of Kings game as a way of identifying and enforcing laws aimed at minors. Ultimately, however, only time will tell if these rules are effective and capable of curbing gaming addiction and predatory practices.

KEEP READING: I Spend 3 Hours Playing Video Games With My Kid On The Weekends

Images: Unsplash

Play Time’s Over: China Bans Weekday Video Games for Minors

Julie Wolf — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 03:00:03 +0000

Video game time is now 8pm-9pm on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays only! No, that’s not your mom’s rule…it was actually handed down by China’s National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) earlier this week.

In its ongoing battle against youth video game addiction, the new laws require online gaming companies to register all players using their Chinese IDs, and anyone under the age of 18 will have their game time restricted to approved weekend and holiday hours. The new rules, announced Monday, are much more stringent than the previous regulations which limited children to one and a half hours per day, seven days a week, and are intended to “effectively protect the physical and mental health of minors.”

This is part of an effort by authorities to curb what they see as dangerous and addictive behavior in minors. Xinhua reported the NPPA would be carrying out more stringent and frequent reviews of major providers like Tencent, whose game Honor of Kings has come under scrutiny in recent weeks.

There has been much speculation about how this will affect the USD 46 billion dollar Chinese gaming industry, especially as additional restrictions are expected later this year. In the meantime, 110 million underaged Chinese gamers are eagerly waiting, controller in hand, for the weekend.

KEEP READING: What’s Really Lurking In Your Kids’ Snacks?

Images: Unsplash

Pandemics Among Us: How Roleplaying Games Help My Kids Through Covid

Cindy Marie Jenkins — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 03:00:53 +0000

Minecraft made sense last spring, in the midst of exile from our Beijing home, while we stayed in temporary housing with no end in sight. Our family found ourselves stuck in a life we’d left, now living out of suitcases, and it made sense that building a world brought peace. Even the blocky nature of Minecraft helped remove the worlds we built from the turbulence and uncertainty outside. It supplemented our LEGO brick builds beautifully, those times when our phones were face down we could just escape and build a place where we’d like to spend our time.

The video gaming cut down once we could return and have in-person playdates again, but they occasionally serve that very same purpose: to block out the stresses of life and only concern yourself with those friends allowed to play on your server.

Then came the new game Among Us. You are an alien, sharing some kind of ship with 4-10 other aliens, and 1-2 of you are told in private that you are: The Impostor! Everyone else (called Crewmates) gets tasks to perform aboard the ship, but The Impostor’s job is to sneak around the ship and kill all the Crewmates before they can perform their tasks. If a Crewmate suspects or sees The Impostor in the act, they can call an emergency meeting and vote them out to win!

Now, we’re very careful as parents not to glorify killing. When we slowly ventured into Roblox so our kids could stay in touch with their friends around the world, the second rule was “no killing games.” But after a number of their favorite YouTube gamers kept coming back with Among Us videos, and the more we watched it, we decided it was not the kind of violence that was bad or complicated enough to be introduced to their still developing minds. Plus, you need at least four people to play a private game, and we could play as a family.

It turns out that it’s a very fun game! Part of the fun is that you have to be sneaky, but it’s also satisfying to just be a Crewmate and complete your tasks. The kids also created a version of it “in real life” where we have tasks around the house to finish while we try to outrun The Impostor.

I find being a Crewmate to be very zen.

The killing part is so cartoony that it’s less violent than Looney Tunes or some Transformers cartoons. And as we play it more and more, and get into the sub cultures of fan-made music videos that become earworms, I see the appeal for anyone who’s been through the year 2020 and feeling reminiscent as we enter 2021. Just like zombies, Halloween, and scary movies — Among Us lets us run away from death, still try to do mundane tasks while it chases us, and sometimes even be the one in control of if (if we are The Impostor).

Yeah. I get why my kids would dig this game after last year.

I remember when my oldest had separation anxiety for the first time in his life, and a counselor told me that we need to not avoid it. We need to face it head on so he can understand how to embrace and handle his fears. Falling down in a dramatic death scene while waiting for someone to find your dead body might not lie in the “peaceful parenting” category, but it sure is satisfying when you spend your days masked, disinfecting surfaces, and your hands feel immune to sanitizer.

Taking control of death and danger in entertaining ways can be wonderful ways to work through some anxiety and stress around it. Young as they are, they know the action of “killing” someone in Among Us is play acting, and the deaths of our little aliens are nothing close to what we mean when we bring out our book about death, or discuss real life consequences. But it’s nice to pretend you have more control over it than you really do, and “game over” means you can try again next time.

KEEP READING: Roblox: Use Parental Controls to Connect Safely With Friends Around the World

Photos: Cindy Marie Jenkins

Roblox: Use Parental Controls to Connect Safely With Friends Around the World

Cindy Marie Jenkins — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:00:46 +0000

I’m usually pretty chill about my kids playing video games. We keep time limits strict, and they prefer playing group games like Mario Kart or educational games with their favorite characters like PBS Kids or Sesame Street.

But I noticed they have trouble on the phone or video calls with friends and cousins across the world. Their lives are so different and there isn’t a lot of common ground if they haven’t seen each other in a while. And let’s face it, we aren’t going to see them for a much longer while. On a recent call, they spent a lot of time trying not to interrupt each other until my oldest heard his younger friend didn’t know the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” and so proceeded to teach him! That opened up a whole series of fun games to play together.

Based on their chats with their seven-year-old cousin, I heard that Roblox is a good way to “play together.” Even my parents have accounts to play with him. I get nervous about games that involve online chat rooms, but I was assured that you can turn those off.

After a little research and some time with a more experienced six-year-old who helped me set up an account, we presented it as a gift to his friend, my son. I found that thanks to a few strict parental controls and open, honest conversations about what is safe and why, it wasn’t as scary as I thought. For now.

Here are the parental controls I set:

Disable chat or set to “friends only”

Go to privacy tab > account settings > account restrictions for this feature. Online chat rooms are one of my biggest fears when it comes to gaming, so this setting alone put me 50% more at ease.

Set an account pin to make any changes to restrictions.

Make sure it isn’t the same pin as any other device, as kiddos are great at picking up on your codes.

Here are the ground rules we set with our children for their game time:

Follow these rules or it is uninstalled.

It helps that we just went through this process with YouTube. I told them if I didn’t like a channel or a certain video, I would tell them why. We could talk about it, but I have the ability to block it from their laptop. They can either accept this or revert to YouTube Kids, which has much more restrictive access to videos and is quite frankly a pain in the butt for parents.

So we spent most of the first night we had Roblox playing it together and setting the ground rules as we went, making it an open discussion on why something may or may not be safe. That’s when I learned that:

We don’t ever use your real name.

This is a pretty big one for us in general. Since they were born, we’ve used nicknames for our kids 98% of the time and deleted the many comments by our parents when that rule was forgotten. It’s fun to choose a nickname for yourself, too!

Rules for Roblox are good rules for life.

Would you accept an invitation to a party from a stranger? Would you let someone you don’t know inside your house? Would you give a stranger your phone number? No? Not until college? Then don’t do that in the game either. Since I had never played before, we always play a new game together the first time in case more ground rules need to be laid. I’m open about the reasoning behind it and we don’t usually require a big discussion.

If you want to spend Robux, we talk about it first.

I started him off with a few dollars in his Robux account, just because some games require a little something and so we could figure out how to set perimeters for spending. The rule then became: if you want to spend that money, just call me over and we’ll discuss it. Two things usually happen; he’ll talk himself out of it before I do because he’ll see how little he’ll have left if he spends it, or we decide it’s okay. A fun side effect of this is that when relatives across the world want to buy him something, but it will cost so much to ship anything and the last thing they need is more “stuff,” their Auntie Kelly can buy them Robux for Christmas!

If the game involves violence, especially killing people, we need to talk about it and play together first.

I find he’s much more open and responsible if we can discuss certain boundaries. If he knows that it isn’t always an outright “no” to his question, he’s more likely to ask and not try to sneak it. One time we’d set him off on a fun looking game and I focused on my own laptop next to him, when I heard, “So it’s okay if we didn’t know it was a killing game, right?” I assured him he wasn’t in trouble, we assessed the level of violence and its role in the game together, and that was that. Ultimately I decided against it, but he was involved in the process and didn’t fight me on it.

Only play when his Dad, babysitter, or I am with him.

He spends some time after school with his ayi before I’m home, and this is off-limits for online gaming time for now. I still sit next to him when he plays a new game, as will his Dad and babysitter who also plays. Our ayi is wonderful, but it’s not within her comfort zone to moderate a Roblox game, so that is not game time.

Eventually, we’ll learn to build a game of our own together.

One of the reasons why lots of parents like Roblox is that you can build your own game. All the games on its system are player built, and that gets kids into coding and self-learning. Once we’d played through a few games and had gaming time with his cousin in Boston, my kid opened up his Scratch Jr. program much more often than his Roblox games. He wants to learn how to build his own game and that’s super cool in our books.

Other Perks

Ever since we started with these ground rules, making them part of the experience instead of imposing limits once bad habits were already established, conversations about other types of technology have been easier too. We started playing “Among Us” as a family, which is extremely fun, and they didn’t even blink an eye when I said they never press the “Public” button because we only want to play with people we know.

It’s a good introduction to safety online and will hopefully instill some honest gut checks for when they make decisions more on their own in the future. I’m much happier after opening this door to them as long as we make the map together. If I’d tried to just keep it closed, my kids or their friends would have eventually shoved it open without my guidance, and who knows what would have happened then? Now they get to stay in touch with family members and Beijing friends who moved away in a safe and fun way.

KEEP READING: Screen Time Isn’t All Bad: Lessons to be Mined From Mario, Minecraft and More

Photos: Roblox, Scratch r website, Pexels

Advice for Parents in the Digital Age

Cindy Marie Jenkins — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 07:00:39 +0000

Our November issue covered a number of questions about parenting in the digital age, from screentime to safety to consent to why video games aren’t so bad, after all. In case you missed any of our great content, here is a quick roundup of the most popular ones and what you can expect from them.

Om Modeling Behavior

Early Education Expert Julie Wolf‘s advice is to:”Watch your own intake. If every time your child sees you, you are checking your feed or posting pictures, that sends a message. If the main form of communication between you and your friends is text or WeChat, that will be their idea of a relationship. So, if you want them to learn to have deep, meaningful, in-person conversations, model putting the phone away and laughing in person over lunch. Let them see that Instagram FOMO is not a reason to miss out on what’s happening in front of them.”

From Tech Rules: The Ins and Outs of Handing Tech to Small Children

So how can parents help?

On Teenagers Using Social Media

Dad Terry Zhang says: “I do not object to my child registering for and using social media platforms. I often discuss with him some of the latest social media apps and websites currently on the market. However, I do realize that there is content out there on the internet that is not particularly suitable for teenagers, and parents really need to guide their children with regards to safe content online and communicate with them psychologically about posting on social media.”

From #Parenting: Parents From Different Cultural Backgrounds Share Their Views of Tech at Home

On Self Confidence and Social Media

Blogger and Influencer Sally Tian says that teaching kids the lessons they need to be strong digital citizens “can only be done by creating a really healthy environment at home and instilling a sense of self-worth in kids that is separate from their looks, the number of followers they have, and where they have traveled to or what shoes and bags they have.”

From So You Want to Be a KOL: Keep Your Content Creating Kids Safe

On Putting Your Phone Down

Deputy Editor Cindy Marie Jenkins tried to ease herself into it “by not looking at my phone while we did homework. My kids are just getting used to homework so they need guidance for the hour a day we spend on it. I did have to stop myself from reaching for my phone a few times, but for that week, I was much more present and helpful to my children. Even when I had to check the homework app for help on the next assignment, I didn’t want to. And shocker! The only important message I missed was planning dinner with my husband.”

From It Can Be Done: A Phone Addict on Airplane Mode

On Screentime and Learning

“Mr. Devreaux Poole, Primary Learning and Teaching Coordinator at Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing), also believes that games “offer a safe environment [for children]to explore and challenge themselves. They’re able to build self-confidence as they are able to ‘reset’ when making mistakes,” and in addition, “Delayed gratification is taught (acquired) as the ‘main reward/goal/prize,’ usually only achieved after completing several levels.”

From Screen Time Isn’t All Bad: Lessons to be Mined From Mario, Minecraft and More

On Making a Career in Video Games

Guest writer Ben “Books” Schwartz says that in the gaming business: “Everyone needs to communicate and collaborate to solve problems and put the pieces together. If part of a game is boring, the fix could be in the form of a more engaging story (writing), a more intense challenge (design), cooler special effects (art), a smoother play experience (programming), or something else entirely!

From So You Want To Be a Game Developer: What It Takes To Make Gaming a Career

KEEP READING: Weaning Kids Off Screen Time Post-COVID

Photos: Pexels, Unsplash, Public Domain Pictures

So You Want To Be a Game Developer: What It Takes To Make Gaming a Career

Cindy Marie Jenkins — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 03:00:48 +0000

Our latest November issue gives parents a great guide to technology, and games can also introduce kids to lifelong passions and careers. We turned to local game designer Ben “Books” Schwartz for ideas on how to turn gaming and storytelling into a fulfilling job.

A Look Behind The Pixelated Curtain

Shanghai has long been the hub of the Chinese video game ecosystem, but Beijing is now making a play for that crown. The ambitious “E-Sports Beijing 2020” initiative, announced in August, is providing funding for Beijing-based video game teams, arenas, events, and developers. This comes in a time of explosive growth for the gaming world by every metric — more people are playing more games (and spending more money on games!) than ever before.

But those games don’t come from thin air — every one of them is made by actual people. So the growth of the game industry means that more people than ever are making games. That’s a trend that seems likely to continue indefinitely, meaning that an ever-growing percentage of today’s youth will grow up to follow careers in the video game world. And really, who can blame them? As a game designer myself, I can confirm that game development is a very exciting field and an enormous amount of fun. It’s also a whole lot of work, most of which the players never see. So what does it actually take to bring a video game to life?

The Elements of Game Creation

Making a game requires contributions from numerous different disciplines. Game designers are the backbone, thinking through the mechanics of what the player will actually do and figuring out what’s fun. Writers and narrative designers (like me!) create a story for the game and invent characters and a world, as well as writing every bit of text that shows up in the game. Programmers take those ideas and turn them into code, which they tweak over and over again until it works right. Artists and animators illustrate the characters, backgrounds, special effects, and menu screens. Audio engineers, composers, and voice actors make music, sound effects, and voiceovers. Testers play the game over and over again, looking for glitches and ways to make the game more fun.

These disciplines don’t work in isolation, either. Everyone needs to communicate and collaborate to solve problems and put the pieces together. If part of a game is boring, the fix could be in the form of a more engaging story (writing), a more intense challenge (design), cooler special effects (art), a smoother play experience (programming), or something else entirely!

Many games are made by dozens of people working together in departments focused on these disciplines (not to mention the business side of game making: marketing, hiring, project management, and so on). At smaller game studios, each person can wind up wearing half a dozen different hats. Maybe the game designer also writes the story, or the soundtrack composer is also the voice of the main character. A rare few incredibly talented people do every part of the game creation process by themselves! But that kind of solo game development is a long and lonely road that few see to completion.

So You Want To Be A Gamedev

If you want to make games of your own, there’s no need to wait! Making games has never been easier. It’s certainly a lot easier than when I was a kid in the 90s, trying to cobble together my own text adventures in C++! There are tons of resources and advice freely available for aspiring young game designers.

The first step is to start thinking about games. If you’re someone who plays a lot of games, don’t just play them passively! Analyze each part of the game and ask yourself how and why they work. What decisions do you think the game designers made when they were creating the game? There are some excellent YouTube creators who do very accessible game design analysis videos–I particularly recommend The Game Maker’s Toolkit, People Make Games, Extra Credits, and noclip.

If there’s a particular part of game creation that excites you, develop those skills outside of just games! If you want to be a programmer, learn the basics of coding! If you want to write games, write some short stories! If you want to be a game artist, get painting! If you want to be a game designer, get out construction paper and cardboard and make a board game for you and your friends to playtest!

And of course, if you want to try your hand at making games for other people to play, systems like Roblox provide a perfect framework for that. You can build a game quickly and easily, with much of the art and programming backbone already taken care of. Roblox is by far the biggest platform of its kind, but it’s not the only one. If you want to write story games, Twine is a free simple engine for scripting choose-your-own-adventures. If you’re feeling ambitious, RPG Maker and Game Maker are powerful tools that are easy to start on but deep enough to build commercial-scale games (and have been used to do so).

But the most important thing about making games–whether you’re a hobbyist, aspiring developer, or full-time pro — is also the most important thing about playing games: don’t forget to have fun!

Ben “Books” Schwartz is a writer and game designer based in Beijing. They believe that stories and play can change the world.

KEEP READING: Screen Time Isn’t All Bad: Lessons to be Mined From Mario, Minecraft and More

Photos: Canva, #WOCinTech, Cindy Marie Jenkins

Screen Time Isn’t All Bad: Lessons to be Mined From Mario, Minecraft and More

Michelle Zhang — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 07:00:08 +0000

I spent the entire summer between seventh and eighth grade trying to beat Super Mario Bros. My best friends and I worked together to teach each other the ways to beat every level, from the first castle to the last, from Princess Daisy to Princess Peach, from Bowser Junior to the villain Bowser himself.

When alone, I played Tetris, Dr. Mario — all those puzzle games that challenged my brain to move quickly and fit various shaped blocks into the right formation. That “whoosh” sound that signified a “Tetris” washed over me like a warm ocean wave: a signal of both success and accomplishment, turning my little corner of preteen chaos into order and achievement.

Tetris can be very satisfying.

That’s probably why I was never scared of my kids eventually playing video games. After all, I enjoyed gaming as just another activity among many. It’s hard to separate the parental stigma of screen time and video games with very real lessons my kids learn from their games. I’ve witnessed real-life social, developmental, and educational skills that children learn while playing video games like Minecraft, Roblox, Civilization, and more. Lest you think I’m just trying to soothe my own screentime soul, I also asked teachers and influencers to weigh in on this topic.

Social skills

Taking turns, playing fair, and teamwork: these are constant reminders for anyone playing video games. We don’t use the word sharing as often as we encourage kids to “take turns” and that is exactly what they must do in gameplay. Oftentimes it’s forced on them, but that rhythm of letting go after you make mistakes and lose a turn follows into a child’s daily life.

Persistence

How hard is it to win some of these games? It wasn’t until I tried to play my old standbys twenty years later that I remembered just how hard some parts are. We use their game time to explore how hard it is to stay persistent and try your best, understanding that your best only gets better the more you practice.

Mr. Devreaux Poole, Primary Learning and Teaching Coordinator at Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing), also believes that games “offer a safe environment [for children]to explore and challenge themselves. They’re able to build self-confidence as they are able to ‘reset’ when making mistakes,” and in addition, “Delayed gratification is taught (acquired) as the ‘main reward/goal/prize,’ usually only achieved after completing several levels.”

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Poole also adds that “Many video games require critical thinking and problem-solving skills and also stimulate creativity.” I couldn’t agree more! There’s no counting the number of times when my or another child will explain a secret to beating this level or suggest a different way to tackle an obstacle in a game, and they’re right! Sure, sometimes they learn from watching gamer playthroughs, where you literally watch someone online play through a certain level or part of a game, but more often than not I see them apply the knowledge they saw to a different problem and are able to move ahead in the game on their own merits.

Video games can introduce kids to a career in coding.

Community

Blogger and influencer Sally Tian works in the software industry and sees huge social benefits from gaming through her roommate’s experience, among others. ”He came from a small city in China before getting into a top tier university, and the online gaming community provided a good window and perspective to the outside world that he wasn’t able to find in his town. That’s why I think games are a good way to not only learn factual knowledge about the world but also help kids develop stronger social bonds and create a sense of community.”

Money and Math

Another aspect of Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Party, and many more games is that you must earn a certain number of points, coins, etc before you can purchase items in-game that give you more powers or costumes, whatever the case may be.

I couldn’t get my kids to watch a Zoom math class, yet also couldn’t keep them away from an online course called “Mario Math,” which used characters and concepts from the Super Mario world to help them understand ways of approaching math and problem-solving that make their in-classroom learning better today.

English

Minecraft activity books and Minecraft encyclopedias as well as fictionalized stories of the world are how I kept their attention on English concepts through quarantine, and still do today.

Let kids read what they love and they’ll never stop!

Digital Citizenship

Poole also believes that playing video games can aid in “developing of transferable Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills.” By starting them down the road of playing games within communities and privately, kids are introduced to concepts like keeping your passwords safe, public servers versus private ones, usernames, and how one’s identity online must match behavior offline for people to continue wanting to play with you.

Pranking

Because we watched a lot of Minecraft gamers’ playthroughs, my oldest was introduced to the idea of pranking early in his gaming career. Through Minecraft, he learned quickly that some people don’t want to be pranked, especially when that means your supposed partner in the game hacks down a house you’ve spent hours building inside the game because that’s what he’s seen his favorite gamers do to their friends. We had a pretty serious talk after that incident, explaining the subtleties of pranking and how both parties need to be “in” on it if it is to be a fun prank. I’ve since watched him handle his gaming maturely and remove that pranking concept from offline playtime.

Society

Tian is not a big gamer herself, but has “observed that some of the smartest, most creative people had learned about the world through video games.” One game she does play is Civilization, where a player, through making a series of choices, aims to grow his or her country from a rural nomadic tribe to a futuristic society. “The game is incredibly complex and has taught me so much about how society, technology, economics, and even philosophy can be shaped,” says Tian.

Many teenagers teach themselves how to use technology to be part of their favorite gaming worlds.

Self Expression Through Video Production

It is inevitable that starting a game will lead to watching tutorials and playthroughs of that game. Poole sees gaming playthroughs as an extension of a world we adults might already understand: “Gaming is seen as a sport these days, therefore, watching a playthrough is similar to watching a recorded sporting event such as football, basketball, rugby, tennis etc.” I tend to lean on the website Common Sense Media to learn which gamers are family-friendly and which are more mature, but even more inevitable than watching these is that a child will then want to create their own playthroughs and have their own video channel. We used this curiosity to teach our kids the basics of operating a video camera, and how to apply the presentation skills they learn in show-and-tell towards being an on-camera host. I know older kids who taught themselves camerawork through online tutorials, then researched video and audio editing to create better gaming videos.

Kids can still learn a lot of these skills with LEGO bricks and board games; however, it’s good to see the nuances in how video games help with a child’s development so we can lean into their interests instead of always fighting it.

KEEP READING: Weaning Kids Off Screen Time Post-COVID

Photos: Canva, Cindy Marie Jenkins, Pexels, Unsplash

This article appeared in the beijingkids 2020 November issue

Weaning Kids Off Screen Time Post-COVID

Cindy Marie Jenkins — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 03:00:32 +0000

Screen time was a hot topic before 2020, but now it is everywhere. Since school went online last winter, screens became a necessity and not a preference. In fact, computer sales rose between five and 17% for the biggest companies according to Forbes, although they don’t expect the increases to continue as it was just for the short-term needs of online learning. Even though we eased back to school and away from online learning this fall, there is almost no way to avoid screen time of any sort. Even when kids aren’t doing online learning, their homework is half online.

If you aren’t totally against screen time and just need it in moderation, there are a few tactics to try. As with any type of parenting “advice,” these are suggestions based on other families’ experiences, and you shouldn’t feel guilty if the one you wish would work for your kids doesn’t. People are different, situations are different, what you can mentally handle is different. Think of it like potty training: You might want to do the “three days and done” method, but your kids have other ideas. The important thing is that you stick with it, whichever method you choose. And please don’t take the fact that I wrote this article as evidence that I have it all figured out either. What works for my family now may get turned on its head next week! So best to have a few ideas in your back pocket:

Lock it up but don’t throw away the key

Cold Turkey

Beijing expat mom Tara Gillan got to a point at the beginning of this summer where she didn’t think she had any other option. After months of online learning with her nine and 11-year-old, they’d tried setting boundaries but she felt the devices were dictating her children’s choices. They consistently chose games over family time or playdates and Tara had a realization that she just had to remove the obsession from her kids’ sights. “I gathered up all our devices and locked them away in my office,” she said. “They just had to go, away from their temptation. Both my sons had a month with no devices in the house. In the beginning, there was a lot of “I’m bored” but that subsided after a few days. Bored is good! It allowed my children to have quiet and calm moments, generated creativity as they needed to entertain themselves, and they had the choice to make their own decisions on how to spend their time.”

20 Minutes at a Time

This was our way. As proud as I was for my three-year-old to master Animal Crossing and Super Mario Maker 2 in quarantine (eye roll), he was way too attached to his games. My six-year-old played but mostly out of boredom. Once we were out of all our quarantines and could leave the house, it was very apparent that our youngest needed structure.

Rather than eliminate his quarantine coping mechanism completely, which might have worked if he was older, I talked to both of them and started limiting their time on it. They got 20 minutes before noon and 20 minutes while I made dinner. It was hard at first, but as long as I gave them fair warnings and counted down the time until they had to stop, meltdowns were at a minimum. Occasionally they’d bargain for more time and sometimes I’d give it, but those were exceptions. One other known exception was if I had a Zoom meeting; then they could play or watch curated videos for the hour I was on the call. But as long as we were open about how much time they got and the reason, and I stuck to my word, they went along with it. Now that school started, they have only asked to play video games a few times, and that was if we could all play as a family.

Set up Parental Controls

One Mom of a seven-year-old who asked to remain anonymous says they use strict parent controls on their daughter’s iPad, and “even if the restrictions are turned off there are time limits on specific apps for how long she can play them. Epic and Sora are always allowed because we want to encourage reading but we limit the games and Netflix to only short times, usually on weekends.”

That’s also how Gillan returned her son’s devices into their lives: with strict boundaries. “The children do have their laptops back now, [on]weekdays for school but with parental software installed.” I found some parental controls for games clunky but appreciate the ones where an alarm for the time limits go off on my phone and their device. I also use website blockers so they can watch their favorite gamers play Minecraft, but not Fortnite or Five Nights at Freddie’s, for example. (It does get tricky when gamers build Fortnite inside of Minecraft, so keep a keen eye.)

I was able to come to an agreement with my oldest on his online video viewing: he either only watches the kids’ version or I use website blockers and we talk through why it isn’t appropriate for him yet. Explaining why we don’t want him to watch or play certain content has put some of the responsibility for keeping his screen time on his own critical thinking skills, and at least once a week he pulls me over to review a video and discuss what they’re doing in it.

Get a Big Clock

This was honestly a gamechanger for us. If you don’t have a clock on the wall, get a nice big one with numbers on it and hang it for everyone to see. Showing kids how much time they have and exactly when their screen time will end makes it more concrete to them. My youngest confused seconds with minutes, because seconds are an easier way for him to quantify time, as it’s just counting. The clock helped him understand that I was giving him way more time to play than he thought I was and has also turned into a nice tool to teach multiplication: how many seconds are in twenty minutes? To a four-year-old, 1,200 seconds is a lot of time!

Make a Rewards System

Mom Weslyna Griffith has three kids aged 15, 13, and two and a half. She offers them reward points, so “each chore done is one to two points and accumulated points equal screen time.” She’s quick to specify that it only works for her older kids though, so she uses other methods to help her toddler regulate his screen time.

A simpler method for screen time lies in the art of negotiation. They ask for their screen time and a parent can set milestones before a device can be turned on: Put all of your toys away first or put your clean clothes away. After school, we have no screen time until their lunch containers are in the sink and homework is out of their bag, for instance. Whether formal or informal rewards work for your child, it can help express that screen time is a privilege.

Here the kids merged Catan Jr with Dinosaur Escape

Give Them an Alternative

I did it when I quit smoking, the kids did it when I weaned them off bottles: for a while, people need a not-as-addictive alternative. We transitioned their love of gaming towards board games. There are lots of good ones for all ages! Before that, it was card games. As with most activities, you need to start by playing with them, to show them the ropes. Once they get the idea, however, it’s shocking how independent kids can be, which can give you the precious time you need when they’re usually watching or playing on a screen. The key here is to not care if they’re playing by the real rules or if they make up their own, as long as their rules are fair to all players, and they put all the pieces away at the end of the playtime.

Don’t Default to TV

We used to treat them to some “Scooby-Doo” or another cartoon while they woke up and got ready for school. The longer they’re in school, the less they immediately turn on the television in the morning. They wake up and I tell them how long they have to eat breakfast, how long until we get them dressed, etc. (there’s that clock again) and that prompts them more to play with each other than watching a show. Once or twice a week they will want a show, but it isn’t nearly as often and that’s been their choice.

No one wants to be a Gollum

Show Them Lord of the Rings

Seriously. When our oldest was introduced to Gollum and saw how The One Ring affected Frodo’s brain to make him make bad choices (it helps that he’s really into neurons right now), he kept asking questions and we answered them all. Neither my husband nor I outright said that the addiction of the ring is like the addiction of video games; that’s a connection he made himself. Ever since then, he sets his own screen time limits and tells people how feeling like you need something that badly is not good for you and you’ll make bad choices.

If you’re not Tolkien people, or that’s a little too intense, there are lots of other kids’ stories where the characters struggle with an obsession. Sometimes they just need to see it in a different context to understand its impact.

KEEP READING: Remotely Controlled Kids: The Real Impact of Too Much Screen Time

Photos: pexels, goodfreephotos, Cindy Marie Jenkins