← Learning Curve with Mr. Chazz
Learning Curve with Mr. Chazz
Gaming - Creating Healthy Habits with Ash Brandin
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:00]
A
I'm going to just say no video games because they're bad. What we are actually inevitably doing is we are going to force the responsibility and management of gaming onto our kids because one day they are going to interact with video games, whether it's at a friend's house, a sleepover, a rec center, or if it's like one day they move into a Dorm and they're 18 years old and they have never interacted with this before and now they're an adult and we think they're supposed to be able to handle their lives if we haven't given them the skills of how to manage this and balance this with the rest of their life. Ironically, in an effort to keep them from being obsessed with something, we actually are setting them up for that.
- [00:53]
B
And if you want to be a part of the conversation too, then subscribe to my Patreon www.patreon.com MrChaz and join the conversation. Ask your own questions, be a part of it for as low as $5 a month and get access to one on one coaching with me for as low as $20 a month. What's my name? What's my name?
- [01:17]
A
Mastermind?
- [01:18]
B
What's my. Mr. Ch. Mr. Chaz.
- [01:22]
A
Mr. Chaz.
- [01:25]
B
Welcome to Mr. Chaz's Leadership, Parenting and teaching podcast where I introduce you to the people who can help you on your leadership, parenting or teaching journey. And today we have such a great episode. I know it's been really impactful. This might be the episode that you didn't know that you really needed. We are talking about gaming today, and this is something that is becoming more and more prevalent in our lives. And it's something that I felt was really, really important to a conversation I felt really important to have because a lot of us, you know, the gaming that we grew up with is very different than the gaming that children now are growing up with. You know, a lot of people are still grasping the idea that, you know, it's hard to, that you can't pause a lot of games where we grew up. I know when I grew up, you know, with, you know, Sega and Super Nintendo, there was no online gaming and you could easily pause. So it's, it's very different than what it was when we were growing up. And the industry, the gaming industry is grown, is still growing so much. It is one of the largest, it is the largest growing industry. It is, you know how we love our Netflix and our movies. The gaming industry is larger than the sports and Hollywood of the movie industry combined. And so that Just gives you a hint on just how big gaming is in our world. And this is the world that our children are going to, are growing up in. Right now there's estimated 2.7 billion gamers globally in the world. And for people who still think like, okay, well, it's not a big deal, sure, a lot of people are watching it. Just again, to put it in context, that is maybe easier for most of us older adults to understand. In 2018, there was a world championship that had 100 million viewers. And just to put that in context, in the same year, the Super bowl had 98 million viewers. So this is something that is not going anywhere. It's growing, it's here to stay. And now children are growing in this world and they have access to this powerful, this huge industry of gaming. And we're finding that children are, you know, are gravitate towards it so much. We see it like an addiction that children are, are, are, are being exposed to from a very young age. So this is something that we really have to talk about, we really have to reflect on and really have to help our children navigate in a conscious, respectful. But I brought on someone who specializes in this and talks about this, and they are a parent themselves and they have so much to share with us, so much information, knowledge, experience. So we're going to have the conversation today. Without further ado, I've brought to you as a resource today. Ash, introduce yourself, Ash, tell us a little bit more about yourself and then let's get started in this important conversation.
- [05:17]
A
Yeah. Hi, everybody. So I'm Ash Brandon, and I use they, them pronouns. And I'm a middle school teacher in the Front Range of Colorado, and I teach middle school social studies and math. But I started actually as a music teacher. So I've kind of taught a lot of things and I grew up enjoying video games and not really thinking of them as a very big deal. And so then as I grew up as an adult, I also didn't really think of them as a really big deal. And as a teacher, I thought they seemed like a really cool and motivating thing to utilize in classrooms. And I realized pretty quickly that I was fairly unique in that viewpoint and that a lot of educators, particularly older than me, didn't necessarily share that viewpoint or even if they were open to it, didn't know how to get started. And I saw that reflected in a lot of the research and a lot of the resources that were and weren't available to teachers. So I started just experimenting with stuff in my classroom and Tried stuff out, had some really cool successes and eventually decided to share that with people because no one else was really talking about it. So I did that for a few years and did the kind of conference circuit and then conferences weren't really on the table anymore in 2020 and started pivoting that online and now really reach people through Instagram. Where I really focus on how do we help our kids create a healthy relationship with video games. And sometimes it extends to screens too, but I mostly focus on video games. A lot of parents and caregivers and teachers really want video games to just not be a big thing. They don't want it to be something their kids obsess over. And my, my mission is to help families be able to find that balance so that video games can maybe be a part of kids lives without being the center of kids lives.
- [07:24]
B
All right, so I gotta start off with just asking the general question as I typically do here. And you can get fired up. Are games good or are they bad for children gonna leave right there.
- [07:45]
A
It's like such a big question. I sometimes don't even know how to, how to start. So I think when we ask a question that's really broad and also very black and white like that we risk kind of making too broad a judgment in my opinion. And I would say that research really does support this. Video games aren't good or bad. Just like you know, TV isn't good or bad, certain toys aren't good or bad food, certain foods aren't good or bad. They're just a part of our kids lives or a potential part of our kids lives. And in the same way that we, I make a lot of food comparisons in the same way that we might look at food and talk about, you know, sometimes we use coded words like healthy, you know, like what a healthy food or a good food is, what, what that is, is going to be different on it for every person. You know, what a healthy food will be for someone with certain dietary needs, sensory needs, is going to be very different from another family. Cultural background is going to influence that. And so when we make these broad statements about good or bad, it I think shifts the conversation away from where we need it to be. Sometimes you'll hear people say like, oh well this game is bad. Like it's always bad. And that tends to kind of be a red flag to me because a game that might engage a child who might otherwise be non verbal or might not engage in or like showing emotions that might be the way that they are learning and expressing themselves in ways that they can't otherwise. Whereas that same game might be incredibly overstimulating for another child. And so whether games are good or bad is really going to be specific to a family. I think there are ways that we can decide or inform ourselves if a game might be a potentially good fit for our child specifically. But generally speaking, I think if we just think of like, oh, are games good or bad? We're ignoring the fact that games are inevitably going to be a part of our kids lives. When, when we really say like, oh well, not do any gaming because it's bad, I'm going to just say no video games because they're bad. What we are actually inevitably doing is we are going to force the responsibility and management of gaming onto our kids because one day they are going to interact with video games, whether it's at a friend's house, a sleepover, a rec center, or if it's like one day they move into a Dorm and they're 18 years old and they have never interacted with this before and now they're an adult and we think they're supposed to be able to handle their lives if we haven't given them the skills of how to manage this and balance this with the rest of their life. Ironically, in an effort to keep them from being obsessed with something, we actually are setting them up for that. If we just hold them off from it and say it's bad, it's bad, it's bad, you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it. But then they finally interact with it, what are they going to do? They're probably going to interact with it and then they won't have any coping mechanisms, no strategies, no way of knowing how to interact with it healthily. Yeah, that's what I really like to avoid.
- [11:29]
B
Yeah, yeah. And so what I'm hearing there is that, and it's, this is true for a lot of things, right, that if we try to shelter them, shelter them from it and try to protect them from it, at some point they're going to be exposed to it and when they do, they won't, they're going to go crazy or they're not going to know how to handle or navigate that thing because it's, it's their first time. As opposed to, you know, giving them, exposing it to them and helping them, giving them support while they are using the game as opposed to, they get that load of responsibility, as you put it, you know, without any support. They haven't done Any lifting, it's like their first day, we give them this lifting, give them this 200 pound gaming, responsibility, addiction, whatever. And we haven't even, you know, we've never put any work ahead of time of helping them lift and work through and navigate and saying, okay, well this is a little bit too much. We need to practice this, we need to build this muscle a little bit more. So that way when they do go off at 18, they go to college and their roommate has a gaming system and an extra controller, they still can. They have the skill of setting the timer, having the routine of setting out specific time periods to do gaming and then to do work.
- [12:52]
A
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
- [12:54]
B
So, and so I heard you say something else in terms of like, okay, it's not good or bad, you know, it just is. And that's a message that I very much resonate with. I think we place, you know, judgment too quickly on so many things and people. But there are, there are, like you mentioned, there are some parts or maybe mechanics in games that aren't as helpful. Right. And even with your friends food analogy. Right. You know, it's not to say that sugar is necessarily bad or good, but there is a predictable outcome that sugar is going to have on your specific body. Right. So how do we. What are some mechanics that are generally not so helpful in certain categories? What are some mechanics or parts of games that are helpful that we can look out for, that we can identify? How do we know that there are good fit for the child in front of us? Talk to us a little bit more about that.
- [14:00]
A
All right, so one of the things that probably will be surprising to people is that I actually tend to shy away from educational games, games whose purpose is to educate. And a lot of children's first interactions with games tend to be more educational games because parents think, well, it's educational, they're going to learn something. So that makes this somehow better or a good game. Ironically though, when we actually look at how those games function, they tend to be really extrinsically motivated because the game is trying to basically trick a kid into learning something. And so a game that is trying to get you to learn will kind of give you very basic level tasks and will kind of prevent you from failing. You know, if, I don't know if you ever played any educational games of your era, but my era was like Math Blaster, I don't know if you ever. Okay, so if you remember a game like Math Blaster, you know, they'd have these little games and it would do something fun. You know, like it would zap trash with a laser beam or something. And you would activate it by filling out an equation correctly. So it'd be like two plus two equals. And then if you answer four, then it zaps trash. So we call this a mandatory learning exercise, which means that you have to get through the not so fun thing, math, to get to the fun thing, the reward of the game. And that's actually not what we want to tell kids, because that message is the only reason you should do this learning task is to get to this reward. That's the opposite of what we want. We want the learning itself to be fun. We want the learning itself to be motivating. And so a kid that maybe doesn't understand math like that does not know the concept of addition, at least the symbol concept of addition. They might see two plus two equals and have no idea what to do. And so they might just press the number one and then the game says, whoops, try again. And then they press the number two and the game says, whoops, try again. And they just keep doing that until they get the right answer. Have they learned what two plus two actually means? Have they learned that this means, oh, a group of two things combined with a group of another two things? No, they have not. They've just brute forced their way through this learning thing to get to the fun. Let's contrast this with something as simple as a Mario game who is not trying to teach you anything. It's just trying to entertain you. So let's say a kid's playing Mario and they're trying to play and they fall off a ledge and die. And the game goes, you know, and starts you over again. And then they notice that their lives tick down. They had three, and now they have two. And then they go, oh, that number went down. And then they do it again and they fall down, they die again. That goes to 1, then it goes to 0. And then the game is over and they realize, oh, I'm out of lives. Which child actually learned a mathematical concept innately? Probably the child playing Mario.
- [17:31]
B
So yeah, that's. That. That's a really good thought. And that's a way that most people would not see it that way, right? We look over, you know, child shoulder and we see, oh, we see numbers, we see letters, like, this is good for them. And then we check out and we're back to doing what we're doing, and there's no other another thought about it. And. And what you're saying is that it is. I'm Hearing kind of, you know, maybe a difference in extrinsic motivation here. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
- [18:05]
A
For sure, yeah. And I would say quickly, to make a parallel. You know, a lot of people talk about how play is this work of early childhood and that you don't always see the work of play. You might see a young child who is using a shape sorter, short sorter, quote, unquote, incorrectly. You know, they're trying to shove the circle into the square hole. But that is still learning. And we often say, don't go over and correct them. Don't go over and show them, because we want them to figure that out on their own. That's the process of learning. A video game actually does pretty much that. A game whose purpose is to entertain is actually going to put most of the control on the player, whereas a game who's trying to educate has to force you through it in order to, quote, unquote, teach you something. And so those do very different things in terms of motivation. So intrinsic motivation, which is how I really got into this work, I wanted to look at how games are motivating from a psychological perspective and see how to, like, put that into my classroom. So intrinsic motivation really happens when one of three things occurs. We feel intrinsically motivated. When we feel competent, like we did something, we feel successful, related. We're doing it in. Oh, no, no, sorry, I'm back.
- [19:44]
B
Okay. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what happened. So let's. I just made a little note, hopefully.
- [19:50]
A
I'm so sorry.
- [19:51]
B
You're. You're good. You're good. So you said that. That the three things.
- [19:57]
A
Confident, competence, relatedness. Okay.
- [20:02]
B
Yep.
- [20:02]
A
All right. So competent.
- [20:07]
B
Oh, my God.
- [20:15]
A
Thing is autonomy. So autonomy is a sense of control. And so it doesn't mean that we are calling all the shots. It doesn't mean that we have all the power. It just means that we have a sense of having control within a task. Video games are incredibly good at making us feel these things. They give us. They give us clear levels and clear rules and clear boundaries. And they do it in such a way that we might organically discover those boundaries and organically discover the rules. And in so doing, we feel a sense of power and control over it. You know, if I am playing a video game level and I try to leave an area I'm not allowed to be, the game might have sort of an invisible wall I can't move past. Or it might say, you don't have enough power to go there. The game doesn't Punish me. The game doesn't say, what are you doing? That's not for you. The game doesn't say, come back over here. It just says, no, not right now. And then it's up to me what I go do. And so there's an incredible sense of power and control that players feel, because it's really up to them what they do within a controlled environment. And especially for children, they don't have a lot of say in a lot of their lives. And so being put into an environment in which you really have a lot of control is a really big motivator for them, because it's like they get to freely explore without someone coming in and saying, oh, but don't do that, don't go over there. So those things really make players feel deeply, intrinsically motivated. And when we also combine them together. So you're in an environment like Minecraft and you get to freely explore and go wherever you want, but you also are trying to achieve a goal. Maybe you're trying to build something and then when you finally do build it, you feel this rush of competence. I did it. I achieved the thing I wanted to achieve. And what's really important here is that the only person who really decides that you feel good about that is you. Especially in those open environment kind of games. The game isn't coming in and saying, like, good job, you built the tower. It's up to you to really feel that. And so it becomes very intrinsically motivating because you're the one who decides when you have met a goal, you're the one who decides what you do. And all those things together make it a really powerful and really motivating experience for gamers. But I think especially for kids, because it's something they don't experience as often.
- [23:10]
B
Well, I'm going to try to push back a little bit because I know there's a lot of games, they're entertaining, you said that they get to decide if they feel good about it. But usually there's a buzz, a beep or ding, a shiny thing when you meet a goal. That. That is. That seems like an extrinsic motivator to me to try to like, hey, you got an extra thing to try to reach this next goal. So it does seem like there's a little bit or maybe even, hey, you got a new. Maybe you got a new item, or you have, you know, something else. And so how is that different? Is that not extrinsic motivation? How is that fit into this conversation? And I'd like Maybe if you could also fit into your answers, how does this. Do you see a difference maybe even with your middle schoolers or, or research or anything, just from your knowledge and experience, Is there a difference with, you know, children who are neurodivergent? Is our video game something where are there certain mechanics that are more helpful, more helpful for certain neurodivergent children? Talk to me a little bit about some of the questions that raised.
- [24:24]
A
Okay, so for the first part, so it's going to very much depend on the game. There are some games and because you talked about game structures earlier and I never really talked about the ones I don't like, but there are some games that absolutely do truly extrinsically reward you. And I do. And I do not think those are, are particularly good and, but they do it for a very different reason. So a game like old school platformer Mario or even a new version where you are paying for the whole game up front, you know, you're paying 60 bucks for the game. They're not cheap. That game has to make you feel like it's worth it, right, because you already paid your money up front. So they have to make it a deeply intrinsically motivating experience because otherwise you won't play it. And they have to make you feel glad for having done it. And so those quote unquote rewards are more like mission objectives. You know, I get to the end of the level and I get the star, but, you know, it goes away. It goes into my overall like number of stars toward my eventual goal. It's still working toward the end of the game. That doesn't give me anything. It doesn't. I would say that most players who are playing like a level in a Mario game are not doing it for the star. You know, they're doing it to explore the level. They're doing it for maybe the long term goal of finishing the game. But what makes them do that is that it's motivating intrinsically. They enjoy it. They feel a sense of success when they complete the level. If, if you said to them like, oh, if you play this game you'll get 70 electronic stars, like that's not going to make them want to do it, you know, but, but if I say like, oh, you can explore these new levels and this one is lava themed and you get to fly, like those are going to be elements that are going to be more motivating. There are games that are truly very extrinsically motivated that are like, hey, if you, for example, log in on this day, if you play this many hours, then you might have a chance to win this item. That is a whole different thing that is very extrinsic. Those games tend to be what we call free to play games, which is a very common, becoming an increasingly common structure. And a lot of parents tend to say yes to those games because they're free. So the parent is like, sure, download that. I don't like, it's free. Sure. And the problem is that where a $60 Mario game has to justify its purchase cost to you by making it fun and making it motivating, a free to play game doesn't want you to feel motivated. What they want is to get money out of you because you haven't paid anything yet for it. So the motivation of that game is very different. That game's motivation is not let's make this player really enjoy playing this game for the sake of playing it. Because if that were true, then you could play the whole game without purchasing anything and they'd have made zero money off of you, which is not what they want. So instead they are going to incentivize everything to be about extrinsic rewards because those tend to be things you have to buy.
- [27:57]
B
So how do I as a parent, how do I fairly quickly identify that? How do I, what do I look for? What are the signs? Like, tell me straight up, because, you know, like we did, parents, teachers don't have a lot of time to be, you know, to constantly monitoring and figuring out. So if you just give us a little bit of a head start,
- [28:23]
A
I can try. So the most basic idea is do you have to pay for this game up front?
- [28:30]
B
Okay.
- [28:30]
A
And if the answer is yes, then I'm not saying it won't have any of those structures, but it's much less likely. If you don't and it's completely free, then probably something about the game is going to be structured in such a way that you will do better and you know, parenthetically have more fun if you spend money on it. Some big name titles that use this structure are principally Fortnite. Fortnite uses this structure and Fortnite is a really popular one. If there are many others. Oh, go ahead.
- [29:08]
B
Well, I'm almost thinking because you said if you spend money and I, I almost ask, is it just spending money, but is it also spending time too? Because the amount of time you're spending on the thing is money for them too. Right?
- [29:22]
A
Right. Spending. It's spending time so that the more time you spend, the more likely you are to spend money. So it's a very. I mean, it's similar to sort of the idea behind, like, a casino. Like, if I can get you in there for a longer period of time, then I will probably get more money out of you. So a game structure like Fortnite, if there are two people who are playing Fortnite, one pays for it and one does not, the person who doesn't pay has to log in more days consecutively to get some game currency, and they get less game currency than the person who pays for it. And they might even have different things they're even able to access. So if you're a parent and your kid is like, I really want to play this game, the most transparent thing we can really do is to sit down and say, well, let's look at it together and let's read about it. Let's see what it's about. Because, frankly, I think as parents, we should hopefully have some idea of what the content is. The easiest way to tell if a game is a good fit for your child is to play it first. Even if it's for five or 10 minutes or a demo to just get an idea of. I think this is something they like. I think this is something they can even physically do. And I also feel like it's okay with my personal boundaries of content. But if you sit down together and you just notice things together, like, notice, you know, how is the game telling you you can behave? Is it limited with a certain amount of time? Is it telling you you have a certain amount of currency that day? Are you earning that by logging in? Is it making it really clear to you that the only way to continue is with all this stuff you can purchase? I think the other thing you can say to your child is like, hey, if you want to try this game, cool, why don't we try it for a week and see how it feels? And because if you come back and talk about it a week later, and the only way that they want to keep playing it is by spending money on it, then that can be a separate conversation. Let's really talk about, why does this game want us to spend money? What is this going to make us feel if we do this? And if they realize that they don't really enjoy it because the game is constantly telling them things that they can't do because they're not paying for it, then that also is a really great conversation of, like, how can we recognize this with other games? What made this less fun? What made this more fun? And also a Good way for your kid to figure out what do I enjoy? What kind of things do I enjoy doing? What kind of activities in gaming do I like? So that then you can kind of seek those out separately.
- [32:16]
B
So that kind of. I want to jump into. Okay. Talk more about. Okay. The approach of how we approach games with our children. But before I do that, I kind of want to jump back into what you were saying before and share my own experience. You mentioned that for intrinsic motivation you need three things. Confidence, relatedness and autonomy. Correct.
- [32:43]
A
Competence. Yep.
- [32:44]
B
Oh, confidence. I'm sorry.
- [32:46]
A
Yeah, that's all right. It makes you feel confident to be sure.
- [32:50]
B
Competence, relatedness and autonomy. Which actually competency makes it's. It's that even fits even more with the story. So I don't know if you had the same experience, but I was lucky enough to be at a typing class when probably around. I want to say it was like fourth grade when I was in. And there's this program called Typing Tutor. And pretty much it was exactly what you were just what you were saying in terms of the game where you had to do something and then you would get like the mandatory. What's the word that you use? The mandatory.
- [33:28]
A
In game design, they call it mandatory learning exercises.
- [33:31]
B
Mandatory learning exercise. So that is. That's exactly what it was. It told you. And then maybe it throw a challenge in there and say, okay, this time you have to do it with one hand or put a paper towel, whatever. So I did that for probably a whole year and I wasn't really good at typing. I mean I. It helped me in the sense where I did know where generally where most of the keys were, but I was still typing like with the one finger. Those in podcast land can't hear me. But with the one finger the I'll do. You could probably hear that but that was how the what I. The right.
- [34:14]
A
I don't know.
- [34:14]
B
Hopefully you can hear that. Hopefully that. That. That works in an audio world. But that never really taught me how to type. But when I got on AOL aim, as I used to call it back in. Back in my day and I. And pretty much for those. That's pretty much you get a screen name and you would chat with friends or often strangers online. And that was kind of one of our first kind of like social media kind of experiences. But that's where I really learned how to type proficiently was through typing to my friends. Right. And having those and having conversations. And that's where I got really good at typing to where I could just. And yeah, sure, maybe typing tutor gave me a little bit of a foundation for it and maybe gave me enough competence to really, to want to do it a lot. But it didn't really teach me how to, I didn't really learn to type through that typing tutor. It was really through communicating with my friends. And I'd have those three components right. I was competent enough to know how to send the message. I was completely autonomous in what I wanted to say and who I wanted to talk to. And of course it was related because again, that was my, it was a social thing that I wanted to do that was I was talking about things that I cared about. Right. Whatever they were at the time and. Sure. And what I want to say in that story of, you know, me chatting online as a, not even a teenager yet and talking to strangers in the wild wild west of Internet times was that yes, I did learn to, so I learned to type better. But there's still, it's still a little bit of the wild wild west. You know, I'm not saying like just throw your children online and let them learn and see what happens. There's still this very real element of like this other piece of like being a digital mentor, you know, with your child that I didn't really, you know, my, my parents didn't really understand the Internet and you know, they just said don't talk to strangers online. That was like the best advice that they really had for me and not really understanding themselves. I really see, I think this really fits really well and kind of this will segue into the approach, in our approach to gaming because it's kind of, I see it similar now where us as adults now don't really understand gaming as it's in its current state right now and what it really is. And we're trying to help people with, trying to help our children and so can you, you know, help us figure out how to navigate this approach and because even with the, with the, okay, let's try it for a few weeks. Like what if they try for a week and then they're already kind of feel like they're addicted to it. Like as a six year old really going to say, you know what, I've been listening to my body and it turns out that it's not quite the feeling that I'm looking for when I'm playing these games. And I think that if we chose, if we paid for a game up front, it would give me better benefits in my, you know, in what I'm learning and retain, you know, I was So I, you know, I don't, I don't necessarily expect a young child to. So how do we kind of have those conversations? How do we build that? And maybe down the line when they're 18, that is something that they do have the capacity to be, you know, when we are dropping them off at, you know, college or whatever or they're, they're, you know, they're gaming with their roommate, you know. So talk to us more about like the approach, how do we approach it, build these healthy habits with our children.
- [38:13]
A
So if we were to think about, so I have an almost five year old and if we were to think about tv like TV shows, a lot of three, four, five year olds know what TV shows they like and what TV shows they don't. But they're all still tv. And many people would say like, but TV can be bad. And if a kid could watch TV all day long, they would, My kid would not watch a lot of TV shows. They have the shows they like and the shows they don't. So with the thing that we're mentioning with gaming of like that we, that as if this is like so potentially addicting that it will prevent introspection, I would say that I think you might be surprised because a kid that maybe is trying a game that can't make it far, that is continually failing isn't going to be having fun and they aren't going to want to keep doing that. So I do think it does provide a way for them to reflect on that. And even if it's just to get for you as a parent, some idea of, well, can they even reflect on that? It's still information. But I do think that's interesting to bring up because a lot of little kids do have some ideas of what they do and don't like, even with potentially really interesting or potentially overwhelming things. Same thing with like food, you know, my child knows some sweet treats that they do don't care for that they're going to say no to and they're not going to say yes to it just because it has sugar in it. But to get to your point of okay, so how do we kind of set the stage? How do we set this relationship with gaming so that it is potentially healthier? So what I really suggest to families is if you want games to not be a big deal, which I think is what we want, then we need to treat them like not a big deal. And you alluded to this earlier. If we treat them with a scarcity mindset and if we build them up as this very special thing that is going to be really limited because it's so special, then it's going to feel really special because we have made it on a pedestal, so to speak. What I tend to recommend to people is that if you've decided that gaming, whatever that looks like a tablet game, a console game, whatever, whatever that is in your family, if you've decided that that is something that you are okay with, then it should be consistent in its availability. And that doesn't mean unlimited, it should be boundaried, but it should be consistent. So especially for very young kids between 2 and 5, for example, those are kids that really need routine. They need a lot of structure. They thrive on structure. And so just like we try to keep bedtime and mealtime and bath time consistent, if this is going to be part of our lives, if gaming is going to be part of our lives, it should also be consistent. So maybe it's available every day or every other day from, you know, 11:30 until lunchtime, you know, half an hour before lunch, or it's available right after nap as you get up and you're sitting on the couch together for half an hour. But it should have very consistent boundaries around it. And I have found, at least for me, that having it around other obvious activities, like right before a meal, often is very helpful because it's a very clear and obvious transition as opposed to, well, we're done with that now. Now what do we do? Because that's really hard, you know, because the kid is gonna be thinking, well, we could just, just kept playing that, you know.
- [42:09]
B
Right, right.
- [42:10]
A
But if we go right into like a meal or we're gonna leave the house and go do something else, then it's a very clear transition. And so when we make it consistent like that, that it's, you know, whatever days you've decided for whatever time you've decided, then it just becomes part of the routine. And when it's part of the routine, it becomes not a very big deal. And it might be something that they look forward to more than other activities. And I would say that's okay. They are allowed to have preferences for their activities. My child might prefer playing inside with me to playing outside at the playground. That doesn't mean that there's something wrong with playing inside because they prefer it over playing outside. They both have some value there. So setting them up with routine is definitely a way to start with some success and then from there that can shift. You know, a child who's 3, 4, 5 is going to Need a lot of that decision making to be on the adult. The adult is really deciding when and maybe even deciding what's available. You know, maybe curating some games on a tablet and this is what's available to the child. Whereas a kid who might be, you know, five, six, seven, they might be able to decide between the games they want to play today. My child decides what they're going to play. They know what's available to them. You know, they're not choosing from all games made. You know, they have a few favorites, but they choose what they play. And we say, okay, and they have their 30 minutes. Right. Still control, still same time of day, but they get to decide what they play. And an older child, maybe they're helping decide when during the day it's going to be. Do you want game time after lunch today or after breakfast today? We have to go outside and we have to rake the leaves. And I know that you want to get some video game time in. Help me decide when those things happen. We're still keeping it limited. We, the adult are still ultimately in control. But again, if we think about video games and the way they motivate, they motivate by making you feel autonomous. They motivate by making you feel in control. So if we give our child some decision making power in that we're actually motivating them in other activities similar to how video games motivate, as opposed to saying we can't play video games till we rake the leaves from the lawn because then that makes it a reward.
- [44:45]
B
Yeah.
- [44:45]
A
And, and, and we just want it to be a part of our day so that it's just not a big deal.
- [44:51]
B
Yeah. Yeah. There are so many parallels to, to food too. Making it that reward, making that special thing makes it more wanted, more coveted, more sought after. What if you already have. What do you have? Tips? I love the transition tip of just make sure that when you're. What's happening after, it's something obvious. I may even, you know, say something even before if possible, depending on kind of your schedule. So they know. All right. So they know when to expect it. It's so important for children to know what to expect and when to expect, especially young children. So I love that tip. A lot of, a lot of children are already in the spot or a lot of parents already spot where I make it a special thing and they see it as a special thing. And I have like such a hard time transitioning, you know, and especially like we do have to go to, you know, it's maybe It's a place that we do have to leave. We do have to be at a place that transition can be really hard because there's so engrossed in their, you know, intrinsically or maybe even extrinsically, extrinsically motivating game. Do you have any tips for helping kind of reduce the friction of that transition?
- [46:13]
A
Definitely. Especially if it's something new, like maybe the routine that day is a little bit different. I think doing what you mentioned is really important. Making sure they know not just when game time is, but also where it fits in with the other things of the day. And at least my child, it takes my child a really long time to really learn a routine, to really learn what a whole day is going to look like. So we talk about our day, you know, all the time. So even talking about like, well, today we have breakfast and then we'll do this and then we'll do that, we'll read books and then it's game time, then it's dinner, etc. So really just normalizing all those conversations so they just always know what to expect and if it's going to be different. Knowing your child, you know, if they're, if they're a kid who needs a lot of heads up, then maybe even the day before saying, tomorrow after game time, we're going to be getting in the car right away because we have to get to such and such a spot and making and just broadcasting that ahead of time. But when they are playing, this is where actually knowing the games that your kid likes can be really helpful.
- [47:23]
B
Yes.
- [47:24]
A
Because different games have different ways of sort of measuring time, so to speak. If your kid is playing something that's very leveled, you know, they're playing a game with clear levels where they're trying to get to the end, or they're playing a racing game where it's very bound by time, it can be, you can use that to your advantage and say you have time for one more race, you have time for three more laps, you have time for one more level, assuming you kind of know how long those take. If your child is playing something that's much more open, an open game like Minecraft or Roblox, where they're just kind of in there doing whatever, then it might just be a more finite reminder of the time. We have 10 minutes left and we can even help them with that. Of what's the last thing you're going to do in the game today to get them thinking about how they're going to kind of close out Their experience. I think many parents have had the experience of telling their kid like, you have to turn the game off right now. And we are of the era where we could just save and quit. And that is not always a thing now because if they're playing online with people, well those are real people and it's really happening and they can't just save and quit. And that should not be an excuse for intentionally playing longer than they should, especially if they maybe are old enough to know that. But it can be something that we just are bringing up when we're talking about limits of, hey, we have 10 minutes left. If you start a new campaign right now, you won't have time to finish and making them aware of that or hey, we have 10 minutes left. When it's done, you can like, would you like to turn the game off or do you need my help with that? We still might have to enforce those boundaries. We still might have to be there to be the heavy and to come in and enforce those. And alongside that that can be a way that we make it clear that they are allowed to like this. They are allowed to struggle with stopping it and that is not necessarily going to impact their access to it, which I think is really important. If a kid struggles with turning a game off. And my reaction is, well, you should be lucky you got a game at all. No game time tomorrow. The message that sends to that child is I'm not allowed to be upset and when I'm upset, things I like are taken away from me and that is going to make that kid want to play that game way more. Now they're going to obsess over it as opposed to you don't want to turn the game off. It's really hard to turn the game off. I get it. I'm going to help you turn the game off today. Games will be available at 2:30 tomorrow. Yeah, they're still there. It's okay to be upset. You know, we hold the boundary like we do with other boundaries but we are taking the weight of that away from the game and putting it back on. Just learning to manage and sit with our feelings.
- [50:48]
B
I love that, I really do. And I got to ask one more question of just, just of, of pushback, of. I'm just hearing comments and maybe it's this is me being on social media too much, but I'm just hearing the comments of people who were raised in a similar way that I was raised and just have a hard time changing and just feel that a child should, when we tell them to stop playing the video game, that it should be. That it should be time to stop. And there shouldn't be much more discussion after that. Because I am the authority and the parent and I would love to hear what your thoughts are, what you would say in response to that, or what your thoughts are about that, to kind of close out this conversation, to start closing out this conversation.
- [51:58]
A
So if our goal is for our kids to be able to have a healthy relationship with games or with anything, then we need to be giving the responsibility of that management to them. And if we tell them, well, you should turn the game off. Because I said so. Because I said so. I mean, if essentially our answer is because I'm the adult and I said so, how are they going to turn that into a sense of personal responsibility as they grow? We're making that entirely extrinsic. We're saying you should do it because I said so. I someone different than you. So what will happen when they have to be the one to make that decision for themselves? If they've never been given the opportunity to make that decision for themselves or see the natural consequences of not making that decision, then we're not really setting them up for success, to manage it.
- [53:04]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I 100% agree. I thank you so much for coming on. Ash, any last words or anything? If you'd like to plug in anything that you're just, you know, Instagram or anything that you're where people can find you more or anything from you, now's the time to do it.
- [53:27]
A
Sure. So, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad we got to have this conversation and hopefully give some people stuff to think about. And if you want to kind of sit with this more or see more of what I have to say, you can find me on Instagram. It's@ash.brandon. my last name is B R A N D I N and I also have a website, ashbrandon.com and on there that's a little bit more ed focused. I have my talks, I've given. I have lesson plan ideas there. I also have a blog there where I have some posts about how to choose a first game for your child if that's something that you're wanting to do. Depending on when you hear this, I have some gift idea posts on there for gifts that are good for a kid who's interested in games that aren't necessarily just giving them more games. So that's there too. And yeah, I think that's basically it. Hopefully, hopefully this is some good food for thought. It's a really big topic and can go in a lot of places, and I think it's a great thing to be reconsidering. It's definitely something that I think a lot of people are kind of shifting around. So thank you for having me and giving space for it.
- [54:44]
B
What's my name? What's my name? What's my name?
- [54:54]
A
You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.