Why digital time isn’t always bad

Video games have come a long way since the days of Pong and Atari. What has remained constant over the years, though, is the perception that video games are bad for kids.

There are, however, tangible benefits to playing video games, especially the strategy and prosocial kind, which deserve mention. Playing video games, with a parent’s guidance concerning both the time spent playing and the quality of games, has been shown to boost children’s cognitive, social, fine motor and emotional development.

Spatial ability. Video games improve spatial ability, which is the capacity to visualize, rotate, transform and manipulate objects. Spatial ability, also called spatial reasoning, is vital for success in math, science, engineering, and technology.

Persistence. Players encounter increasing difficulty as they try to advance or achieve higher levels in games. Yet, as parents know, instead of giving up (and turning off the game!), their kids persist until they achieve the desired level or goal.

Problem solving. Not only are gamers persistent when playing, but they are problem solvers, too. When a child jumps off a cliff in a game and crash lands, for instance, she learns from her ‘mistake’. She tries until she finds a new way, or multiple ways, to jump and land successfully.

Hand-eye coordination. Managing a controller with their hands while watching a screen with their eyes improves kids’ hand-eye coordination. In fact, research from the medical journal PLOS One found that surgeons who played video games improved their hand-eye coordination and precise muscle movement.

Social. As multiplayer games like Fortnite have exploded in popularity, gamers have reaped social benefits. Players bond together to defeat a common enemy. They lend each other equipment, rescue one another and strategize for the good of their team. Outside of the game, players talk in real life about their shared experiences and the latest updates to their favorite game.

Emotional. Playing video games is a lot like dramatic role playing. Both kinds of play allow kids to put themselves in a fear- or anger-inducing situation, but within the safety of it being a game. As they play, whether in dramatic play or through a video game, children practice how to handle these emotions and learn how to regulate or calm themselves.

Stress reduction. Getting swept away by a video game allows many kids to find relief from the academic, social, and extracurricular pressures that fill their days. Like watching TV or reading a book, playing video games is a means to refocus the brain on something other than what stresses it.

Creativity. Researchers at Michigan State University found a relation between video game playing and creativity. The more that twelve-year-olds played video games, the more creative they were in drawing pictures and writing stories.

Of course, more is not always better when it comes to playing video games. Families should monitor both quantity and quality, striving for time spent playing video games to complement time with family and friends, playing sports or music and sleeping. Parents must also be aware of the important difference between allowing children play strategy or prosocial games while restricting their play of mature, first-person shooter games.

Helping kids ease into new routines

September is here and with it comes a sense of transition and change for our family. Some of the change is welcome and expected like the start of school and the change of weather from the heat of summer to cooler, breezier days. But change can also bring a sense of insecurity and fear for children, especially with new routines with a new school year and new people to meet. This month we focus on books about kids navigating different transitions: a new baby, moving to a new house, and starting a new school.

To help your child ease into a new situation or routine:

• Communicate clearly what will happen and how long it will last
• Use a transition object or toy to make them feel more comfortable in their new environment
• Don’t rush: give lots of extra time to make transitions that are likely to be difficult for your child and plan for extra hugs & snuggles
• Focus on the positive and the new things you get to do, instead of the things that you will miss
• Practice! Pretend play the scenario so they have a better idea of what to expect & how to respond
• Tell stories: reminisce about a time YOU had to go through a similar change and how it made you feel, then read some books about kids going through the same experience and overcoming their fears

Yellow Time

By Lauren Stringer

This beautifully illustrated book is a celebration of autumn, when the world begins to change color. It acknowledges that some things are lost – birds fly south, leaves blow away – but it only happens once a year and there are so many things to enjoy. It makes you want to run outside and enjoy the cool, yellow days before they’re gone.

The Kissing Hand

By Audrey Penn

It’s Back to School time in the forest, but Chester Raccoon doesn’t want to go. His mother has a special “secret” that will help him to feel safe and reassured as he ventures off to school. This sweet story is a fantastic way to help children transition to any activity where they have to leave home.

Before I Leave

by Jessica Bagley

Little hedgehog is moving and her best friend says it will be ok, but she’s not so sure. It seems so far away and she will miss all the fun things they do together. With heartwarming illustrations and a simple story, children will be reassured that even when things change, a friend’s love stays the same.

Pecan Pie Baby

By Jacqueline Woodson

A new baby is coming and Gia is worried. She likes her cozy life with Mama and doesn’t want that to change. But Mama knows just what to say to reassure her that their new life together will be sweet, just like pecan pie.

Change is hard for grown-ups, and it is certainly hard for kids, but taking the time to prepare as a family and sharing some good books can help make the transition smoother for everyone.

Our teens are back in their rooms and I am prepping dinner in the kitchen when my husband comes home from work. I gesture to the kitchen bar. It is covered with our daughter’s stuff—hairbands, bobby pins, ear buds, iPod shuffle, textbooks, notebooks, binders, laptop, journal and the current book she is reading. Her messes used to stay in her room but increasingly, they have claimed our family living space.

“I’m done.” I say. “It’s time for The Talk.”

I have a long-standing history of straightening up after my daughter. As a busy, creative-type, she had never been neat as a child, and is even less so as a teen. When she was younger, I would plow through her messy room. After she left for school every morning, I felt compelled to pick up dirty soccer clothes, a crusty bowl from the morning’s oatmeal, a random headband lying in my path. I would make piles. I’d throw her comforter over the sheets as I walked out the door, so the bed at least looked made.

But really what I wanted was for her to clean up after herself. Wary that my interventions were only enabling her messy habits, I made weekly checklists in an attempt to get her to uphold a minimum standard of neatness on her own.

This ushered in a new type of tug-of-war between us: It was on me to enforce the different methods I kept introducing. She would improve, but then life would accelerate and she would regress with full force. I would too. I stepped back in and tidied up. It was a tiring see-saw. Not only that, I grappled with guilt because I felt like a pushover and also smarted from the additional work I was absorbing.

We talked. I cajoled. We argued. I nagged. But mostly, I bit my tongue and unloaded my frustration on my journal. I was having the same conversations over and over again in my head. My 13-year-old daughter stashes clothes under her pillow! And it’s only a few steps in one direction to her closet, a few steps in the other to the dirty clothes hamper. Things disappear in her bed! She was worried to death over a lost watch, which she later found—in the folds of her sheets.

I had felt it my parental duty to foster the maxim that tidiness is a foundational life-skill in my child, because right or wrong, I wondered if her chances for a happier, more successful future would be hampered by a chaotic environment. “There are long-term benefits to keeping a tidy space,” I explained. For myself, it leads to greater productivity and reduces the odds that I’ll misplace things. I thought it was a good conversation, but—nothing.

I blamed myself for not effectively instilling this value in her. She was demonstrating that it was possible to be a solid, well-adjusted kid and successful student without being neat. She was as amazing as she was messy and this combination challenged my categories.

After I pointed out the mess in the kitchen, my husband didn’t think we needed to talk to her. He argued that she was navigating the burdens of a heavy academic load, college applications plus athletics and teenage relationships. A lecture on tidiness was a refusal to see beyond the messes to what mattered most, our daughter.

“Laugh it off!” he said gently. “Focus on enjoying the daughter we have. She’ll be out of the house in under a year.” Off to college, scattering her messes to uncharted territories. My husband’s words encouraged me to reconsider my position and then to let go, once and for all. I had started doubting my hell-bent mission to make my daughter a neat person years earlier, yet my internal agitation had persisted.

Once I separated out my sorry sense of failure as a mother, I could better ask, why did this matter so much to me? If this was one area she was getting wrong, I realized there were hundreds she was getting right, maturing into a thoughtful young woman despite my private agonizing over her messy habits.

My efforts to alter her in this one arena were impeding my pure enjoyment for who she was. Instead of trying to fix her, I needed to accept that, though she was my daughter, she was unique—a completely different person than me. This issue of messiness was my issue, not hers, and the condition of her room didn’t make me a bad parent just as it didn’t make my daughter a bad person.

Once I stopped trying to change my daughter’s messiness, I saw her differently. I loved her more freely with fewer judgments flashing through my mind.

I admit, I did start straightening her room again, but this time with love racing through my veins, not the obsession of a reformer. During the summer between high school graduation and college she worked as host at a nearby restaurant and often closed, arriving home near midnight.

Feeling the pangs of her detaching, I would wander into her ransacked room in the evenings, tip-toeing over her stuff to reach her blinds and shut out the dark. I switched on her bedside lamp. I straightened her never-made bed and then folded it down, a perfect angle. I carefully retraced my steps, turning off the overhead light. I softly closed the door. I didn’t tidy it completely, but I let her know I was there with a few little touches.

We never spoke about it until we were hugging goodbye in front of her college dorm early September.

“I love you!”

“I know,” she said. “You showed me every time you made my room cozy and ready for me after work.” In front of me was an independent-minded, young woman and I regret how long it took me to regard her messes as a whimsical part of her, adding to her depth and complexity as an individual. Today, her signature messes are gone.

I miss them.