How Can You Prevent Game Addiction In Kids?

Sometimes playing games can be really fun and relaxing. It is possible to lose ourselves spending hours in a virtual world with our friends or individually. However, this fun can turn into an addiction. So at what point does gaming turn into game addiction?

Video games have been in our lives for almost 50 years, but studies about their harm are still at an early stage. Still, different groups have different views on whether prolonged gaming is an addiction or not. One group claims that prolonged gaming is an addiction and has harmful side effects. But the other group claims that its just a simple habit.

Gaming addiction is defined clinically as follows:

The World Health Organization (WHO) added 'game addiction' in 2018 to its medical reference book called 'International Classification of Diseases (ICD)', which includes disorders defined as 'diseases'.

How Can You Detect If Your Kid is Addicted to Gaming?

According to the DSM-5 handbook published by the American Psychiatric Association, there are some criteria for detecting gaming addiction. If your child has met at least five of these DSM-5 criteria within a year, he or she may may have gaming addiction.

The specified criteria are as follows:

What Can You Do to Prevent Game Addiction?

Plan Some Outdoor Activities

Plan some outdoor activities with your family. This will keep your child away from the virtual world for a bit and will allow him to do activities different from playing video games. Especially, outdoor activities, including exercise will help reduce the health risks of your kid sitting for a long time and playing indoors.

Keep Gaming Devices Away From The Room He/She Sleeps At Night

Try to keep devices such as phones, tablets, laptops where games can be played away from the room where your child sleeps. With this way, your child will not try to play games in secret from you at night, and also by having a good night's sleep, he will not come across you in the morning with his eyes red due to playing games and lack of sleep.

Set a Limit For Gaming Time and Strictly Stick to That Limit

If you want to prevent your child from becoming a game addict, it is necessary to limit the time of using this "addiction" tool. Instead of banning him from playing games, giving him / her some time to play will relax him more and help him / her overcome this addiction. It is very important that you stick to the limit, because if you do not take this seriously, neither will your kid.