How to protect yourself or your kids for a game addiction?
Hello friends, and welcome to my post about, how to protect yourself or your kids for a game addiction? Maybe you already witness the fact that i upload many videos regard the game i love to play the most, and that is world of warcraft. Here is one video as example.
Then i might give you the feeling like someone who is drunk, wants to tell you about how to defend yourself against alcohol!! But things are not always as what it seems, because i play this game, when i have done all my responsibilities and got free time over. That saying, its possible to do both in life, as long as you keep using your brains, or else you might lose yourself in the game, and then its game over!!
And when that happen, then people might get addicted to a game, or lose social relationships what are important for your future. I mean, i know some guys who played FiFA to much, while their wives are asking for attention. Until they get the attention what they needed, but from the wrong guys!
Or children could sit at home whole day, playing video games or playing on their cell phones and IPad. And this sight is started to be a normal, where a group of children sit in a row playing games on a cell phone.
My advice would be, if you invite someone for a party and they have children. Then tell them that they should take the cell phones and iPad from the children, and that the parents should make the example by not using their phones on that party. Then you should create some games for the children, where they are forced to play together.
That would create the opportunity that children among each other, get to know each other better, what would lead to life long friendly relationships with each other. Even if your children had never seen the other children before, then those games would make sure, that they get the chance to know each other. And the best friends in life, are the ones who you know since your a kid. And that knowledge could be used with your own children. But this will never work, when all children on a party are non stop busy on their phones or IPad.
That saying, children only copy what they see from their parents or adults. There for its important that we make the right example, and that we create the right circumstances for the children to revolt into social human beings.
This can't be done if we show them to act like idiots who needs a cell phone or a video game to have some fun, and we can't assume that children knows how to make fun, if we don't show them what can be fun.
And that is what the game industry is playing along with, they create games which are not of this world! In way that those games are very creative, fun and you can even meet other people. Like taking a adventure into space, or create your own city or country, and fight the same battles of the past, or a game like World of Warcraft, and all can be fun and that fun could lead to a addiction.
So how to protect yourself or your children against a game addiction? Well just stop gaming would be the most logical answer right? But no, because then your would only run away from the real problem, and if you don't fix that problem, then sooner or later another problem will come along.
There for you have to go to the source of the problem, and that is the only way to fix it. And that source is the reward system in your brain, that is responsible for every addiction what we humans can have. To much Dopamine will get you out of balance, and will make sure that your brain can feel and taste the bigger amount of Dopamine, and will get used of it, and then will demand from you that you must come with the same amount of dopamine or more.
Its a repeating process what will only lead to a bigger problem, what would be a addiction. So the key is to understand how the reward system work, and use that system with everything you do. That means, you and your children needs to learn to live with the knowledge of how the reward system works in your brain, and use it for your benefit. Or your ignorance will lead you or your children to a addiction.
And if you see that you or your children get aggressive by gaming, then the problem is already that big, that you are forced to work on the aggression as well. That means, you also have to accept the aggression, because the energy of the aggression will never leave, but it can change form into something positive and use it for your own benefit.
Because it works like this, in a game you will get quest or missions, they are the goals. That means in your mind, you will create a goal and after finishing the mission, you will get rewarded in the game, but also in your mind with dopamine. So every time you create a goal and finish that goal, it will create dopamine in your brain, and the dopamine will give you a nice feeling, a feeling of joy or success. And if you don't succeed in a mission, then the opposite feeling of joy will appear. And if that feeling keeps repeating in your brain, then that will lead to aggression.
There for its needed to create the right balance in life, to get the joy from dopamine and to feel happiness by serotine. Now serotine sends signals between your nerve cells in your body, and with the right balance in your body, it will give you a calm and relax feeling, and you can sleep better and you will feel more happy.
And you can rise up the serotin level in your body, by eating the right food, and by going outside more often, you need sunlight for that. Now this is a huge problem with gamers, who are more busy with games, then to eat the right food, and that they are not going outside long enough, and if you mix this with the fact that most gamers are busy with missions, what they can't finish, then the lack of serotonin can lead to depression.
So to blame this all to the game industry is nothing more or less that seeking for someone to the blame. Because at the end of the day if someone should get the blame for all this, then it's the education system. Who supposed to educate us and our children, they should have taught us or our children about how to use the chemical reactions or systems in our brain. Instead of using that knowledge against us. This should have been common knowledge, like read or writing.
I mean, who ever drived a car without getting to learn how to drive a car?
Nobody right, well same thing count for our brains. What is a complicated computer, what everyone needs to learn how to use it, or else we might lose yourself in anything what we do. That can be your work, or your partner or into games. Now to answer the topic title question....
The first thing you should do is, find something creative to do for your children, that creative must be something where they get rewarded as well. Like my son plays soccer, and then i go outside with him and give him small missions to finish. And after he finishes those missions, then he gets rewarded with playing video games. For the time we agreed on.
On this way, he knows what he will get, and he learns that he can also be rewarded with dopamine by doing something else then video games. That is to make sure that he will understand that the joy in life will not come from one creativity, and can come from everything he creates a goal for it. And that is what we parent should do for our children, that is to learn them how to create goals in life, and that they can only be rewarded after they reached that goal.
And that other creativity should be something outside, because it's needed to work on his serotonin level, what they will get if they go outside. Now imagine what the effect would be if you use this strategy on children parties. By creating games with short missions, what they can finish easily of together as a group?
It will boost the dopamine level and the serotonin level, and it will also learn them how to finish goals and learn what the reward will be. And when the times' comes that they are old enough for a conversation, then its needed to explain how the reward system works, and how they can use it in their daily life in the future. Because that is my goal of this post, that the reward system can be used in everyday life and if you combine that with rising up your serotonin level, then you have already reached the finish line to a happy life, where you tried or reached the goals you wanted.
Now this is how i live with gaming, i do not wake up with it, and i do not go to sleep with it, and when i see i got the time and energy to play, then il go online and have some fun, until i see its time to stop. And on the same time i love walking in the forests, or on farmland or to joy the small things in live, without neglect any responsibilities as a father or as a husband. That saying, im certain you and me or anyone else, can create a balance in your life without getting addicted to anything. But first you need to be aware of your own or your children state of mind.
So if you or your children get aggressive by gaming, then its time for action or else it can be to late and then your children will lack social skills or even get depressed and you as a adult can even lose your social friends or even worse, your partner. While we all deserved to be happy right? Then you need to work on it and learn how the chemical reactions in your brain work, and use that knowledge to educate your children. Because the only knowledge about the reward system in our education system, is used against us all. And i hope this post will open your mind to do more research into the chemical reactions in your brain, because that research will make sure to protect you and your children against any type of addiction.
I thank you all for reading!
If you want to know more about those chemical reactions, then please watch this video.
