Do violent video games cause behavior problems?
Video games are often frowned upon by parents as time-wasters, and worse, some
education experts think that all video games corrupt the brain. Many video games are being put as responsible by the media and some parents as the cause of a child became violent or lack of social skills. Some parents even believe that those video games had led their children
to became anti-social and put most of the responsibility of the child's
emotional breaks on the video games. But nowadays, many video games have been proven to actually teach children social and guide them with life skills that they would often use in the future.
When your child play video games, it actually enhance their brain with critical thinking. In many video games, to get to the higher level, abstract and strategic skills are needed. Your child is challenged to solve problems in the games and have to use creative skills to pass. As example in the game Scribblenauts, the player is required to enter words that will form into an object according to the meaning of the word to pass the level. This process enhance your child's ability to spell and create new things by combining words. It progressively needs your child to be more creative as the level gets higher.
Video games also helps your child manages multitasking and responds well on challenges, frustration and goals of the games. In most of video games, there is a multiplayer setting, which gives your child an opportunity to play with various different people at the same time. This would introduce your child the concept of team working, management and create individual skills to contribute to the team. Nowadays, there's many simulation games created that allow your child to experience first hand how to manage and handle situation such as an Airplane Stimulation game.
Althought video games are giving positive influence to the players, there are some negative effect that could happen if the process of playing is being abused and obsessed with. Like all things, extreme could bring harm to your child. Extreme playing could make your child socially isolated. He may spend less time in other important activities such as doing recreation, reading and doing homework. This why it is important to control the amount of time your child is spending on a video game. Explain the child how much joy he is missing if he continues to enjoy only one thing for a very long time. It is important for them to know that life is about cherishing the time given by experiencing the best of both real world and video games world.
Some video games actually do give bad influence to your child by teaching them the wrong values of life. Some violent video games rewards violence, vengeance and aggression and are encourage to do it to pass levels. Negotiation and other non violent solution are often not given as an option. Women as often portrayed as weak characters and could actually affect the self esteem of your child. It is important for a parent to ensure these stereotypical and violent games does not get to your child for them to play. There are other more interesting games with more challenging plots and positive values out there for you as parents to unveil to your child.
Last but not least, video games has its positive and negative sides but it is up to you as parents to ensure that only the positive side of video games are affecting your child. The violence and aggression video games exposure to your child could be control if you have the will to do it. Not all video games are bad. Some have proven to help child's with speech impediment and even dyslexia. Take time to know the importance of video games instead of blaming all of them on the cause of your child being negative. You can make a difference on how video games affect your children.
