Mom, I'm a gamer.
As a kid my main passion was sports simulators - NBA, NHL, FIFA. I didn't just play, but commentated on all the games, held imaginary morning talk shows with the best players on the way to school, and interviewed the heroes of the past matches in the evening. I also liked to play FNF Mods even at school. It was a world where I could escape the tyranny of school and family troubles. It was more than ten years later that I realized that this hobby had predetermined my life. At an early age I decided to study sports journalism and even joined the TV department of the Faculty of Journalism, but later I reconsidered my interests and preferred books to the TV camera.
I got a computer a little bit later than my classmates - at the end of 7th grade. It was bought for educational purposes (thanks to the school!). Then I got acquainted with the world of new games. After https://fnfunblocked.com/ and other simple browser games when I was In 8th-9th grades or so my classmates and I were hooked on the online shooter Counter-Strike: Source. And for me it was an important moment of socialization. There were Russian kids playing with us online from Germany, Holland, USA and other countries, some of them much older than us, and all the time we were communicating not only about tactics and headshots - we were discussing teenage problems, sharing our experiences. There were no taboo topics, and there was something real about it all. We felt like we'd be playing Contra ten years or twenty years from now, with our kids.
But in high school, books came into my life and became deeply ingrained in it. Several factors influenced this. The literature teacher changed, who gave us enough freedom, we could choose what to read, say and write. And in my family I was never forced to read. By the age of sixteen I had read very little for myself and from the school program - only "Woe from Wit". But in the eleventh grade I devoured more than two hundred books and made up for lost time. But that was my choice, not my parents' or teachers'. Computer games became secondary, I became interested in hip-hop, which was in harmony with literature. When I went to university, video games disappeared from my life for eight years.
He would have been better off reading books.
Why is reading books good and playing video games bad? This stereotype was formed from assumptions that have different origins. The first reason has to do with the fact that literature is the main art in Russia and we are a literature-centric nation. It is no coincidence that literature is the only subject that is studied so deeply at school. Not cinema, painting, or music, but literature. Video games in Russia are not considered an art form at all. Although in other advanced countries, games are taken much more seriously. The second premise is related to the idea that books are serious and games are primitive. In fact, the complexity of the plot, depth of characters, philosophical subtext and relevant issues of video games today would give up many books. And the variability of narrative presentation provided by the format of a video game is simply not possible in a book or film. One of the main narrative advantages of video games is the ability to influence the plot and make difficult moral choices.
What is the solution?
Nowadays Parents face a difficult task: they are forced to be interesting to their children beyond the bare experience of life, which is no longer enough, which turns out to be irrelevant, and the parent cannot respond to the challenges faced by the adolescent. Unlike previous generations, today's authority needs to be earned, and this requires effort. And more and more often, the parent gives in to the game console or YouTube in the struggle for the child's attention. Or the parent doesn't fight at all, because it's easier - it's always hard to change.
If the family has a good relationship, but the teen is still playing games into the night, forgetting promises and forcing Mom and Dad to snap, the parent has nothing to do but inform. Give the child a choice. "If you go to bed late, it will be hard to get up for school, you'll be broke in class, you'll go to practice tired," is what you should convey to the child. If he prefers to do it his way, the next day he will be responsible for his own choice. And the second, third time he will go to bed on time. But he will do it himself. Verified by personal experience, for this is how my mother informed me when I was up late into the night. Usually the teenager clearly understands what he was wrong, his conscience torments him for every broken promise and petty lie. Tormented, of course, only if he respects his parents. In addition, the prospect of sleep for a teenager seems boring and certainly loses an extra half hour of travel in a fantasy world. It should be understood that children play games because they are their games, their choice, not imposed by their elders or school.
