Parent's Guide to Video Game Playing Time
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| Parent's Guide to Playing Time |
How much gaming time a day is reasonable?
That question is difficult to answer because there are so many factors to consider. First make sure the room is well lit and the kid is far enough away from the TV screen to allow for distractions from other things happening around them that are not in the video game. Now as far as time, let's start with the basic child playing a game offline. Absolutely at any point during game play when a child feels light headed or tiredness they should stop for a while even if this happens after only 30 minutes of gaming. Offline an hour a day is reasonable. When they have friends over on a rainy day they usually will trade off playing time so maybe two hours under those circumstances. When the child is going to play online give them at least 20 minutes for online game setup which includes the time it takes to actually get into and start playing an online game. Then add an hour. So for online gaming 1 hour and 20 minutes is reasonable.
I would strongly suggest this not be a per day boundry. As your child grows up they'll start screaming that they haven't played in 5 days so they should be allowed 5 hours of gametime today. Basically it should be represented as "if you choose to play you get no more than an a day" instead of phrasing it "per day".For younger children the time should be shorter. A good idea would be to have something like a board game ready when they finish and play with them or go for a walk with them when they finish. As they get older this will help them to automatically come up with transitional activities to occupy their energy rather then putting that energy into fighting the parent because of the looming anticipated boredom that they think will happen when they stop playing.