One of the challenges parents face is that there is not one video game. What's more, there are so many kinds of systems that I doubt any one person can understand how every video game ends. This, of course, creates a problem for parents. When I coached little league, not one parent ever pulled their child out of a game before it was over. Often, they even hung around for the post-game speech and requisite snack.
[!tip] Pro tip:
Throw some hot dogs in a gallon igloo cooler full of boiling water, and you can serve up a tasty dog after a game.
However, it is a common source of intense heartburn for players to be yanked out of the middle of a "match" by an angry parent. First, we have to give some grace to the parents. The social cues that we use for the end of sports are not readily available online. First, a parent may not know that their child is playing with a friend or friends. Second, they may be unaware that their child is part of a team competing with another "team." Finally, most parents are unaware that an increasing number of games are streamed, allowing an audience to spectate.
When we ran video game tournaments for university students during COVID, spectators outnumbered players from 4 to 9 to one. This meant there could be 80-100 people watching two five-player teams go head-to-head in Overwatch or Call of Duty.
However, most parents see only their child, headphones on, controller in hand, staring at their screen. It is an easy mistake to make.
The key to making this mistake is to learn how video games end. I know that sounds daunting, but we can make it remarkably simple fast. The only games you need to understand are the ones your child plays. With that in mind, you get the next bit of obvious advice. Your player is an expert in how games end. This leads to a twin-value action you can take:
Ask your player to explain to you how their games stop.
Not every game can be paused. Many cannot be saved. And some games, the most insidious of all, exist in an environment that is the video game equivalent of a social media bottomless scroll, always on, never really pausable. They want you to spend your life in the game. (I'll try to give some tips on how to identify which games are healthiest and which are the most dangerous for kids.) However, there are many games that can be paused instantly - virtually every game on the Nintendo Switch can be "frozen" then "unfrozen" with the touch of a button. Everything about the game's state is preserved and restored. Then there are games where you just need to save your status, and some where you cannot save until you reach a checkpoint.
I realize this sounds horribly complex; however, when you narrow it down to needing to know only what is of interest to your child, it gets a lot simpler. Also, in having this conversation, you are taking the first steps into understanding the experience your child is having with video games. And this is a huge step. Many gamers feel lonely and misunderstood. They are investing enormous energy (and often time) trying to get good at the game. Games involve participation. Unlike the broadcast "Boob tube" I grew up with in the 70s and 80s, where the audience's only option was to sit there like a zombie, modern video games require participation, focus, and decisions. When you begin to understand what your child is playing and how they reach a conclusion, you are taking an important, but significant step into building a bridge from the real world to them, and for them, back to the real world.
This does not solve all your problems with ending video game time, but it is a very actionable start. And if your child has more than one gaming system, more than one game they like to play, you can make it a multi-part conversation, learning each game in turn and building up a better appreciation for the complex interactive world they are managing. What's more, you are also priming your child to develop their social skills of talking about what they are interested in. Give it a try, and let me know how it works out for you.
