Customer Reviews

Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control

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I would strongly recommend this book, particularly to parents of young children who are playing video games. It details how gaming can become a serious problem and what steps to take to prevent it from happening. We have a 16 year old who became addicted to a game called World of Warcraft. If not for our own experience, I would have thought that the consequences of too much gaming that the book talks about are exaggerated, however, they are NOT exaggerated, as our child suffers from almost all of them. I wish I had this book 5 years ago. It is the first that I am aware of to address the growing problem of video game addiction.

I wish this book was available 10 years ago when a whole generation of children were beginning to play video games without guidance and professional advice was just not available.
This book is very well written, and it addresses a topic few people are really aware of : Video games addiction.
The book not only explains the biological and phsychological issues related to this addiction, but it also offers insights and guidelines to parent young children and young adults as well.
I highly recommend this book to any parent raising children in the cyber age.
Thank you to the authors for sharing their professional experties desperately needed for so many parents.

what a great book! as a psychologist working in an elementary school, i'm amazed at how much time kids spend on video games and internet- and can see just how much this time takes away from pro-social development and increases the very issues they come to therapy to decrease. this book is well organized and provides a great deal of information about how game time can affect children's developing brains and bodies, and how parents can help limit and intervene. thank you to the authors. i hope we have a lot more conversation on his important topic.

This is an excellent book. In fact, having looked at many books on the subject of computer gaming and addiction, I believe this is by far the best book on the subject. The authors are internationally recognized specialists in the field and have extensive experience providing counseling and therapy for gaming addicts. The book covers the subject in a thorough and very readable way, it is based on solid science and therapeutic practice, and it has very practical advice. In the age of the Internet, I think every parent should read this book. If you have ANY concerns about your children playing online and other video games, or even about your young children's use of computers and the internet generally, you certainly should read this.

If you do not have any such concerns, then you need all the more to read this book, because you then WILL have concerns, but know what do do about them.

This is an excellent book and a very quick read about a gigantic epidemic which is largely ignored. Our kids are in serious jeopardy. I have witnessed the devastating effects electronics obsession and video gaming can have on a once-healthy kid and his family. This book should be given out to all new parents so they can avoid the traps many of us have fallen into. The chilling thing about this book is that many of the cases described involve kids who seem permanently effected and face a long life of intervention ,counseling, and only partial success in life. Yikes! Think about that next time you go to buy another video game for your kid.

I strongly believe that video game addiction is currently one of the biggest threats in America today. It affects people of all ages. Nobody is too young to become hooked to games. And nobody, when heavily engaged in playing games or surfing the internet, is powerful enough to overcome the addiction. Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control is a great book that stays relevant and to the point. I am particularly surprised in several details from the book. One is that research has proven that video games do worsen gamer's intelligence. Two is that kids learning from educational programs tend to learn less words than they would from print. Three is that just because one becomes pretty good in skills in games doesn't translate well in reality, which makes total sense to me. There have been claims that video games do make kids smarter, but I strongly disagree with that. Playing video games as well as being on internet does not use as much of brain muscles as it would be used in simple math computations. Rather, the brain is more stagnated. One obvious reason to it is that a huge number of games is extremely repetitive. Anyone who played Nintendo games will tell you that these games are almost never random; it's always in patterns, and memories will have to be formed. Thus, playing a level has to be done over and over and over until it's perfectly mastered to reach new levels. But is it constructive in a positive way? An experienced gamer myself, I have to say no. I come from the Atari age of early 80's and have been a major part of the NES generation, and I can pretty much say, with certainty, that NES wasn't that addicting back then. Large part of this has to do with how challenging these games were. So, it became pretty easy to be tuned out from it. Many kids around my neighborhoods resorted to going outside, riding bikes and playing a lot of sport games. But today, that type of culture has rapidly diminished. Kids nowadays are nowhere in sight in mass on streets, so it's safe to assume that they are staying home, being involved with some form of multimedia. It is almost akin to an electronic babysitter. Hence, it's very unfortunate that the nation of kids has come to this point of life. Obesity is at all time high and is seeing no end to a slowdown. Scholastic achievement have plummeted over the decades. Back then, NES games tend to last a short time to beat, usually in minutes, if it could be deemed beatable. But today games, whatever the platform: PS2, PS3, Wi-Fi, PC, whatever; are marathons. The key difference between NES games and games of today is difficulty factor. The easier the games, the more time the kids will spend playing. It took me 20 to 30 minutes to fully beat Super Mario Bros. but three months to beat Grand Theft Auto III. There were simply too many goals, almost all useless, in the latter game. Remember, people are usually goal orientated; give them a something to do, if it turns out to be a pleasurable activity, they will work for an end, no matter how long it takes. Finally, the biggest dilemma of hard core gamers, how long is too long? Sorry, the dopamine in the brain has no switch off once the gamer is fully engaged because goals must be met. So, what's the worst possible scenario? Ding-Dong....Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). That's a huge cash cow, if I must say. I once got involved in playing Evony, and I played it nonstop for 2 weeks. Although a cool concept, I seriously question the point of playing the game any further if there is no end. Nobody actually dies in it. Then, there are serious maintenance issue, that is, if my empire grows bigger and bigger, it means more and more maintenance to keep it running. Thus, more hours spent to keep up at it. Impossible. Then, at the end, after all are said and done, so...the meaning is? The accomplishment is...? That's why I ultimately found no point in further continuing. However, there is a legion of addicts, not only in Evony but elsewhere of MMORPG, that think otherwise and will continue for months with no regard to reality. Anyway, too bad for them, and I feel worse for the others around this person's life being affected by all of it. Yes, video game and internet addictions are a serious problem that may one day be a worldwide epidemic. All of the topics addressed in Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control are dead on spot, and nothing is exaggerated by any means.

Moderation is key to all things, including video games. "Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control" is a parent's guide to the world of video games for children for their parents. Discussing age appropriateness, how much a parent should allow their children to play video games in general, it also discusses problems children may have already, like existing addictions to online games. "Video Games & Your Kids" is a solid choice for parents of young gamers.

Parents with children playing video games need to read this book. It has some very important information not only for childred but adults also. A very good book.

Who would think a book about parents staying in control of video games and kids could be a page turner? Well, this book written by Cash and McDaniel is just that. Extremely informative, practical advice and so readable.

Joy Rome, M.A.