Between Covid, new projects, a big move, and job changes, the blog has been a little quiet. But I’m back and will be posting a couple of times a week to share book and tour updates, writing tips, and just general life insights. I liked to start with a post I shared on my social media last week. Feel free to jump into the comments with questions or thoughts about this or anything else.
If you’re familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you probably know that there is sort of a pyramid of things that most people need to be happy. The base of the pyramid is physiological needs like food, water, shelter, and sleep. After that comes safety, then love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
Basically someone who who doesn’t know if they will have a meal that day can’t spend a lot of time worrying about how high their self-esteem is. It’s still important to them, but it normally doesn’t take priority.
What a lot of people don’t realize is how important having a sense of control over one’s life is on the pyramid. It falls in the safety tier, second only to the basics you need to stay alive. Most severe claustrophobics will tell you that claustrophobia isn’t about the space they are in, it’s about a lack of control. I can shut myself in a closet if I know I can open the door. But put me in a crowded room where I don’t feel like I can easily get to a door and I have to get out immediately.
Kids are especially prone to experiencing a lack of control in their lives. Things like shooter drills, family changes, and lack of stability affect adults, but to kids they can feel like everything is completely out of control–which can be terrifying.
Over the last year, many kids have felt the least in control of their lives since maybe any generation since the great depression. They don’t have the knowledge base to understand that things will eventually go back to normal or the coping skills to deal with these huge changes. To them, it can literally feel almost as frightening as losing a house or job feels to an adult.
Over the last year, I’ve talked to tons of parents who feel like their kids are playing too many video games, or watching the same shows or movies, or reading the same books over and over. What they don’t understand is that, for a lot of kids, video games are a way of creating order in their lives. You’ll see kids whose rooms in real life are a mess, but their virtual spaces are super super organized. I was talking to a kid about Minecraft, which is a game I play a lot, and he was telling me that he likes to “fix” villages where the villagers have been wiped out or turned to zombies.
Watching the same show or reading the same book over and over achieves the same thing. They know how it is going to end and it goes just the way they expect. That’s one of the reasons that early-reader books like Magic Tree House use the exact same characters saying the exact same phrases over and over.
So, if you’ve noticed your kids playing a lot of video games over the last year, instead of just limiting screen time, try talking to them about their games. Find out what appeals to them about that world, let them show you their bases, and characters. Then maybe talk to them about how they are feeling about their gamer world compared to their real world.
And, yes, the same goes for adults as well.
28 Comments
On the same weekend my college-age daughter came home for Spring Break and couldn’t go back due to Covid, Animal Crossing came out. She played it for several hours a day over the next few months, and I would sometimes just sit and watch her and ask her about it. It helped her deal with what she’d had to leave behind.
Yes! I seriously think that Animal Crossing was a lifesaver for a lot of kids and adults. I have lots of friends who were so thrilled when the new version came out during the middle of the pandemic.
For us it was Among Us. That game was a life saver cuz my boys could still play and connect with friends. They organized weekly games via zoom. Their school teachers even joined in the last week of class. It was awesome.
Yes. That was a great one to bring people together when they had to be apart.
It’s hard because school was online, social life was online, church was online, and then they wanted to spend their free time online playing games too and as a parent I felt guilty about them having so much screen time, but also too tired to push for anything different. Especially since we the parents were zoning out with memes and social media too. This is such a good reminder that it wasn’t about laziness so much as coping and to have more grace with myself as well as them.
That’s exactly it. So many things that we might have considered lazy or wasteful in pre-Covid life were exactly what we needed as coping mechanisms. That might be one of the biggest surprises for me. (Along with the great TP scare of 2020. 🙂 )
Your comment on claustrophobia hit the nail on the head. I am fine in elevators, closets, etc. Sometimes I even find the small, easy to control space comforting. But make me sit in the middle of a row in a crowded theater where I can’t easily escape? No way no how. Instant panic reaction. Crowded conventions are hard for the same reason – the crush of people feels too far out of my control. Glad to know I’m not a special sort of crazy.
Same. I’m fine in conferences when I sit in the back of the room near an exit or up front presenting, but I can’t sit in the middle of a crowded row. Even sitting in a restaurant booth where I’m not on the outside makes me sweat unless it’s my wife on the outside. We watch a lot of movies, but we always go to theaters where we can choose seats in advance. Back row, center, recliner. Lots of space and easy to get up any time. Crowded restaurant lobbies kill me. I’ll literally go stand out in the cold rain or snow. Big reason why I do almost all of my Christmas shopping online. 🙂
I love what you said – especially about asking kids about what they are doing – which is HOW they are coping. Great relationship building!
Agreed. It’s really easy to assume you know what’s going on in a child’s brain, but we are almost always wrong.
Very well written article. My adult daughters, living over 1500 miles apart, enjoyed keeping in touch by playing Animal Crossing together. It became their way of ‘visiting’ each other, and they each created a memorial for their deceased dad on their island, since they couldn’t visit his grave in person during the pandemic lockdown. As for me, I coped by rereading favorite books.
Thanks for giving me something’s to consider.
Oh, I love that!
Thank you! This past year has been hard. My son’s emotions are already close to the surface and too much screen time causes aggression, so I really try to limit it. This year I’ve had to allow more and it is good to know it isn’t just lazy parenting on my part. The discussions will be good. My husband has started playing Minecraft with him and it has been SO good for them.
He has hundreds of books to read, and loves reading, but something about those games is comforting. I have even struggled to read this past year. I get so anxious that if there is too much suspense or if I am not instantly hooked, I just can’t do it. Let’s hope for good times ahead.
Minecraft has been my goto for years. There really is something comforting about that world. The threats aren’t terrible, you can set your own pace, and you can switch between fighting and building, so kids can make it feel like home. They will talk your ear off about everything they are building and how they are making it and what they want to do with it.
Thanks for sharing this insight. I suddenly have more clarity about why my son was addicted to video games most of his childhood and teen years. He had ADHD as well as issues with his step-families that made him feel out of control a lot of the time. I’ve never been a gamer, but I also have my self-soothing habits (mostly involving chocolate).
My son is an adult now, but I’m sure I’ll use this insight in my writing.
As someone who wasn’t diagnosed as ADHD until I was an adult, I can tell you that people with ADHD are often very creative and driven, but we also need to feel in control of our lives. Games and books really help with that. And keep writing! I love hearing about your books.
I love how you suggest to ask them about their games. I’m not a parent but I’ve always felt that asking others about the things they’re enthusiastic about, whether it’s video games or anything else, is a great way to build trust and strengthen relationships with them.
I think it’s time that we as a society scrutinize the negative stigmas people have assigned to gaming and accept that there absolutely are benefits to gaming, too. I don’t believe I’ve ever looked at gaming from the perspective of how it allows the gamer to feel in control of something, especially when the gamer’s perceived reality is largely out of their control, but it makes sense. Certainly everything needs moderation, but we should be careful of invalidating others’ coping mechanisms – or their interests and passions. I really enjoy the tone and perspective of this post.
I wouldn’t call myself an avid gamer but I do play the Wii and Switch with my husband and siblings-in-law fairly frequently and we all have bonded so much over the games we’ve played together – especially during Covid. Additionally, on occasion I game solo on my PC (I enjoy open world adventure/action RPGs). I actually get lots of inspiration for my writing from the games I play! I believe my writing is more creative and exciting because of it. Perhaps we should add that to the large list of good things that can come from playing video games.
This is so important. I know people who paint miniatures, people who color, people who do acrylics or stained glass, or create memes, or explore caves, or rock hunt. We all need ways to feel creative and in control. And, as authors, we sometimes forget how non-writing creative activities can inspire us.
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve said this to people that I talk to. It’s amazing to me that we as adults have a hard time sometimes understanding the concept that kids need routine. They thrive when they have a separation of social life at school, social life outside of school, and responsibilities of home. When this all became smashed into one thing it would only stand to reason that many of them found “escape” in whatever way they could so that they could regain the order of their lives.
Thank you for recognizing this and commenting on it, because it’s easier to hear from someone we respect and hold in high esteem.
Awww, thanks so much. And you are exactly right. It’s super easy to forget how important routines are for kids. (At least until Daylight Savings Time when parents are trying to get their kids to adjust to the time change. 🙂 )
Thank you for this. My kids have used video games and Youtube to cope. I let them because I knew it was a coping mechanism for them, but I do feel guilty now that things are improving. My kids had school online for most of last year. I was surprised at how emotional they got about schoolwork. It is hard when they are all by themselves, trying to figure out assignments. My sons cried more than they ever had before just simply from frustration. A year to them is so much longer than a year to me. They really did feel like they had no control.
So much! Combine kids developing brains and changing hormones with all the added stress and changes in routine and it’s amazing they aren’t in a constant state of meltdown.
After I read your thoughts on this, I sat down with my 16 year old son who was playing Animal Crossing. And we had the best conversation about his creation, his animal neighbors, and the need to create something great. It also gave us a chance to chat about his friends, school and girls. And… he even invited me to participate!
Now to see if I have the same luck with my 10 year old who loves among us.
Yay! My kids are all older now and I miss those discussions. We still talk but now it’s like, “Was I really like this as a kid?!”
I love the way you think about things and the way you advocate for children ❤️
Awww thanks. It’s probably because I’m still a big kid.
It’s so important that we remember kids don’t see things the same way. Something that might not seem that big to us adults are huge and real to young people.
I really believe that’s one of the reasons that adults should keep reading MG books. I read an article recently about how books work on the human brain the same way that computer simulations train pilots. One of the things this does is literally put us in the brain of someone else. So reading books from the POV of kids and really anyone different from us, helps us develop compassion and see things from their point of view.