Guilt or Pleasure: Should We Limit Time Spent Playing Games and Social Networking?

Children are the product of our upbringing. For years the family loves, cares, and invests in the child. But in the end we have either a new adult person or an "eternal boy" or an "infantile girl", even if the grown-up child is 20-30-40 years old. 

Why does one person grow into a good and worthy person, and another - not so much? Because the results depend on what exactly we put into the child.

Naturally, children imitate their parents in every way, so if mom and dad do not get away from the computer, it may become normal for their child. Many parents do not see anything bad in the fact that their baby agrees to eat only watching cartoons, that the schoolboy surfs the Net after doing his homework, that the teenager corresponds with virtual friends. After all, it is so convenient - they don’t ask for anything, they are busy, and they are at home. You don’t need to talk to them or explain things to them - everything can be found online.

And therefore, the question of “whether to limit our children’s time in the virtual space” is not a subject of thought for many parents. If there is bad behavior, we will punish them and take away their phones, computers and consoles; it there is good one, we will encourage. But is it that simple?

On the one hand, the verb "to bound" means "to restrict". But on the other, it also forms the root of another word - "boundaries". This term has become very popular recently – both children and adults know about their personal boundaries, fight for their integrity, and monitor their violations.

Existing Types of Boundaries:

• Physical, related to the integrity of the body and the ability to satisfy our physiological needs.
• Emotional, aimed at protecting our feelings and the possibility of their free expression. 
• Timeframes protecting our time.
• Intellectual, allowing us to have our own opinions on various issues.
• Sexual, emphasizing our sexual integrity.
• Material, based on our right not to share things, resources or any other of our possessions.

Our boundaries are formed through the appropriation of rules that our parents transmit. Every time parents "pity" a child, change the rules on the go, and fail to set limits, they face a paradox, as in the old song, "You wanted a thunderstorm, but you got a goat". Therefore, reasonable limits are mandatory for children's boundary formation. Otherwise, they will not learn the rules of life in society, will not learn to be patient today for the sake of a better tomorrow, will not be able to withstand the stress associated with “must”, in favor of “want”.

It’s not easy for parents, because a small child is making a fuss and screaming, a younger schoolchild is quietly breaking the rules, and a teenager is rebelling. Sometimes you want to give up on everything - let him do what he wants, I don't have the strength to fight anymore. But responsibility for boundaries is part of parental duty.

Boris Sergeyevich Bratus, a Russian psychologist, once suggested that pleasure without effort is the way to an alcoholic psyche. And if a child spends endless time on social networks or plays games, he or she becomes uninterested in "boring everyday life" and "gray reality" - after all, you can just turn on a computer or pick up a phone.

Of course, virtual life ranges from normal use to Internet addiction, so restrictions should be reasonable. Children can use the Internet to watch useful content, do homework, and socialize. But in the case of abuse, the child does not develop boundaries:

• Physical, related to sensitivity to one's body: the child ignores physiological signals; gobbles food without paying attention to; sits in one position for lengthy periods of time, spoiling one’s posture.
• Emotional, requiring awareness, “filtering” and adequate expression of one’s own experiences: children can become very angry in a virtual game; receive a charge of toxic rejection during cyberbullying; become upset because of negative comments or comparing themselves with more successful peers, which undermines the nervous system.
• Timeframes aimed at time control – with addiction, the sense of time is lost, and hours and minutes flow into a well of beautifully packaged junk content.
• Intellectual, forcing you not to think, but to look for an answer in the almighty Google. Children make mistakes, ignoring the rules of syntax and punctuation; plunge into information chaos; communicate using emoticons and emojis, as if they were cavemen with rock paintings.
• Sexual, associated with trust in dangerous people, early sexualization, visiting porn sites, and risky dating.
• Material, leading to secret spending of parental money, to tragedies during the theft of virtual characters into which many resources have been poured, to participation in online gambling.

The Internet, like everything else in this world, can be both evil and good, poison and medicine. If a child is not good at socializing, virtual friends may be a good opportunity. If he or she is interested in crafts, there is an option to find a useful video online and get detailed and clear instructions. If there is a wish to study something in depth, relevant information can be found online. But if a child has gone over to the “dark side,” parents should pay close attention to this.

What Should be Done First?

1. Analyze how much time your child spends online. If it is more than three hours - it is probably an addiction. 
2. Think and remember how long this has been happening - the longer the period of "hanging out on the Internet", the more time you will have to spend returning the child "to the real world".
3. See exactly what the child is doing there - using TikTok, reading books (which is not bad in itself), being stuck in a virtual casino or mindlessly browsing VK pages.
4. In case of abuse or addiction to the virtual world, do not scold and forbid, but help the child to find something to do in real life. It should be something meeting his interests, something important and pleasant to do.
5. Talk to your child about all the downsides and risks of social networks: cyber scammers, pedophiles, inadequate people - according to his age and interests.
6. Teach your child time management, help him or her develop self-discipline and planning skills together with understanding that both of you will need time for that.
7. And most importantly, do all this with love. Because your childhood was not perfect either, you also used to get stuck somewhere and miss something out, somewhere your parents didn't "push" you enough. But now you are an adult and can make the future of your son or daughter at least a little bit better.