The Gaming Overload Workbook

Do you live with a person obsessed with video games? A person who'd rather play Minecraft than ball? Who would sooner build worlds in Terraria than accompany you to the neighborhood barbecue? I took it hard, the day I finally admitted to myself that what most inspires my nine-year-old son is a video game. Certain we were on the road to laziness, brain atrophy, and obesity, I went through a long spell of helicopter parenting: policing, nagging, and threatening. My lowest move was to hide the ipad. This was not a sustainable approach. It didn't make the desire for video games go away. If anything, the deprivation increased the appetite. It made everybody feel bad. I had to face facts: the world was against me in this fight. Laptops, ipads, ipods, smart phones, Xbox-this stuff isn't going anywhere. I needed a positive approach to video games, to screen time in general, a term meaning any time spent in front of a screen: games, movies, or movies of other kids playing games. The following book worked.