Video Games & Your Kids

Obsession with video games has risen to the level of addiction worthy of possible listing as a psychological disorder, according to psychotherapists Cash and McDaniel. They explore the addictive nature of many games and offer assessment tools for parents to determine if the games are presenting a danger to their children. They examine research on the physiological effects of too much gaming, particularly for younger children, as well as negative effects on academic and social skills. Drawing on vignettes from their own practice, they look at various development stages and how children are affected by excessive video-game playing, from console games to group online games and social networks. Each chapter ends with practical advice for parents on setting limits. The final chapter is aimed at families in need of intervention beyond the book. Whether parents think games represent as extreme a danger as do Cash and McDaniel, who cite action taken by the Chinese and Korean governments to curb gaming, they will appreciate the information, including a glossary of computer-game terminology.
--Vanessa Bush - BOOKLIST

This much-needed book provides both information and an action plan for families affected by video game worries. For others, it should serve as a large red flag signaling the importance of awareness and prevention of an insidious sickness among our children.
— Jane M. Healy
Educational Psychologist
Author of Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds and What We Can Do About It

This book is a tool that every parent should have when rearing children in modern society; helpful and insightful, amazingly practical, and completely indispensable. Thank you for writing this, everyone should read it even if they’re not concerned about video game addiction; this is distilled parenting at its best.
— Aaron
Recovering video game addict

Finally a very overdue book about a serious, emerging problem of computer addiction and the effect of computer use on children and youth. It is a comprehensive source book, well written, easy to follow, in the context of child development that every parent and concerned person should read.
— Katarina Cernozubov-Dogman, PhD
Founder of the Unicorn Program.

It’s about time someone wrote a real, easy to read, honest book about the risks of video gaming, a problem that’s not going away. It’s a spot on look at something so common it scares me.
— Jay Parker
Author of Sex and Love Addiction: My Journey from Shame to Grace

In our “Information Age” it is all too easy to make provocative statements about video games and the Internet without backing them up with knowledge and experience. Hilarie Cash and Kim McDaniel provide both knowledge and experience in their timely book, Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control. Based on their knowledge and experiences as psychotherapists, they share vital signs and guidelines gleaned from adolescents, teens, and adults, who, for a variety of reasons, became functionally addicted to playing video games.
Video Games & Your Kids can help parents realize they are not improving their children’s lives by allowing them unlimited access to video games. Signs of addiction, along with effective tools for dealing with children who are displaying unhealthy behaviors are included, but just as importantly, why video games and the Internet can be so addictive is also explained. It is my belief that video games and the Internet have extremely useful roles to play in education and society, but their dark side and limitations must also be understood. This book provides an important part of that education.
— Ruth Fruland, Ph.D., Education
Human Interface Technology Laboratory