Lessen the Volume

Please keep it down!

Kids (agreeably): OK, Mom. (noise continues)Plastic Toy Face Screaming

(You repeat) Keep it down! 

Are your children typically boisterous in the house?  Expect the noisy trend to continue and grow when they play multi-player action/adventure video games.

If they play this game genre now, and the above conversation is familiar to you, the pattern has likely already been set. It will take some effort on your part to re-set it. They have become conditioned to screaming and cheering, moaning and groaning when their character is attacked by monsters, they discover diamonds, or another character tricks them.  They are typically innocently unaware of the volume of their racket.

These competitive games played with others can also bring out bursts of anger, either from themselves or their online “friends.” Other children playing with regularity often have an intensity that is heightened by winning and, of course, losing.  It becomes important to point out to your children that if they play with someone who is too regularly angry, they will want to avoid that influence.  Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go. (Prov 22:24)

Retraining entails reminding them (when they are not playing, and each time before they play) that playing video games in the house is the same as other inside activities—board games, building projects, crafting, and the like.  Conversation should be muted out of respect for others.   If they learn early to modulate their responses to reduce their raucousness, by the time they are teens they will be more likely to show self-awareness and self-control.

Resist the urge to move their computer into a far corner of the house to avoid the noise!  Train your children up, instead, to manage themselves, and the family may remain closer. Staying within earshot also allows you all kinds of insight into their problems and potential relating to gaming—but that is for another post.

 

Photo by Creative Commons License Kenny Louie via Compfight