The Real Pros And Cons Of Kids Playing Video Games

A lot of parenting debates about video games get stuck in extremes: either gaming is “brain rot” or it’s “the future, so who cares.” We take a different path and talk like real parents who are trying to raise healthy kids in a screen-saturated world while still letting them have fun. We share why we were nervous to introduce gaming, how today’s immersive games differ from the Nintendo days, and what research and lived experience suggest about cognitive benefits like problem solving, spatial awareness, planning, and hand-eye coordination.

We also get practical about screen time limits and why age matters. Little kids’ brains are still wiring up attention and self-regulation, and adding more screens on top of TVs and tablets can backfire fast. For many families, the sweet spot is introducing more complex video games around eight or nine, then keeping it grounded with clear expectations: time caps, warnings before shutdown, and “responsibilities first” rules that make gaming a privilege, not a default.

Then we go where parents really need clarity: online safety. We talk Roblox concerns, predators, and why “stranger danger” still applies on the internet. We cover parental controls, friend verification, and why we restrict communication to real-life friends only. We also wrestle with violent video games, desensitization, and why some titles, especially adult-rated games with misogyny and sexualized content, are a hard no. We end with the red flags for gaming addiction and what to do when it stops being fun and starts hurting sleep, school, and health.

If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a parent friend, and leave a quick review. What’s your biggest challenge with kids and video games right now?

Transcript

Summer Catch-Up And Travel Plans

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome to Life on 10. Hello, friends and family. It's Angela and Vanessa. Hello, everyone. Hello, hello, hello. We are deep into summer now. So deep into summer. We're so deep, we're still drinking our glass of Moscato. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm going to London this summer. Did I tell you that? Yes. Yes, I do tell you that. Super cool. I'm looking forward to that. And I think we're going to hop over to Paris. Ooh. I love that. You're just going to hop over to Paris. That's so fancy. I hope that everyone who's listening have a wonderful summer and that you guys have some great summer plans. It's important to get out and do some fun stuff. Yeah. Today we're going to talk about doing fun stuff inside. And

Why Video Games Hook Kids

SPEAKER_01 0:58

what are some of the pros and cons of some of the fun things your kids might be doing? Number one is playing video games.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Now, some of you may have kids that are like totally not into video games, don't want to play them. I don't know who either. And you're lucky.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

That one child.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

The one child who's like there, because there are kids that are like so into outdoor activity, sports, or whatever, that they're out like playing, riding their bike, doing whatever, you know, building forts. I don't know. I don't have that kid. Um, that kid is definitely not mine. My children, um, not my daughter likes to play video games a little bit. She she's in, she's like, you know, if I said no, you can never play it again, she'd be fine. Um, my son loves video games. Okay, let's talk about it. He loves it. And and it's it was something that for me, I was really I I avoided video games for a long time because I just I I was afraid, and this is this is where I was afraid of. You know, like the adult man who plays video games and like ignores his wife or his his spouse or whatever, and it's like that was what I was trying to not create.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Like you were trying not to be that person.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I was trying to not create that kind of a man.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I was so terrified that my son would be like so into video games. 35 games. He'd be like a 40-year-old man ignoring his his partner and you know, whatever, or like locked in a basement playing video games and not not in negotiating with the real world, right? Um, there's a there's a South Park episode where the kids get like so into video games that they all become like morbidly obese and they're like covered with pimples and they don't leave their chairs and they're I mean, I'm telling you, it's like that was the visualization I have. Oh, I know I love South Park too. Um, and and to be to be honest, I I spent a lot of time, you know, intermittently in summers playing video games. I did

From Nintendo To Immersive Worlds

SPEAKER_02 2:55

love um like Nintendo and my brother and I would play Street Fighter and whatever, but the video games back then were just so different than the video games they are now. The video games now are immersive in the most beautiful, I mean, they're they're they're beautiful, like and and the way that you get involved with them and the worlds that you can and sometimes create worlds and destroy worlds and you know, um uh and you can code in them. I mean, they're so advanced now that they um they actually are have studies have shown that they can improve your child's cognitive ability, their ability to problem solve, their ability um to um have uh with their like their spatial awareness and and and like hand-eye coordination type stuff. So way different than Street Fighter. Yeah. When I was playing Street Fighter, it was like how fast can your thumbs just mash two buttons as you know, e Honda does a massive, you know, uh uh hand slap. Like totally different than it was when I was a kid playing video games.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

I bet. I bet it's so advanced. So I'm gonna totally date myself. The video game that we had when I was probably in geez, junior high school. I don't even know, maybe it was high school. It was these two tin, it was these two sticks on the thing. It was one stick on the left, one stick on the right. And you just bounced the ball back and forth. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Yeah, you're totally dating yourself. I'm sorry. That was I swear to God.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

That was it. And then I think what came after that, then like Tetris, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe when was Mario Brothers?

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Mario Brothers, so that so the first Nintendo, the Nintendo Entertainment System had Mario Brothers in it. That's that makes me so excited. And uh then then came the Super Nintendo, and that thing was legit. Super Nintendo Super Nintendo was oh man, that was my jam. I played so much Super Nintendo. I had a regular Nintendo and then Super Nintendo, and then um, and then the PC came out, and I got my first PC when I was like 13. And it had like the dial-up internet, and then I remember that. But even with that, there was um there were some new video games that that the I remember the first person shooter game that I'd ever played, which was it was called Doom. Um, and you like you know, shot these creepy, doom, doom, you know, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Um you you talked about some of the pros, right? Yeah. Is

Screen Time And The Right Age

SPEAKER_01 5:19

there anything in the literature that um suggests like when an age range that kids get introduced to video games? Like, is it like should they not play until they're 10?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Should they so I think their recommendation is more, you know, getting them to like grade over age eight or nine.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

You younger kids, if you're playing educated, because a lot of time, a lot of it's screen time and development of people's brains, kids' brains. So little kids should not have much screen time.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

And a lot of times that screen time is already spent watching TV or doing tablets or playing, you know, like little games on a tablet or something. Um, but screen time, because it does actually affect children's development when they're little, like babies, toddlers, and into high school into kindergarten stuff, the recommendation is that you limit their screen time. Oh, okay. That's just as their brains are forming and they're doing things. But then as they start to get older, you can introduce screen time. And it's always it's always about moderation, right? You can do pretty much anything with moderation. And so um, it's the the most of the video games that we're talking about, and and it's also kids' ability to like actually be able to use the buttons and think, and it's because they're pretty complicated. Some of these games are really complicated. I remember my kids couldn't really play the video games well until they were at least, like I said, eight. Eight. Yeah. I mean, even before that, they didn't even really want to play because it was kind of boring. Their brains didn't quite understand it. So I didn't have to worry about this until they were eight, nine, ten that they even really wanted to play real video games.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Do you um how do you how do you not control, but yeah, how do you monitor how much how much he's playing?

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yeah.

Time Limits Rewards And Consequences

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So you absolutely cannot just let this be a free-for-all. Okay. Right? Because just like most kids, if you just walk away and let them do whatever they're gonna want to do, they're going to do the easiest thing in the world, which is sit on ass and watch TV or play play a video game. Now, mind you, there are, I was like a super book nerd. So if you left me alone all day, I would have read four books. Like I was just a reader from day one. So, but that's not normal. Like, that is just an odd kid.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

She's weird. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

I I think about the summers. Like I would sit with a stack of books next to me in my parents' house in a chair, and I would just read everything I could get my hands on. I just read, red, red, red.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Um I love that.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

I love that too. I wish my children were my kids are not my not, they're not like that. Um, but so with Salem, we we have to put, especially with him, because some like said, she could take it or leave it. But Salem, we have to put time limits on. So, you know, say, okay, hey, you know, you got another 30 minutes and then we're done for the day. Like you have to put a time to it. Okay. Um, and then you use it, in my opinion, you use video games as rewards for doing what you they need to do. So if they haven't cleaned their room, if they haven't done it, whatever it is that they're supposed to do, they haven't finished their homework, they don't get to play video games. Um, if and I use it as a takeaway. If you're behaving poorly, no video games this weekend, right? So it's an excellent tool to use to give a consequence. It's an excellent consequence.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Positive reinforcement.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah.

Gaming As Social Practice For Kids

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Um but one of the great things about it is um that Salem, as we had talked about in a previous episode, Salem is not a sports kid. He's also um he'll talk all day to adults. All day.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Really?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

But he isn't as great with kids because he's a little uh he's not weird. He just doesn't talk about a lot of things the way that they want to talk about. Like he wants to talk to you about the earth's access and how access and how it rotates. And and do you know why the middle of the earth is fatter than the rest of the like he these are things, and some kids just look at him like the glaze goes over and they're like, okay, I'm done. I don't want to talk about this. Um, so that's just how he is. So if video games is a great socializer, it is how he so he can socialize really, really well. He only has a couple of friends that he'll go and like play with them or go to their house, but their common thread is video games. Ah, so that's that's what connects them. Yes, yes, is video games so that when they're not together, they are together playing video games. So they friend each other online and they are able to go into the worlds or join against others or whatever. Um, and they can fight battles and and and you know, create worlds together and you know, do things and have fun. It's fun, healthy competition. Um, and but it needs to be monitored. You know, you you you can't just let it be free reign.

Roblox Risks And Online Predators

SPEAKER_02 10:12

And some of the dangers, as we had talked about before, is um especially platforms like Roblox, huge access to predators.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

That was one of the platforms that that um uh before Roblox started trying to take security a little bit more seriously, it was a higher chance that your kid was trying to be targeted by a pedophile than probably anything else on that platform. Wow. Um, it it was insane the amount of just free-for-all and no control that that there was on that. Um, and so they've now changed it to where, you know, there's a lot of parental controls, but still Roblox is probably, I feel like one of my least favorite platforms just because it's not as secure as some of the other ones are. Um, but Fortnite is huge. Yeah, I know. Kids love Fortnite. Um, and so my my son plays Fortnite a lot, and then um uh Minecraft. Those are like his two jams. It's either Fortnite or Minecraft.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Have you heard have you read any research about um violent video games and the negative impact? Does it, does it is a person more prone to violence, to commit violence, if the kid is looking at Grand Theft Auto 24-7?

Violent Games And Desensitization

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

So that's the one that's challenging because it it they don't have, you know, randomized controlled trials where they follow kids for 20 years and each one played a certain amount of of Grand Theft Auto, and you were able to control for household situations and diet, right? Like the amount of controls that you'd have to do to determine this for exact causation is hard. There is correlative literature, which is as we always say, correlation doesn't mean causation, right? Right, but there is correlative literature, especially surrounding the more violent first-person shooter games. So that's your grand theft auto or your call of duty, things like that. And the thing I really hate about Grand Theft Auto is the um sexualization and um the misogyny. Yeah, of the women. Yeah, because you know, you're running over prostitutes and you're doing, you know, like I I can't think of in any of I guess I could think of more inappropriate things, but that's probably right up there on my list of inappropriate things that you would expose a child to. Why would you want your sweet tenure, 12-year-old boy? And these video games are Grand Theft Auto is not intended for kids. So that's what I'm saying. They're rated for adults. Okay, they are rated for adults. But you don't tell me you make a video game or you're driving a car around and don't expect teenagers to play that game, especially teenage boys. Exactly. There's no way. Um, so and it is a choice, and then there's all this peer pressure on parents, and then you, you know, if someone goes over to a kid's house and their parents let you play Grand Theft Auto, and then you, you know what I'm saying? It's out there, it's out there, and you have to just um you have to protect your kids, and or you have you have to talk to them about it and explain to them why. Hey, like Mario Kart, that's legit, that's cool, right? We can all have fun throwing turtle shells at each other and spinning around with bubbles and blah. That's fun. Right. Driving and stealing cars and beating up gang members and and killing prostitutes, that is something that happens in the real world, and you don't want to glorify that type of behavior. Um, and so uh anyway, I I I would never let my child play that game.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, just wouldn't quick um share a story when Jalen was when he was younger, he probably was like eight or nine years old. My nephew is 20 something, had Grand Theft Auto and in his room when we went to visit them in Miami. And it was like he cannot even watch you play. Yeah, yeah. And they giggled and they laughed at me, yeah, like being the controlling crazy mother. Um, and I found out years later, Jalen said, you know, Brittany let me play Grand Theftball.

unknown 14:21

And you're like, damn it.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

And look at what a loser he's become. He's a social justice warrior. Hey, maybe that, maybe that video game makes him want to look out for the poor prostitutes.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I don't know. Um, but yeah, I was like, no, I was very, very serious about the video game situation back then, and that was, I'm sure it's like a thousand times more than that.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

No, it's even more graphic and awful now than it is because just the graphics get better. And so the ability to to play, it's yeah, it's just it's it's horrendous. But um the I think, but yes, when you play games in which you have graphic visualization of death, like you shoot somebody in the head and their brains are exploding and blood's coming out and whatever, right? Um what is that gonna do? That's going to desensitize you to an extent. Of course, it's even worse to see that in real life. And I think people who have actually had to go to war or shoot people say there's nothing that can prepare you for reality of that.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Otherwise, we'd have our soldiers playing video games all day, getting ready to go to war. And I still don't think that would even prepare them for the the atrocities and horrors of war. Um, but I I don't think that if you're gonna play, choose to let your children play video games. Like I do, I'm in I endorse it because I think it helps shy kids develop friendships and communicate well with each other, shows teamwork, for especially for kids who aren't playing sports. My my son doesn't like sports, so he doesn't get that whole teamwork aspect.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Video games can kind of be an aspect for that for him. It allows him to socialize and make connections with other boys, and boys really need that. Girls need it too, but they're so much better at it at connecting and socializing. That is just, it's like it's an inherent skill that women have. We're community builders. We always have been. It's been our job forever, right? Um, and so boys aren't as good at that. So it allows him to do that. And then it does, I 100% know it improves his executive functioning, his ability to think about things, plan ahead, um, and and and build and just be more creative, especially when he plays Minecraft, where he's literally coding, building new things, you know, making a hamburger machine. Like, you know, like there's all these things that they're doing. Um, so I think it has a lot of benefits to it. And then it allows parents an opportunity to use something as a reward or a consequence, um, which we are always looking for, right? Ways to ways to exact punishment on your child without beating in the bad.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Right, ways to encourage, exactly, encourage, encourage um behavior. So that is true.

Voice Chat Manosphere And Parental Controls

SPEAKER_01 17:06

And do you have concerns around the conversations that happen? Because uh um some of this manosphere stuff happens on the game. Absolutely. Like they reach out to the kids, they have these conversations. Um how do you deal with that? Or how do you do you talk with him? Do you have a conversation with him? Yeah about if something if if if this topic comes up.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

I also I do not let him talk to anybody online. Okay. The only people that he has the ability to talk to online are people that he is friends with. So fortunately. You can control that. So there's parental controls, and so anytime he wants to add a friend, it comes to me to give permission.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

And so I go, and if he wants to add a friend, I verify who is this? It's Jacob, I, you know, or some friend, right? And I look and I can verify, and you can you can verify that that is a friend. So he has like four friends, right? Because they're only the kids that he plays video games with.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

And so, and that's it. That's all who he's allowed to communicate and and his sister. Yes. That right, like that's all they're allowed to communicate with online. Okay. Um uh my kids are also from day one, I've been incredibly communicative with them about um the internet and just people in general. It's hilarious. We went to a uh a pool, a um Sutter Health did uh we at Sutter at our hospital. We do a fun, um, we rent out Sun Splash and we have the whole company like a picnic there. We have a bunch of people there. It's super fun. And so we were there with my kids, and my the one of the uh guys that I work with had met Salem at a previous event, and we had done like zip line. So like he had met him before. Okay, okay. And so he saw my son and he said, Hey Salem. And like, you know, Salem was by himself, like between us and one of the water slides, and he said, Hey, Salem and started talking to him. He's like, Where's your mom? And Salem looked up at him and started screaming, Stranger Danger, Stranger Danger. And he was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, I work with your mom, I work with your mom. And so to this day, every time I'm with that coworker, he always makes fun of me. He's like, Yeah, your son in his stranger danger. Clearly, you warned him about being, you know, kidnapped. And I'm like, Yes, I did. So I've been very upfront with my kids to not ever, you know, um, even online because and I I'll read stories to them. When there's an article about a teenage girl who was, you know, groomed online and then left to be sex trafficked. I literally will go and read that article to my daughter because she is impulsive as hell. I trust my son online way more than I trust Selma.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Because she is impulsive. And so I have to, you know, watch her very, very closely because of that.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

I love that you do that, that you that you share that information and not pretend it's not out there. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Absolutely. They have to know. I mean it's it's it's like protecting while simultaneously making sure that they are aware of the realities of the world. Um, and then also letting them see the good parts of the world, right? But they just have to know that there's bad things out there too. It's not all puppies and rainbows, right? It's there's there's some really bad things. And I want them to find out about it by reading about it and having it happen to them. Yes. That's the important part. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Um, did you want to add anything else about the video games? No, I think

Gaming Addiction Signs And Closing

SPEAKER_02 20:35

I think it's it's like we say with almost everything good and moderation, making sure that they're not spending, you know, 10 hours a day in their room playing video games, not sleeping at nighttime. Like there are kids that have gamer syndrome, which is actually an addiction. Imagine being an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

It gaming is the same way. They will play video games to the detriment of their health, their social well-being, and their academic uh achievements. So if your child is in that camp, then no, video games is not something that you can do. And you have to know your kid. You have to know what um they can handle. Um, and if they start to exhibit behavior that is concerning for that type of addiction, then you need to you need to seek help. Seek help and and really cut back on the usage, uh, I would say almost nearly altogether, you know, because it's like with an alcoholic, you don't say, well, you can have just a little bit of alcohol, right? Like you have to just completely alter and and change the situation.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah, I I mean ultimately it's it's being very present for your children. That's what I'm hearing. Being present for them. Okay. Um we're gonna wrap up. And um, as always, live your life on 10. Your 10. Bye bye.