How to Raise a Healthy Gamer

A former gamer and Harvard-trained psychiatrist offers a proven, tested plan to help parents define, set, and reinforce healthy boundaries around video games and help kids who have developed an addiction to gaming. When it comes to family rules around video games, most parents are at a loss. After all, our technologically invasive world is something previous generations didn’t have to wrestle with, so we have no model for how to guide our families through the rapidly changing landscape, no blueprint for setting healthy gaming boundaries and keeping them in place. A former Harvard Medical School instructor and one of the foremost experts on video game psychology, Dr. Alok Kanojia--known as “Dr. K” to his millions of followers--has firsthand knowledge of this modern issue: He needed professional help to break his own gaming habits in college, an experience that fueled his interest in learning how to help others. Drawing on Dr. K’s professional specialization in working with people of all ages and varying degrees of addiction, and the most recent research from neuroscience and psychology, • An eight-week, step-by-step road map for setting, enforcing, and troubleshooting healthy gaming boundaries. • Advice on how to react when your child becomes irritable, rude, or seemingly directionless. • Essential communication strategies for reaching kids who have developed a serious gaming problem. • The neuroscientific and psychological reasons that children gravitate to video games and how to help them meet these needs in real life. • Insights and advice on dealing with behavioral issues that often accompany game use: ADHD, spectrum disorders, and substance abuse. Whether your goal is to prepare your child for a healthy relationship to technology or to curb unhealthy amounts of time spent gaming, <How to Raise a Healthy Gamer< will help you better understand, communicate with, and--ultimately--empower your gaming enthusiast to live their best life....

Autorentext

Alok Kanojia, MD, MPH, also known as “Dr. K,” is a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine and did his psychiatric residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and McLean Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A former Harvard Medical School instructor specializing in mental health for the gaming community, he is the president and cofounder of Healthy Gamer, a mental health platform that provides content, coaching, and community resources to help young people take control of their mental health and their lives. A highly sought-after speaker and media expert, he and his wife live in Texas with their two gamer daughters.

Klappentext

A former gamer and Harvard trained psychiatrist offers a proven, tested plan to help parents define, set, and reinforce healthy boundaries around video games and help kids who have developed an addiction to gaming.

When it comes to family rules around video games, most parents are at a loss. How much should I let them play? is always a parent's first question, but when their child becomes irritable, rude, or seemingly directionless, the question becomes more urgent: Help! How do I get them to be interested in anything else?!

Known as “Dr. K” to his millions of followers, the former Harvard Medical School instructor and founder of the unique gamer's support resource Healthy Gamer, Dr. Alok Kanojia has firsthand experience with video gaming and addiction: He needed professional help to break his own addiction in college, and his parents had very little guidance for how to help him. Written to fill the resource void that still exists, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer provides parents with critical information about gaming culture, how games affect developing brains, and solutions rooted in the science treating addiction, including:

• The neuroscientific and psychological reasons that children gravitate to video games and how addiction develops.
• Step-by-step guidelines for setting, enforcing, and troubleshooting healthy gaming boundaries.
• Essential strategies for reaching kids who have developed a serious gaming problem.
• Special chapters on behavioral issues that often accompany game use: ADHD, spectrum disorders, and substance abuse.
  Whether a parent’s goal is to stop addiction or just promote healthy habits, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer will help them better understand, communicate with, and—ultimately—nurture their children.