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The Parent Book.
Therapist-written support for parents
What helps
Gaming

Gaming

Gaming is the world most parents recognise but feel least competent in. These pages cover the eight-year-old’s first console, the twelve-year-old’s headset and the older teenager whose evenings are now taken up with games, and they treat gaming as a real part of a child’s social and emotional life.

What the library says about this, in one place. It is also online at theparentbook.com/help/gaming

What to do first

Games are designed to be hard to leave, and when there’s a fight at the end of a session, it’s usually about being interrupted.

  1. Give warnings in game terms, not clock terms: “finish this round,” not “five minutes.” Most of the conflict comes down to this one detail.
  2. Find out what your child is actually playing and who they’re playing with. The social side is usually the part they care about most.
  3. Put the finish time before something your child wants, not something they dread. Supper works better than homework.

What helps

  • Keep devices out of bedrooms at night. Charge devices in the kitchen overnight, including yours. What you do counts as much as the rule you set.
  • Turn screens off 45 to 60 minutes before bed. The brain needs to wind down before it can sleep. Use the time for reading, a bath or talking together.

Some tips to try

Short pieces from the library, and a first thing to try from each.

  • Before the First Loot Box. Have the money conversation, and set the controls, before your child plays a game with a shop in it.
    • Turn off in-game purchases, or set a limit, before your child starts.
    theparentbook.com/quick-tips/before-the-first-loot-box
  • The Game Rated Above Your Child’s Age. Two games with the same age rating can be very different, so check why it got its number and watch it being played before you decide.
    • Look up the content descriptors to see why the game got its number.
    • Check the chat separately. The NSPCC points out that age ratings don’t include communication features, so a game with a low rating may still let children talk to people they don’t know. Gaming controls can limit chat, or allow it only with friends you’ve approved.
    theparentbook.com/quick-tips/the-game-rated-above-your-childs-age
  • The Game That Runs Past Midnight. For most teenagers gaming is where their friends are, so agree the end of the night with your teenager.
    • Agree the finish time with your teenager on a weekend afternoon when nobody is cross.
    • If gaming is costing them school, sleep or friends, talk to their school and your GP.
    • If your teenager hits or threatens anyone when the game stops, leave the room, and if that doesn’t make everyone safe, don’t wait. Call 999. Help is free and available at any hour.
    theparentbook.com/quick-tips/the-game-that-runs-past-midnight

The rest of each tip, with more to try and why it works, is in the library.

Something to do together

Play their game with them. Your child picks a game they play and teaches you how it works. You play beside them as a beginner, and find out what the game involves, including who they can talk to in it.

What it is for. For many children, games are where they relax and where they spend time with their friends. Playing one with your child shows them you’re interested in something they care about, and it teaches you what the game involves: who they can talk to in it, what it costs and how they would block someone.

  • The first step. Ask your child to choose the game and teach you: “Will you show me how to play this? I’ll probably be hopeless.” Let them pick a time that suits them, and not one that cuts into playing with their friends.

Safety. Check the age rating, and what the game lets players do: chat, voice and buying things. Use the console’s or the game’s settings to limit who can talk to your child, and so that nothing can be bought without you. Don’t store a payment card on the console or in the app. Screens off about an hour before bed, and the console stays out of your child’s bedroom overnight.

When to get help. If you learn that someone in a game has asked your child for pictures or personal details, asked to meet them or asked them to move to another app, or that there is a sexual image of a child, stay calm, do not blame your child, and leave everything as it is (do not reply, look further, copy, forward or delete). Act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page, and tell the school’s designated safeguarding lead. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, that they are hurting themselves, or that they do not want to be alive, stay calm, thank them for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day in the same way. If for several weeks gaming has come before sleep, meals and washing, your child has dropped things they used to enjoy, or they only see their friends online, talk to your child’s school and your GP.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

If you want to read further

Worth your time

Who else can help

This usually starts at school rather than at the surgery. The adults who see your child every day are the first people to tell, and often the fastest route to a change. The GP is there if it persists or deepens.

  • Your child’s school. The pastoral lead, the head of year, or the form tutor. Free, already knows your child, and often the quickest way to get something changed at school. Before or alongside anything else. A school cannot act on what it has not been told, and what you bring is often what it did not have.
  • Your GP. The gateway to everything the NHS offers a child: paediatric assessment, a referral to CAMHS, and support for you as the parent. Ask for a double appointment. Describe the pattern over weeks rather than the worst single day, and say plainly what you are worried about. Bring a written list; the ten minutes go quickly. www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp
  • Internet Matters. Step-by-step guides to the settings on every device and app, advice by age from nought to eighteen, and guides to AI tools and gaming. When you need to actually change something on a phone tonight. The most practical online safety source in the UK. www.internetmatters.org/advice
  • Childnet. Guides to having the conversation, by age, on gaming, sharing images, online bullying and where the line is, from one of the charities behind the UK Safer Internet Centre. When the settings are done and the talking is the hard part. www.childnet.com/parents-and-carers
  • UK Safer Internet Centre. The UK’s online safety centre, run by Childnet, the IWF and SWGfL. Their parents’ pages give age-by-age guidance and settings for each platform, written for people who have read enough alarming material. For the everyday side of online life rather than an emergency. Reading and guides; there is no parent helpline here. Email only, Mon-Fri working hours saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers

The full list for gaming, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/gaming/services

Published by Kensington Square Therapy. Company No. 16707111. Written by therapists registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). This page is not therapy, and not a substitute for professional support. The full library is at theparentbook.com.