Kids Need Screen Time Skills, And Parents Might Too

What if managing screens and video games is less about enforcing rules and more about building skills—for both kids and parents? Games like Minecraft, Roblox, and Mario Kart aren’t just passively consumed - they can teach life skills to kids. But to harness screen time it’s not just the kids that need to build skills, it’s parents too.

That’s my conclusion from a conversation with Ash Brandin (IG: Gamer Educator) who walked me through their experience as a teacher, their philosophy, and their upcoming book: Power On: Managing Screen Time To Help The Whole Family. You can watch the interview below or find it on any podcast app.

I am a huge video game fan and I grew up playing video games. Mostly I was limited to about an hour a day in a family room or on a shared computer, but I also played a gameboy for a while. I played Zelda, Mario, Fifa, Madden, Pokemon, Civilization, Age of Empires, Total Annihilation, Unreal Tournament, Goldeneye, World of Warcraft, Everquest, Halo and many others. I have fond memories of going to arcades and friend’s houses and playing other games. The list of games I loved is so long I had to stop listing them

It all had a profound impact: I’ve written before that my career as an industry analyst is directly linked to researching how to be better at games; My love of history and culture is connected to playing Sid Meier’s Civilization; I built leadership skills through helping teams win and guiding groups through dungeons.

The list goes on.

But not everybody has the same feelings about video games. And, games are different now. There are more lootboxes and streaks, and games are much more social earlier. I also benefited from structures my parents created and played on a different set of devices. There were concerns about video games, but I think they are dwarfed by today’s screen time feelings.

While getting more intentional about screens as a parent I discovered Pok Pok, a Montessori-inspired, calm, game collection with a stellar design philosophy. Through that process I found some unexpected lessons from that game and learning to manage my daughter’s appreciation for it.

Through that I discovered Ash, TheGamerEducator on Instagram. They have almost 15 years of teaching experience, 230k Instagram followers and the previously mentioned upcoming book.

Ash too had an origin story where games were just a thing they did, not something taboo or problematic. When I interviewed them they focused on the skills kids can learn to have more successful screen time, some of the ones mentioned:

• Time management for older kids

• How to keep themselves safe and what’s ok to share in a social setting

• How to stop doing something when it’s time to transition - even if it’s fun

But my biggest takeaway was that I needed to strengthen some of my skills to help my kids. It seems like I need to work on noticing my daughter’s behaviors and the situation, identifying how to set boundaries, and evaluate the impact of content. There’s a need to create open conversations around screens and games and the incentives of the creators of the games. And, I should unlearn some of the concerns around screens and smartphones to turn the temperature down.

Maybe the most powerful takeaway on gaming and screens from Ash: “Leisure is important. You don’t have to learn something. You don’t have to improve yourself. You can just have leisure, your kids can have leisure.”

Some of the other areas we explore:

• How Ash’s teaching background connects to gaming

• Why it’s helpful to view video games in a more neutral (vs negative) way

• How to identify the skills your kids might need to support better screen time

• Why guns might not be the biggest concern in a game and what are the concerns to look for (big hint: help set up their account to understand the incentives to play)

• How to help kids learn through games and the importance of intrinsic motivation

• Why Ash is so passionate about discussing gaming, positive screen time and learning

• Techniques to help kids and parents have more fun playing games together - including the use of accessibility settings

Hope you find this interesting and helpful! And, let me know if there are other gaming topics you want to hear about.