I have to admit that I do have a videogame junkie living in my home. If I don’t monitor and control his playing time, we could probably go days without hearing a peep from him.
While the obsession with playing videogames is oftentimes something joked about, the recent health scare of a 15-year-old in Ohio should raise the alarm. After spending four days in his bedroom playing the game, “Modern Warfare 3,” he ended up having to be hospitalized for dehydration.
He was so consumed with playing that he wasn’t getting enough liquids. It was so serious that he actually collapsed three times.
Dehydration can deprive the brain of oxygen and cause blood pressure to drop to dangerous levels. While it is normally something we get concerned about for those outside in hot weather, it is apparently a risk for videogame junkies.
To the mother’s credit, she did end up taking his Xbox away. And I would guess that she is probably thinking about ways she could have prevented this from happening in the first place.
Now I will be the first to admit that it can sometimes be difficult to monitor your teen’s playing time. Considering I go to bed before my children, I can tell my son to turn off his videogame at a certain time but it doesn’t mean it will happen.
After discovering him up into the wee hours still playing, we had to shut off the internet by a certain time. But nighttime isn’t the only concern. He could also play all day long if I let him.
That’s when you have to be the parent and give them a limited amount of time in which they can play. If necessary, take the controller from them when the time is up or confiscate the whole system.
Limiting and monitoring your child’s time spent playing videogames is not only important for social and emotional reasons. But it could also save their health.
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Photo by justinbaeder in Flickr