A Highly Emotional Game

05 Oct 2018 By Aidan (young person)

I enjoy playing video games, in fact I enjoy it a lot. I am 10 years old and most of my friends spend a lot of time talking about video games and playing them. Of course, we heard about the celebrity mum, Kirstie Allsopp, who smashed her kids’ iPads because they did not stick to the time limit set by her. My mum and I have argued about how much time I spend playing games on my iPad. My mum did not smash my iPad, but she sometimes looked as if she was wishing my iPad would malfunction!

Last week, I quitted playing a game that I had been playing for months. I was on the bus and had lost a couple of games. It was time to get off for our stop, but I was in the middle of a game. I shouted when my mom asked me “how did the game go?”. We were both silent for a couple of minutes. I then said to her “I’m quitting this game”. I really noticed how angry this game made me feel when I lost or had to stop mid-game.

I now play a different game and this game does not affect me in a bad way. Another thing that has helped reduce arguments is that I make a regular timetable, with my mom, and I know there is time during the day when I get to play on my iPad games. Because I make the timetable, I feel much happier and can accept that I need to do other things, e.g my homework. I also watched a Youtube video by Dan Siegel where he talks about the brain and how computer games can affect my brain. If you are interested here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31o_chpzQh8