(This blog post was written at the request of my 11-year-old son, in the hopes that he’ll actually read a blog post of mine) 

The year was 2019. Pre-pandemic but at the height of his Fortnite obsession, my 9-year-old was logging about 20+ hours of gaming per week. Troubling for his parents? Why yes.

He cashed in his Christmas gift cards for a third controller for his shiny new PS4, allowing his 7-year-old sister and a parent of his choosing to play. In an attempt to bond, I joined him and my daughter for a game of Minecraft.

Now, it had been some time since I had held a controller, but my younger brother’s first-generation Nintendo circa 1988 meant that I wasn’t a complete noob.

I had played Super Mario 1 & 3 (2 was garbage), and while technically never finishing a level, I was in the room with my brother when he conquered them. 

To the uninitiated (me), Minecraft’s boxy graphics felt out of date compared to the flash of newer games like Fortnite.

Although more than 10 years old, it remains as one of the most popular video games, with more than 200 million games sold. My son felt this was a great game to introduce to Mom – and we powered it up. 

Not seven seconds in, I was lost. The darn controller just did not work. I shrieked and pounded at the keys, trying to make something on screen move in the direction it was supposed to move.

My 7-year-old was on hand to “stay with Mom,” while my son hunted the zombies that appeared as the screen darkened. At one point, as I nearly drowned in blue-shaped boxes (“water”), he ventured back to save me. That was enough of Minecraft. 

I will say though, my ego barely bruised (no one in my household expected me to be any good at video games), that my lack of coordination and ineptitude left quite an impression.

I had no idea how I could train my brain to move quickly across the controller while processing what was happening – but boy, I was impressed with my son. 

Could Video Games be Good? 

Here’s the thing: parenting is filled with familiar tropes like “Organic is best” (jury is still out), “Sugar makes a child hyper,” (debatable), and “video games are bad for my kid.”

Seeing the look of concentration on my son’s face as he maneuvered tunnels and sand dunes while kindly coaching his mother had me questioning my own hesitation – could video games actually be a positive thing for my kids?  

Very, it turns out. While the 150 million video game users in the US include only 18 percent under the age of 18, 71% of their parents reported them as positively impacting their children (Source).

In fact, video games can help not just focus a player, but improve visual and spatial skills, and a recent study demonstrated that long-term gamers have an enlarged right hippocampus (the area of the brain responsible for memory and spatial relationships). 

Further, the American Psychological Association reports that “While one widely held view maintains that playing video games is intellectually lazy, such play actually may strengthen a range of cognitive skills such as spatial navigation, reasoning, memory, and perception.”

Shooter games, long-held by parents to be particularly violent, help a child to improve 3D reasoning. Other studies have shown that early video game exposure may have positive effects on cognitive performance in adulthood. 

Also passe is the lone gamer cliche, isolated in his parents’ basement. Today, 70% of gamers participate with friends online or within an interactive community. During the quarantine, as we sequestered ourselves inside our homes (as a quick and bitter note, in Ontario, we are STILL on lockdown), online video games provided a social outlet for my son.

His friends didn’t miss a beat when schools, playgrounds, and soccer fields closed, and he regularly connected over Minecraft and Fortnite, barely showing a trace of anxiety or depression (my daughter did not fare so well).  

As parents, it would be silly to ignore the detriments of screen time that rob our kids of fresh air and exercise. Too much gaming can be addictive, and some players can develop repetitive stress injuries.

However, particularly during this time when the world is not where it once was, we can ease up on the worry that video games are rotting our children’s minds. Quite the opposite, actually. 

Now, if you need me, I’ll be yelling at my son to get off the screen. I may be a pro-gamer, but it is high time he picked up a basketball. Wish me luck.