Why fears around children playing video games are counterproductive

WHAT if my child is addicted? As a clinical psychologist who works with young people, I am regularly asked by parents about video games. It is never about the positives. It seems they are concerned that if they don’t worry about video games, I will consider them a bad parent.

The people I see aren’t unusual. A recent poll of US parents showed that 86 per cent think teenagers spend too much time playing video games. This chimes with my experience in the UK, where we seem to have a parenting culture in which being negative about video games …