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Parenting Gamers with Love and Wisdom (Part 2)

How Would Jesus Parent a Gamer?

Parents across the globe are struggling to raise kids in a gaming world. It’s a world of known and unknown dangers. As concerned parents, we want to keep our children safe, and it’s easy to let fear drive decisions. It’s tempting to jump straight to using tech-based safety solutions, but blindly relying on parental controls is like putting a helmet on our children and leaving them to learn how to ride a bike on their own.

As we navigate this issue, perhaps our first question should be: “how would Jesus parent a gamer?” In this article we’ll look at some of Jesus’ attitudes and strategies that will help us parent our game-loving kids.

Parenting gamers and discipling them in the faith starts with love. In Mark 10:14a Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them…” We can follow Jesus’ lead by maintaining a welcoming presence. It is a simple concept but not always easy to practice, especially if there is tension over gaming and screen time. Jesus led and taught with authority and boldness, yet his authority was not hollow. It was full of genuine love and care. A welcoming presence shows love.

What our welcoming presence looks like will change as our parent-loving children become parent-avoiding teens and young adults. Welcome might look like sitting in your teens’ video game lair for 15 minutes to talk about the latest update, new character skin releases or upcoming franchise collaborations. If you don’t know what these terms mean, your gaming kiddos can fill you in! Showing genuine interest in your child’s video game hobby will build your relationship with them. You can also treat it like an undercover mission to learn about the games your kids are into. This intel will be invaluable as you set up boundaries around video games. However, be careful not to hover too much. Older kids do need and want time away from parents.

Next, let’s look at one of Jesus’ most effective teaching methods: scaffolding-with-practice.

Scaffolding-with-practice is used by teachers today and was also used by Jesus. Teachers scaffold by creating a series of lessons that build on each other over time to help students master complex skills or information. Each step involves practicing the new things they learn, which is essential to prepare students to move to the next lesson.

Jesus used scaffolding when he taught the disciples with simple, everyday things like fishing and farming to explain the kingdom of God. As your child talks about ranking up or unlocking new parts of a gaming world, you can ask questions that weave in faith, morality and wisdom. Discussing and asking questions is a powerful form of learning that strengthened the disciples’ understanding and their bond with Jesus. It will do the same for you and your gamer!

The scaffolding-with-practice approach was an effective teaching and discipleship method as Jesus led by example and gave the disciples opportunities to grow by taking on more responsibility. The disciples went from watching and listening to ushering crowds of people, baptizing converts and praying for the sick. Eventually, they traveled to preach in other cities on their own. The disciples went from spectators, to participants, to leaders. We can do the same for our kids by modeling good screen-based boundaries in our own lives. As our kids become teens, we can give them more of a voice in boundary setting with the goal of them being ready to establish their own healthy habits and boundaries as adults.

Parenting our game-loving children starts with a foundation of love, as we seek God for the grace and boldness to parent like Jesus would. In part 3 of this series, we’ll tackle some practical tools for managing content and screen time, and we’ll issue a challenge to use gaming platforms to represent Christ. Stay tuned!