Andrew Fishman: 20:47
And we have enough of them. Some of them are going to strangers.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 20:49
Right?
Andrew Fishman: 20:50
Absolutely right. Wow. And there’s there’s all sorts of harm that can come with that. Of course.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 20:54
Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. So how will parents sort of know. And like obviously you have an entire practice.
It sounds like of, you know, teens who have come to you or young adults even, you know, where they have crossed that line between recreational gaming and, you know, truly, like more of a disorder. Yeah. How do parents tease that apart? How do you what do you see in your practice that says, okay, now we actually have to do some clinical work?
Andrew Fishman: 21:23
Yeah. Do you have your do you have your DSM with you?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 21:26
I do. Should I hold it up?
Andrew Fishman: 21:28
Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 21:28
Page 795 I was going to say I didn’t think in this one it one. It was official.
Andrew Fishman: 21:32
It’s in it’s in there. It’s it’s it’s not an official condition. It’s a condition for further study. But it’s it’s got it’s got criteria. It’s in the back 7.957 95.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 21:42
Yeah. Proposed criteria okay. For internet gaming disorder. Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 21:46
So for for listeners there’s a there’s a big purple book that that therapists use to help, you know, keep track of all the criteria for all the different diagnoses and gaming disorder or I think it’s called internet gaming disorder in the in the book is not an official diagnosis, but it’s one that they’re considering. Right. And the symptoms are the criteria. The symptoms are video games becoming the predominant activity in everyday life. Withdrawal symptoms like irritability or anxiety when you can’t play, needing to spend increasing amounts of time to feel satisfied, unsuccessful attempts to control gaming.
That’s the key one I mentioned earlier that you have. You have tried to control it. You’ve been unsuccessful.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 22:26
The person himself has tried, not just the parents, right?
Andrew Fishman: 22:29
Yeah. Loss of interest in previous hobbies using video games despite social problems. Lying to others about the amount of time spent gaming, using video games to escape negative mood, and then risking or losing a significant relationship, job or other opportunity because of the games.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 22:46
Right?
Andrew Fishman: 22:47
So and so.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 22:48
Not going to school, right? Not right for the test. Because you’re you’re totally in the zone.
Andrew Fishman: 22:53
Right. And and you try and you can’t get yourself to stop.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 22:57
Right. Right.
Andrew Fishman: 22:58
And so that’s where it becomes a clinical addiction is if you meet I think it’s five of those nine criteria. And some of them can be argued against. You know what. What kid doesn’t lie about how much time they’ve spent gaming, but it’s, you know, in a as a, as a larger pattern that is also causing you harm. That’s where it becomes an actual addiction, theoretically.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 23:16
I was going to say, and I’m curious about like, addiction in the brain. And, you know, we talk about with substance abuse, for example, that often it runs in families. And so kind of being aware of, do you have a predisposition Position toward. You know, I’m curious if that’s the same for internet, you know, for video gaming.
Andrew Fishman: 23:34
Yeah, there’s there’s evidence to suggest that people who, for example, have a problem with gambling might also have a problem with video games. People who have substance use disorders are more likely to have a gaming problem also. Right, right. And so it does seem like there’s probably a predisposition. Some people just have that addictive personality that gets hooked by different things.
And if for somebody that happens to be video games then yeah, that’s that’s it.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 23:59
Right.
Andrew Fishman: 24:00
And for for me, the most the strongest evidence that I’ve seen for video game addiction is that people who have those criteria for games and also have a substance use disorder, an addiction to something else, they say that they feel very similar. You know, they would know the most of anybody. And they say that, oh, that’s the same part of my brain that gets itched, gets hooked.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 24:23
Right? Wow. Wow. So can you. Kind of.
Take us through, of course, a de-identified case that you know someone has come to you. Really? It sounds like, in a bad way. And and what were their initial sort of presenting symptoms? You know, why were they coming to you?
And I’m curious both about kind of what what would what would happen in the therapy room with you, as well as kind of how you’d guide parents in terms of what they do at home. Because, again, parents do have control. Still, at the end of the day, over a large part of of the treatment, I would think of a teenager.
Andrew Fishman: 25:02
Sure. So I’ve thought about two cases that I can present. One of them is is a college student, so the parents were less involved. And the second one is a middle schooler where the parents were very involved. So for the for the first one, somebody came to me.
I’m sort of combining cases to de-identify them.
But yes, of course. He came to me because he had failed out of college, that he had gone for a semester and had held on for a while, but then dropped off. He played World of Warcraft, which is a MMO RPG which is massively multiplayer online role playing game, which basically means it’s a world that, you know, thousands or millions of people can share at the same time. You’re all walking around, you can see each other, and it’s a role playing game. So you’re you have a role. This person was a healer, but I forget what anyway.
But the the point to that is that it’s an online social game where he had a specific role on a team, so he’s got a group of friends and there’s, you know, 15 or 20 of them, and they all get together and they all play. And he was one of the main people that they needed to complete some of the quests. He was a healer. So if anybody got if anybody got injured, they needed his help. And so if he needed to do his homework and the other 14 people wanted to go online and play, it’s really hard to say no, Especially if your friends are counting on you.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 26:27
There’s no one else that like pops in to be the healer if someone’s not in that role.
Andrew Fishman: 26:31
Right. You’re just you’re. Your friends are just out of luck. They’re just without the healer.
Yeah, and they’re not gonna be able to. They’re not gonna be able to complete the quest. They’re not going to be able to do the thing. And so if you’re someone who really values that group of that friend group, that community.
Yeah. And they’re and that was his only social support. And so if they’re saying, oh come on, you know, come on, man, we just need to. Don’t go to sleep yet. We’ll just finish this one thing.
And some of them sometimes those can take two hours to beat a to beat a raid. And so he couldn’t say no. You can’t say no to that. If it’s your whole friend group saying, you know you’re a loser if you go log off right now. And so he wouldn’t.
And so he’d say he’d tell himself, okay, well, I guess all right, I guess I can skip this homework assignment. I guess I can stay up late. I don’t I don’t have to prepare for this test. And so he so his grades dropped. He stopped going to class sometimes because he needed to play during the day or was staying up too late to wake himself up.
So, so he. So he failed out of college and he. And so then he said, look, I need help, I need help, someone help someone’s help to figure out how do I how do I manage this? Because I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to stop playing video games entirely.
That’s my whole. That’s the only time that I. That I’m social, right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 27:40
It makes sense.
Andrew Fishman: 27:41
So yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 27:42
It it becomes like all consuming in that in that situation. Wow.
Andrew Fishman: 27:47
And so for the treatment we needed to build social we didn’t want to just take away the game. You don’t you don’t just uninstall the game because then he’s got nobody. And that’s in in some ways that for him it’s unacceptable. And for in other ways that’s somehow that’s somehow worse than having.
I was going to say friends but also a problem.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 28:06
It sounds like, you know, this community online. I mean, as much as again, clearly it’s impacting his functioning in a, in a really bad way. It’s providing some positive source of not feeling isolated, of support, of camaraderie. Like like you’re saying you can’t just rip it off until you’ve put something else in place.
Andrew Fishman: 28:25
Exactly. So. So that’s what we did. We we did some work on reducing the shame that he felt for having failed, because of course it was important to him. He really wanted to be in college, but had but had but wasn’t able to be successful.
And so there was a lot of shame that we had to work with as well. We did some work with values. I have these values cards that I like in my office that are, you know, what do you value? Integrity and friendship and, you know, honesty. And I don’t value popularity.
I don’t value, you know, you know, so you sort them out and you and you look at them and you say, am I living in, you know, in accordance with those values that those, those let’s say five things that I care about the most, what decisions would lead me closer to the things that I really care about? So we did some work with that. And he did value education. He also valued friendship, though. And those were butting heads.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 29:13
Right. And was there a history in terms of like why? Why was he so unable to make real friends in college for this, for this particular young man.
Andrew Fishman: 29:23
He was kind of he was kind of awkward. He was just somebody for whom it’s. It’s hard to make friends. He didn’t put himself out there. Wasn’t didn’t feel able to comfortable.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 29:33
Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 29:34
Where a lot of the other students were, were going up to one another at the lunch table at the lunchroom or the cafeteria, or they were going to parties, or they were walking up to classmates after class and saying, hi, I’m so and so. He wasn’t doing any of that. And because he didn’t feel able to. And so some of that was also we need to build a social support network for you outside of this game.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 29:56
Right.
Andrew Fishman: 29:57
And so we he ended up playing, we found an in-person D&D group where, you know, it’s it’s your same interests, but it’s in person and it is separate from this other group. You want to diversify your friends. And so we decided, all right, well, let’s when you go back to college in the fall or in the spring or whatever it was, what clubs exist that you might consider joining? Because that in my mind, that’s the best way to the best and easiest way.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 30:22
To make friends with similar interests. It’s like a structured day and time. You just show up and. Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew Fishman: 30:29
Yeah, it’s a very natural, easy way to make friends. Let’s let’s join those as well. Right. And then the the hardest part was trying to figure out are these my friends online. And so the experiment we did was and I talked about this in my book as well, if you know what what is a friend and would you know what would a friend do if you had homework and you could you had to log off, right?
What would a friend do if you said, look, I need to go to sleep. I’m tired. I got a test in the morning.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 31:02
I can’t be the healer this round, you know.
Andrew Fishman: 31:04
Right. A friend would tell you. Okay, well, we’ll play tomorrow. Whatever. Go do your thing.
A friend would care about you and care about your success. And these people weren’t doing that. So are they your friends? And then. Okay, well, let’s test it.
So eventually with with a lot of help and guidance, let’s practice actually saying no, I need to stop. And if they let you stop, then maybe.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 31:30
The reaction.
Andrew Fishman: 31:31
Is yeah. And then let’s let’s do this as an experiment. And if they let you stop, then actually that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Maybe I can do that more often during the semester. And if they don’t let you stop and they get mad at you, those might not be as supportive people as you thought they were.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 31:45
Right? Right. Wow. So it’s the it’s the first introducing kind of more socialization and, you know, helping him make some real friends in the real world, then sort of testing out kind of who is this community? Are they really supportive or not?
And, and helping him play an experiment with can he say no in the middle of a round, you know, can’t say no to the next round and have it in moderation. And I’m wondering, or is it sometimes a or I can’t do it at all. I’m curious if it ever gets to that point.
Andrew Fishman: 32:17
Right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 32:18
I mean, like with an alcoholic, you would say you can never have alcohol ever, right?
Andrew Fishman: 32:23
It does get.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 32:24
You can’t have a glass of wine like never. I’m curious if for a video gamer, if it’s ever that extreme, where you say you can never pick up a remote control, or if you’re saying it’s just more like knowing the days and times that you’re able to do it, knowing how your brain circuitry works, you’re going to get hooked.
Andrew Fishman: 32:41
It does get to that point sometimes. There are a lot of people. There’s a there’s a subreddit called Stop Gaming, which is a community of people that all have gaming disorder or similar. And it’s it’s a support network for people who are there’s Gaming Addicts Anonymous. Right.
I was going to say that. Yeah, there’s there’s also a Gaming Addicts Anonymous. I haven’t I haven’t personally vetted that. But it exists as a, as a resource that people are really concerned and want to see what it’s like to go through a 12 step about video games. It exists.
It’s out there. And so there are definitely people who say, you know what, I am not the kind of person who, even in a single player solitaire kind of game. I can’t do it. I can’t not play for ten hours and then hate myself the next day if I try any game.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 33:26
Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 33:27
Yeah. And so and so. Yeah, those people absolutely exist. Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 33:30
And but in your work with this college young adults, is he able to kind of have some more balance at the end of the work and, and still have some video gaming.
Andrew Fishman: 33:41
I yeah, yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 33:42
He the story ends I interrupted you know.
Andrew Fishman: 33:45
Yeah. So he was able to go back. He was successful and still played sometimes but played switched over to a less serious group of players because he decided, you know what, screw these guys. They’re not letting me succeed. They’re not they’re not my real friends.
But I could find a couple of people at the college who play. Yeah. And we all have obligations. Then we and we’re not going to make each other stay up at night. We found you just found a better community for him.
And then the game was fine.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 34:12
Absolutely, absolutely. Wow. That’s incredible. So he took in this young man. Took, like, a semester or a year off.
How long did he take off to kind of work through this? Because again, it sounds like it really was impacting his day to day functioning.
Andrew Fishman: 34:27
Yeah. It took he took the semester off. Yeah. He was I forget what it’s called, academic leave basically where you take a semester, get your get your, you know, get your act together and come back and try again because colleges don’t want to kick you out entirely. If you can figure out what’s going on and come back.
So he was able to do that. That was great.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 34:44
Yeah. And so lucky he found you. Wow. So tell us about the middle school.
Andrew Fishman: 34:50
So there’s again, combination of clients. But this kid had this kid had it was a school refusal case. So again it was issues with school that in in young people that’s often how it shows up is it’s that sort of the litmus test is are they doing well in school or not? And for this kid it was he had skipped school for something like 2 or 3 months. He was playing video games for 12 hours a day and was not going to school.
Would refuse throw tantrums. Wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t get him to go.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 35:22
Can I pause you for one second? And just like I think. This can’t wait. Yeah. If he’s playing video games 12 hours a day instead of school.
Andrew Fishman: 35:32
Yep.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 35:33
Why? What are the parents doing that they’re not literally throwing it out the window. I mean, because it sounds like this wasn’t a subtle situation. This was.
Andrew Fishman: 35:41
No.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 35:42
So what? What was going on for them?
Andrew Fishman: 35:45
They they just felt like it was too hard to take it away from him. It was the only thing that made him happy whenever they tried. Like, all right, we’re gonna turn this off for for the next day or two. He was sullen, he was angry, and they just thought we, you know, this is this is better than the alternative of just anger and throwing stuff. We’ll just give it to him and let him play.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 36:04
Wow. It’s like a pacifier.
Andrew Fishman: 36:06
Yeah, it’s like a pacifier. Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 36:07
Wow. And so I heard stories where. Not specific to video gaming, but, like, you know, where a parent had done something like that and I’m like, help me understand what you know, because obviously that you think, take it away. And they said, well, my child then threatened suicide, you know. So I’ve heard stories that are like.
Andrew Fishman: 36:26
Right.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 36:27
Kind of like, you know, gut wrenching like that. Okay, I kind of now I kind of understand a little more how difficult this is, but but just it’s just such an extreme situation. Okay. Keep going.
Andrew Fishman: 36:37
So when we did some more exploration with this kid, and there’s there’s a reason that you’re not going to school. Right? And it turns out that for this kid, there were several. The kids were being mean to him. He was getting bullied.
He was scared of his teachers being mad at him when he came back. Because if he’s you know, he was thinking, if I go back into the building, I’m going to get yelled at by every authority figure because I’m failing their classes. I haven’t been there. They’re going to be so mad at me. And he was just, you know, that thought of not only going into the school and the students being mean to him, but the teachers being mean to him and the principal being mean to him.
He couldn’t handle it. And so video games became his coping mechanism. It became I’m too stressed out right now. I need to just play a game because I don’t have to think when I’m playing a video game.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 37:25
Well, it’s an escape.
Andrew Fishman: 37:26
Exactly. And so. For so for this kid, it was. We need to build up some coping mechanisms. We needed to work on distress tolerance.
We needed to work on. All right. You know, we would play games together in my office, and it was. Okay, let’s. Let’s play this game for a while.
And then for five minutes. Two minutes. At first we’re going to stop and we’re just going to think about what’s going on. And we’re going to be mindful and we’re going to deep breathe like we talked about. And eventually that two minutes became five minutes became ten minutes.
I can tolerate having a conversation about my life. And then let’s also start making a plan. Let’s with your parents help. Let’s go talk to some teachers. Let’s see if they are as mad as you think they are.
Because I don’t think that they are. I think that your teachers just want you to succeed. And you know, we know that this is not a sustainable situation. You can’t outrun this forever. But you sort of think that you can if you can just never think about it.
You can just keep you can keep outrunning those feelings. And so eventually we were able to say, okay, you can can we get you into the building for an hour a day for one class?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 38:36
Right.
Andrew Fishman: 38:37
Baby steps. And then eventually what became the strategy was, once you feel comfortable and safe being in the school environment, then we start adding expectations. So you can always play on weekends at first, and then you can play Monday, Wednesday, Friday. If you have gone to school that day or you know you can play on a day when you have gone to school.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 39:00
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 39:01
You can always play on weekends no matter what you did during the week, because we don’t want to take it away from you entirely. We don’t. You are talking to friends. That’s great. And then you add in, okay, you can play on weekends if you went to school at least one day that week.
And then you add another expectation. You had to have gone to school for two days that week for a few hours.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 39:19
Yes.
Andrew Fishman: 39:19
Then you can play on the weekends as much as you want. And then you build up those expectations until it was okay. You have to do all your homework for the night and an extra assignment if you want to play that day. And then on the weekends, you have to do that four days of the week or something. And so we just built up that gradually over time.
And the kid was able to get back in and reintegrate.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 39:37
Unbelievable. I mean, such, such powerful work. I mean, really, it’s just incredible. Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 39:45
Yeah. A lot of credit to the parents as well that it was, you know, it’s hard to hold those expectations, to hold those limits and be firm. Yeah. And not let up because it’s it’s easier and understandably so to just let the kid have what he wants when he’s throwing stuff at you.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 39:59
Yeah. No. 100%. In the short term, that is an easier thing. Yeah.
I’m curious, though, if in that type of situation. I understand what you’re saying. You don’t want to remove this community in this world. It’s really got nothing else at that time. Anyone, not this particular anyone.
But I am curious if it’s gotten to that point. Like, is there a situation where you would say, we’re unplugging this, we’re putting it, you know, grandma’s house, like it’s not even a physical house, so they can’t tantrum and get it back. And like you’re saying, well, we’ll bring it back for the weekends, you know, but until you go to school, because in this, in your situation, it sounds like you really did keep it as part of, you know, it was there, right? I’m just curious if there were what would be the pros and cons about, like physically removing it. Just I could see that being such a power struggle, like, you know.
Andrew Fishman: 40:50
Oh yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 40:51
Trying so hard to get it.
Andrew Fishman: 40:53
Yeah. And that’s, that’s the hardest part for parents is, is how do I hold firm? And, you know, in a situation where the kid could just steal it, could just get it back from your room if you have it there or find a way around the parental controls because your kids are better than you are at.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 41:07
Saying like, I feel like literally if it’s in the house, it would be a problem for this. Yeah. I mean, again, not a teenager, but someone who’s really this into it.
Andrew Fishman: 41:17
Right. And and what I always say is the best way to teach somebody to pick locks is to lock up the iPad, because I’ve had kids learn how to, you know, Jimmy the lock and get it open because they really they can’t not go without it because it’s their only way of calling themselves down. It’s their only way of connecting with their friends.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 41:35
Right?
Andrew Fishman: 41:35
Right.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 41:36
So, so so you’re just saying it’s better to learn to live with it as opposed to, you know.
Andrew Fishman: 41:41
I don’t know better. I would, I would, I would try to do the this route first. First. Okay. You might get to the point where, no, we just you can’t have it right now.
Until you are, until you are more able to manage your emotions. Until you’re able to follow expectations. The thing that I would caution there is that if this really is a kid’s only coping skill, Then you take that away. That’s it’s more likely to go badly than than. Well.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 42:10
Yeah, right. It’s hard. It’s hard to picture. You’re right. It’s still it’s still providing some kind of positive.
Andrew Fishman: 42:15
Right.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 42:16
Because for a lot of kids.
Andrew Fishman: 42:17
And this is this is going to sound judgmental. But it breaks my heart when when parents use the the iPad as the calm down button. Yeah. Because then their kids grow up. These are, you know, two year olds who are crying in their parents are holding up.
All right. Well, no, here’s here’s the iPad. Calm down. And then when they’re ten and you need to punish them and you take away so you take away the, the device because that’s the punishment people do. But that’s the only way they’ve ever learned how to calm themselves down.
It’s not going to they’re not going to be able to do it. You’ve never taught them how to breathe and think about their emotions and journal and go, you know, go for a run or something, right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 42:57
Absolutely. No. I think that that’s a whole generation of kiddos coming your way in terms of emotional regulation. Right. Being a primary presenting issue, like you said, because of the screens and because of never having had the opportunity to learn it the other way.
Andrew Fishman: 43:12
Right.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 43:13
It’s a really good point. So yeah, I mean, this is fascinating. So for parents out there. I’m hearing, you know, we need to figure out sort of what’s underlying when it again, when it crosses that threshold, you have to figure out what’s, what’s missing from their lives that they’re kind of going to this place, whether it’s social anxiety or they’re getting bullied at school and, you know, they have no awareness of how to talk about feelings, distress tolerance. So that’s good to keep in mind.
I was going to say, what other kind of things would you tell parents who are listening, just to kind of make sure they’re proactive when they do give a kiddo a gaming device for the first time? Like, what kind of limits and rules would would be helpful to set up?
Andrew Fishman: 43:56
Yeah. So parental controls, if you can set it up so that strangers don’t talk to your kids do that. right? That’s that’s always the best option. Yeah.
That’s that’s that’s number one for me. And that’s actually, as an aside, why it’s one of the reasons that Roblox is such a problem because Roblox doesn’t have that middle. Only friends can talk to me option. It really is. Only everybody can talk to me or nobody can talk to me.
And so if you have a middle school kid who wants to talk to his friends on Roblox, they’re also every stranger can talk to them. And that’s caused some major problems the company is being sued by I think. I think there are 20 different lawsuits against Roblox right now for allowing people to, you know, really dangerous people to come and groom their children and hurt their children. And it’s it’s it gets bad quickly. So if you can set up parental controls that, that just automatically when you download a game, does this game have public chat?
If so, turn it off. Yeah. Number one, the second and maybe most important advice I have is to play with your kids.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 45:01
Yeah, I love that.
Andrew Fishman: 45:02
It’s got I mean, it’s it’s a great opportunity to bond first off. But it also is it’s a it’s a great way to sort of monitor covertly. What are your kids doing. It’s got a it’s got a built in. What.
Why what is it. What is it about this game that is causing my kid to blow up when I tell them to stop? And if you’ve played with them, then you know what the game is and why. And you can have the language to understand. Okay, well, if your kid says I’m in a raid, you know what that means.
And you can make a you can make an informed decision based on that, right?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 45:38
Absolutely. I also think of this kiddo as wanting connection. You know, like, I’m not saying this is the number one way to bond with your child over video games, but.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 45:47
It is nicer that they’re spending time, like with the mom or the dad playing video games, then again, just by themselves in the basement for hours and hours. So that’s it’s a nice thing. But like you say that you get to see what their, what they’re really doing.
Andrew Fishman: 45:59
Who’s talking to your kid? You can hear them if you’re with them. If you’re with them in the room and you hear somebody yell something. You’re like, oh, this is not what I thought when I downloaded this, this game. It also gives you an opportunity to to model positive behavior.
Because if you if your kid watches Twitch streamers, which is just people playing video games online for a live audience, the you’re they’re competing with millions of other people who are also trying to make a living streaming themselves, playing video games, which is it’s a big thing. And the problem is that if you want to stand out, you need to be either really, really good at the game or really entertaining. And entertaining sometimes means blowing up when you lose. Smashing keyboards. And so if those are the role models your kids have for art, how do I act?
How am I supposed to act when I lose a game? And the only version they have is somebody smashing a keyboard? That’s not going to help.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 46:56
It’s so sad that this is what they’re watching, you know?
Andrew Fishman: 47:00
And it’s entertaining. It’s just not a good example of what you should actually do. These are, these are, you know, these are entertainers. They’re not role models. They, they I, I would argue so, but you can be a better example if you’re next to your kid and you laugh at yourself when they kick your butt and they will kick your butt because you’re a parent and they’re they’re the gamer.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 47:17
They’re professional. Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 47:19
They’re they’re they’re little professionals and and and so but you can be like wow. That was that was great. You did you you I, I messed up there. That was hilarious. Versus and they can see oh that is also a way to to do that that might be healthier.
People might respond more positively to me if I just congratulate them when they beat me versus yelling at them.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 47:39
Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Wow. It is unbelievable terrain out there. It’s it’s just like you said, the different games.
I mean, there’s so much to know.
Andrew Fishman: 47:49
Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 47:50
The last thing I’m thinking about and then we’ll kind of start to wrap up, but is I had met a few therapists who, when you walked into their office, really wonderful therapists, but they had the video game consoles on their walls and the TV hooked up. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like the parents know, they’re paying however much an hour and that you’re playing video games.
Like, how do you respond? And my and my thought was like, oh my gosh, they’re going to not be happy. But I love just hearing I was going to say, I love hearing from you about like, why it’s so important to start that way and build in it sort of sounds like more of like an exposure, like you’re building in the ability to stop, pause for five minutes, breathe, talk. You know, like what’s going on that you know, you have to plan.
And in vivo, as opposed to just talking about what’s happening in the home. So I’m curious again for you, like, if you could talk a little bit more about just how you describe what you’re doing with parents, because I think that’s the part where, you know, some parents may be really, like turned off. Like, I’m trying to get my kid to stop using video games, and here you are playing with them in the session. Yeah, we tell them.
Andrew Fishman: 49:01
Yes. And so the the first and most obvious way is that it helps people feel comfortable. It gets it increases buy in. If your kid doesn’t want to go to therapy, it’s a little easier to get them in the door if you can say, but you can play Mario Kart while you’re there. And so then it helps me just get them engaged and yeah, just get them to be willing to sit there because a lot of young people, if they don’t want to be in therapy, you can’t get them to sit there. And so that’s, that’s that’s barrier one that that gets rid of.
Barrier two is it’s easier to have a conversation if you’re both looking at a screen and you’re doing something casual and you throw in a, hey, so how’s school going, by the way.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 49:43
Versus eye contact or.
Andrew Fishman: 49:44
Yeah. You’re staring, you know, staring at a therapist who’s, you know, arms politely folded across their across their lap is that’s that’s intimidating.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 49:52
Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 49:52
That’s why, that’s why that’s why every therapist has a deck of Uno cards in their in their, in their office. Because it’s just easier when you’re doing something casual. And for a lot of these kids, it’s all right. Let’s play Smash Bros or something.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 50:01
Yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 50:02
So it helps me get increased buy in, build rapport, and then also helps me sort of secretly practice some skills where one of the challenges with learning how to regulate your emotions is noticing when you are upset. It’s something a lot of people take for granted. But just knowing, you know, for some of these kids, they say, well, I just I just go from a one to a ten and then I blow up and I break things. It’s like, I don’t think that you do. I think that you’re not noticing two through nine.
And so what I can do then is play Mario Kart, which is a very frustrating game. You could be in first place and you get hit with an explosion with an explosion of a blue, you know, a blue shell comes and hits you, and then you’re. And then you’re in sixth place. That’s really frustrating. And so what I can do as a therapist is sort of look over and say, hey, it looks like, you know, let’s pause the game for a second.
Your knees bouncing. You you are like you are kind of you’re kind of bouncing in your chair and you seem really frustrated. What do you notice right now? How does your body feel? Do you feel warm?
Do you feel what is? What is? Because it looks like you’re feeling pretty frustrated right now. What does that actually feel like? How can you notice that when you start feeling that in the future?
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 51:16
Right.
Andrew Fishman: 51:17
And then also, how can we help you calm down from that feeling so that when you’re at a six, you can get back to a one versus waiting for it to be a ten.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 51:26
It’s like they’ll say it was, you know, obviously limbic system took over, right?
Andrew Fishman: 51:31
Yeah.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 51:32
There was no turning back. So it sounds like you’re helping them to kind of figure out the signs earlier. The cues earlier.
Andrew Fishman: 51:38
Exactly. And then it just as a, as an aside as a advice to therapists, one of the best ways that I talk to kids about that problem of I just blow up and I, you know, I reach this point and I’m too angry and I can’t make decisions anymore. It’s like I black out and I’m not myself anymore. Okay, so. And then I always say, do you know who Bruce Banner is? And they say Bruce Banner like the Hulk.
I said, yeah, Bruce Banner like the Hulk. Yeah. When he gets really, really angry, he turns green and big and then throws cars and loses control of himself. And they go, oh, yeah, he does do that. Okay, great.
We’re on the same page. If you were Bruce Banner’s friend, what advice would you give him? And that’s and they usually go oh that’s. I would say don’t get angry. No that’s not really an option.
Everybody gets angry. What would you do. And then we can sort of walk them through. Okay. Well you would probably want to know when you’re getting angry and then be able to calm yourself down when you do that.
And in the, in the comics and the movies, he, like goes to Tibet and learns to meditate, and he does all these things to proactively calm himself down. He wears a heart rate monitor. He does all sorts of things to not get to a ten, because ten is dangerous for him, and it sounds very similar for you client that when you get to a ten it’s bad and you don’t want to get there. So what can we do to help you notice when you’re earlier? Calm yourself down.
And video games are a great way to practice that skill of getting annoyed and then coming back down.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 53:04
Absolutely. Oh, I love that. It’s it’s so it’s such a great, you know, tool that you can use, especially with the population who’s coming to see you.
It’s awesome. And it sounds like you explained it in such a way that parents understand the value. And aren’t having that reaction, like, oh, so I love it. So we’re going to we’re going to wrap up. This has been so helpful. Obviously everyone who’s listening, who has any interest in learning more about, you know, raising a video gamer and kind of how how to deal with this whole world. You should order Andrew’s book on Amazon.
Exactly. Parenting a gamer. What are other resources that you would recommend, whether books or podcasts or anything to help parents who are interested in learning more about this topic in addition to the book.
Andrew Fishman: 53:55
Sure. The other the other resource that I would recommend the most is Common Sense Media. It’s a it’s a it’s almost a Wikipedia of games and movies and what is appropriate and what is not in each of those. Does this does this video game have good role models? Does this video game have smoking? Does it have nudity?
Does it have violence? Can people talk to your kids in each of these games? Right. And so it’s it’s a great way to start. The best way is to then play with your kids and see is this accurate is the kind of violence they’re describing.
Am I okay with that? Am I okay with the actual people who are talking to my kid, not just in the abstract? So play with your kids, but common Sense media is a great first step to understand. Is this a game that I would want to purchase for my child? To understand what you know, what?
What is the content of the game? So that’s the other one that I would really recommend people check out.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 54:45
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. This it’s really helpful because I think, you know, technology and the games, everything evolves so quickly that we really can’t wait for the research to catch up. So so I’m sure media is just like quick, more quick to update, you know.
Andrew Fishman: 55:03
Exactly. Yeah. As soon as the game comes out people have already yeah. Posted opinions on it.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 55:08
Amazing. Well thank you so much Andrew for sharing your time and your expertise with us. I mean, this was yeah.
Andrew Fishman: 55:15
Thank you very much for having me.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 55:16
Absolutely. And everyone, please check out more episodes of our podcast. Go to popingpartners.com and click on Podcasts & Articles. And thank you, as always for tuning in.
Outro: 55:28
Thank you for listening to The Coping Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes and check out our podcast page at copingpartners.com.