The Salt Sessions

Transcript

 

0:10
Hi, I'm Bev Salt.

0:11
Welcome back to the Salt sessions.

0:13
Today I'll be talking about gaming.

0:17
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in online gaming and social media.

0:24
In fact, it has pretty much replaced traditional face to face interaction with young people.

0:31
And as parents, we want to ensure that our children are safe when they're gaming online.

0:36
My guest today is Lauren Ridley.

0:39
Lauren, would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?

0:42
Good afternoon.

0:43
I'm Lauren Ridley.

0:44
I am the Chairperson and parent advocate at Apcam, which is a small local charity who provide parent support for parents who have young people with SEN needs with mental health problems and who experience social anxiety and also very often don't attend school.

1:02
We also run a programme called We Game, which is a fully inclusive gaming environment for young people, regardless of what whatever challenge they have, everyone can come along.

1:12
So physical, emotional, whatever your challenge, We Game is for you, right.

1:16
So when you say local charity that apcam where where is local?

1:21
So we are based in the Cotswolds, it just near a place called Burford.

1:25
We are in a town called Carterton and we are in their family centre.

1:28
So we have clinical space where we run a 1 to 1 therapeutic service and we also run we Game sessions from the community hall room that's there as well.

1:37
OK, thank you, Lauren.

1:38
Online gaming as a parent to teenagers, this is a subject that's very close to my heart.

1:44
So I think we should maybe start with talking about the benefits and risks of social gaming.

1:51
So do you want to talk about both of these aspects?

1:55
Yeah, so which we start in a on a positive light.

1:57
So online gaming for so many young people was for a really long time the only way they socialised.

2:04
If you were a sort of a mid teen during the pandemic, chances are that was the only way you had any interaction with your friends for probably a year.

2:12
So lots of them have developed really strong what we would term a virtual friendship.

2:17
But actually, obviously a lot of those friendships translate into the real world with their friends from school, from organisations, clubs, scouts, whatever organisation you go to.

2:26
But equally, those young people have formed friendships that are lasting and sometimes they'll be with people that they will never have met in real life because they will have met them in some form of online forum.

2:37
And what we say to parents is that those friendships are no less real to the young people than a friendship that they formed IRL as the young people call it.

2:47
And yeah, they and they will be as emotionally connected with the people that they've never met in person as they are with their with their real life friends.

2:56
It also can foster a really good way of working communally.

3:01
So if you say something like Minecraft, for example, which obviously is super popular with younger teens, you can build entire fully immersive worlds, something like Minecraft with your friend.

3:11
So it helps you learn to work collaboratively.

3:16
It's also a really great way of social acting if you if you aren't able to get out.

3:20
Like I said in my introduction, we support a lot of young people who have OCD, have agoraphobia, who have SEN needs, who have a physical disability.

3:28
But they can't socialise in a real, real world environment because there are things that are holding them back and it enables them to have that socialisation that they wouldn't otherwise get.

3:40
Yeah, absolutely.

3:41
Yeah.

3:43
And it can also be quite an, it's quite an inclusive space as well because you tend to find the people that are like you.

3:48
So if you are somebody who suffers with social anxiety, there's it's a much less pressured environment to be sociable.

3:57
You're not.

3:57
You don't have to be in a room, you don't have to make small talk.

3:59
You know, there's not that sort of pressure on you.

4:02
But you can still form and still engage in a social activity.

4:06
Yes.

4:06
And stay connected.

4:08
Connected.

4:09
Yeah, absolutely.

4:10
Some of the young people we work with, they don't socialise at all in real life for whatever the reason is.

4:16
But they have very strong online friendships, which still means that they they have that socialisation.

4:21
Although as parents, to us it seems like it can't be a real friendship to the young people.

4:25
It definitely is right.

4:28
That's interesting.

4:29
When it comes to the kind of more negative aspects of it, I think parents tend to be much more aware of the negative aspects than the positive aspects particularly.

4:38
So obviously predatory behaviour, cyber bullying, addictive behaviour.

4:44
And sometimes young people can sort of connect their bank accounts and then they can spend money that they didn't realise they were spending.

4:50
So those are the the most common negatives and the one that I think parents we focus on most of all is predatory behaviour, because particularly if you're not a digital native, you don't really function in that same world.

5:04
So you don't understand or you don't know how to put those kind of safeguards in place for your young person.

5:10
Yes, I think that's probably an issue for a lot of Generation X parents.

5:16
I mean, we didn't grow up in an online gaming world.

5:20
Yes, we had game consoles like the NES and the SNES, but it wasn't done online.

5:25
So as parents and guardians, how can we protect our children from the online dangers such as grooming?

5:33
And what should we be watching out for as parents?

5:37
So there are a number of things that we say to parents that you need to do when we're talking about young people gaming.

5:42
Obviously when you've got particularly young children, they're probably not playing online as such, but there are certain platform games where they seem very innocent, but actually they are much more of a risk, sort of a risky for one of a platform to be on, for example, Roblox.

6:00
So Roblox is something that a lot of very young people will play because it seems very sort of, it's brightly coloured, it's not very complicated.

6:09
There doesn't seem to be a lot of violence.

6:12
But actually Roblox is a fully open source platform.

6:15
So that can lead to young people.

6:17
You anyone could submit a game to Roblox.

6:19
There's no sort of process of it being authenticated really.

6:27
You can just, you can create your map on and that's their full business model that you create this map on roadblocks and anyone can play it, which then also enables chat as well.

6:36
So young, quite young people can then end up in a chat situation with somebody who obviously could have malicious intent towards that young person.

6:47
So we always say to parents, one of the the most important things when it comes to keeping your young people safe in particularly in a sort of grooming type way, is know who they're talking to and make sure that those people are people that you would be happy with them talking to in a real world environment.

7:02
Monitor their chat.

7:04
So all online gaming platforms have a chat function.

7:07
So you can either disable that or you can enable chat to only people you know.

7:12
So chat to contacts rather than have an open chat and make sure you monitor it.

7:20
So one of the things we do and our children are quite old now when it comes to sort of the online gaming world is we still monitor the chats that they have.

7:28
So we will routinely go into their accounts and make sure that the people that they're talking to are who they think they are, but they're also not having conversations that we would say we're not healthy conversations, right?

7:43
OK.

7:44
And would you tell your child that you are monitoring their chat?

7:48
Children know and we always say to parents when they come to we game because we run online safety sessions for the we game as well, to be honest with your young person to make sure that you this is this is what we're going to be doing.

7:58
You want this freedom to play online on this particular game or platform or gaming environment, whether it's on your phone or your console, whatever reason, or PC.

8:08
But we will be checking on that and we will be monitoring your chat and parental controls.

8:14
You can obviously set different settings, but I I have all with them, with my young people who are now 14 to 23, very open with the fact that if this is the responsibility you want the playoff for that is that we will be monitoring your online activity for your safety as well as to make sure that we know what's happening.

8:33
Yeah, definitely.

8:34
That's a good call.

8:34
And cyber bullying, that's one of the risks associated with online gaming.

8:39
So how can we support children around that?

8:42
Would you, you encourage them to report it to you as a parent?

8:45
So you can Obviously, we encourage young people to obviously speak out as soon as there's any kind of conversation and then they're comfortable with the next agreement conversation, whether it's a bullying conversation, whether it's even a friend of yours who's saying an appropriate thing while you're gaming, always wouldn't speak to a parent.

9:02
But also in the gaming platforms, they have their own report function.

9:07
So if you do feel like you are being bullied, victimised by somebody online, always report to the platform themselves.

9:14
And that the report can then it can lead to a 24 hour ban or you know, it will be investigated by the platform.

9:23
So it's then taken out of your hands and it's managed by a, an impartial third party.

9:29
So actually, because quite often with young people, obviously someone will say something, someone want to say something else, and it all gets sort of smuggled up in the wash.

9:38
Yeah, absolutely.

9:39
But what happens if you report it or if your parent reports it, is that that is then monitored by the third party and then they will take appropriate action.

9:48
Right.

9:48
OK, that's great.

9:50
You mentioned privacy settings.

9:51
What privacy settings should we be aware of?

9:55
So depends on your platform, obviously.

9:58
So there's lots of different ways that you can set privacy.

10:02
So if you are talking about a PC or Xbox, there's the Microsoft Family Safety app, which you can limit the amount of time and the content and the contact that they have on that.

10:14
PlayStation 4 and 5 also have a very similar app that you can set age limits, you can restrict chat.

10:22
You can make sure that, like I said, do the reporting functions on there as well.

10:25
Apple have a similar function on an iPhone.

10:28
So if your child games on an iPad, which obviously is increasingly popular and a lot of young people have phones much younger than we would have had phones.

10:35
I didn't have my first phone till I was an adult, whereas you know, quite often children have them in primary school.

10:41
So you can set app limits within the family controls on your iPhone as the parent of the So you can do it for the iPad, for a MacBook and for a phone itself.

10:51
So again, contacts and time and age ratings, for example, say what videos and what apps they can access.

10:59
Yeah, because you just mentioned screen time, I'd like to know what is an appropriate amount of screen time.

11:06
Obviously, this varies weekdays on weekends because weekdays they have school, so they won't be able to gain as much.

11:13
And then there's the weekend when they have more time.

11:15
So in your opinion, Lauren, what is a sensible amount of screen time?

11:21
So my opinion, as you might imagine, differs greatly from my children's opinion as to how long they should spend online.

11:26
The recommendations are.

11:28
So this is not my recommendations, as general recommendations are that 60 to 90 minutes during the week after school after they've done the homework.

11:36
For example, in our house, you're not allowed to play online.

11:38
So you've done all your homework, you've got changed out of your uniform, you know you've done any chores you might have to do and your after school activities are finished.

11:46
So if you've got time.

11:47
So I've got young people at the moment revising for exams.

11:50
It's not really a lot of time left online gaming, but they'll get maybe an hour during during the week.

11:56
Obviously we it's in the holidays and the weekends are slightly different and that tends to be up to the parents judgement.

12:03
My advice is generally spend more time online than you would spend at work and you'd be amazed at how many young people, if you look at their time online, it really, really escalates really quickly that they can be doing 12 or 14 hours online on particularly on the Microsoft, umm, family safety app, you can give a customised amount of time to enable like 8 hours is the maximum you can give.

12:26
Obviously you they can request more once that 8 hours is finished, but it's a really good guide as to the fact that actually this young person sent 8 hours already online today and that's it's a long time.

12:36
And I said the same with like the PlayStation, for example, so that it gives you as a pair and maybe it's fun to go do something else because 8 hours is a long time to spend online.

12:47
Yes, that's a full working day for 8 hours.

12:51
So let's talk about 8 hours then.

12:53
Is that a sign of gaining addiction and how can we spot gaming addiction?

12:57
So 8 hours is probably about average you'll find for a lot of young people on a weekend.

13:02
So as long as they're taking regular breaks, they're not spending all their time at gaming that they're, you know, doing other things as well.

13:10
Joining the family for meals, for example, is another one that it's quite important so that there is a break from the screen and from the activity.

13:17
But gaming addiction is it can be quite hard to spot in the in the early stages.

13:23
The kind of the key things are if the young person doesn't want to do anything other than game, if it becomes aggressive when you try and take them away from the screen, becoming demanding of time, becoming quite secretive about the amount of time they're spending online if you're not actively monitoring it, becoming quite sort of giving up the sleep.

13:45
So they'll, rather than going to bed, they'll be getting up in the night, for example, and playing online when they think you've gone to bed.

13:53
And I've got a lot of cases of young people where the parents think that they're asleep and actually they've been up on the right hand or Switch or Xbox or whatever, you know, under they're doing obviously not their Xbox under the duvet, but under the duvet hiding what they're doing right.

14:10
And that can become like a habitual behaviour.

14:13
Then if it's something they get into the habit of, Oh yeah, I'm going to bed now mum, and then wait for you to go to bed and then you'll watch, then they're the DV playing at night.

14:21
So it's really important that you keep a very close eye on the amount of actual time they're spending online because that can signify the fact that there is gaming addiction.

14:31
And like I said, like aggressive behaviour, wanting to do gaming over everything else.

14:36
So eating, sleeping, washing, for example, you know, priotising playing online over any other activity.

14:44
And if that starts to happen, we, we try and help parents to combat that by gradually reducing the amount of time that the young person spending online.

14:52
Because much with any kind of addiction, just taking it away altogether isn't necessarily going to be the great the best solution for that young person, particularly if they are a young person who has no other social outlet, they will then become very isolated.

15:04
So it's about working to get the balance with the young person as to how much time they should be spending, what other activities they're doing, and how else they can spend their time.

15:14
That's good advice.

15:15
And can you share any tips on managing gaming addiction then?

15:18
You've mentioned gradually reducing rather than just right stop if you need to stop gaming altogether because that's such way too harsh.

15:26
So your advice would be to gradually wean them off gaming?

15:30
Yeah, going to do some other activities, other activities, even other games.

15:34
If it's a particular game they're very obsessed with playing.

15:37
If you are playing a game where it requires a lot, because some games require a lot of time, you know, there's some story, storyboard games that take can take hours and hours to complete.

15:48
So quite often just introducing a different game even can help manage that.

15:54
But yeah, from, from our perspective, it's always about working collaboratively because as I said, just taking it way isn't going to be the solution.

16:01
You're probably going to just be met with lots of anger and upset and and then the young person's going to really resent you for taking it away.

16:09
In the same way that with any kind of addiction, it works like that.

16:12
But this tends to be one that does affect younger people and they don't really understand how to manage that emotion then afterwards.

16:19
So it's about reducing gradually.

16:21
Yeah.

16:22
Introducing lots of breaks, having other activities, making sure that they attend family things, dinners, they're not prioritising over everything else.

16:31
And yeah, and like I said, even if it is the case that you game with them as well so that they they get used to the fact that there are adults around, it's not a fully insular activity.

16:41
I have heard of circumstances where parents will just turn off the Wi-Fi.

16:46
Now, sadly for me, that's not an option because if I turn off the Wi-Fi, then all of a sudden my smoke alarms won't work, my doorbell system won't work.

16:57
So are there any other ways rather than just turn off the Wi-Fi?

17:01
Absolutely.

17:02
So, yeah, our entire lives are connected to the Internet now, aren't they?

17:05
Like, you know, in my house, obviously smart speakers, the TVs, you know, we don't have live TV.

17:10
Everything, everything comes through the Internet.

17:12
Yeah, your doorbell for, as you said, things like that.

17:15
So you can't, most families can't literally just switch off the modem.

17:18
So what you do have now with most Internet providers is the option to isolate devices.

17:24
So if you need to isolate a specific device, phone, iPad, a gaming console for example, within the app that that you get your have from your provider, they it will enable you to isolate that specific item.

17:37
So for example, ours are, umm, staggered throughout the evening.

17:41
So our younger son who's 14, his goes off earlier than our older son who is 17.

17:47
And then obviously the older ones sort of manage it themselves because they are technically adults, but we stag at the time so that they're, they're, those devices are then isolated.

17:56
And we can obviously log on if, like we said about if it's the holidays, for example, we can log on and enable a bit more Wi-Fi time.

18:03
But our, in our house, on average they go off.

18:05
So for the 14 year old, he has no access to the Internet after 8:30.

18:09
And then for the 17 year old, it tends to be about 9:30.

18:12
As I said, different in holidays.

18:14
But that means that all of their devices then are isolated at that point.

18:18
So laptops, phones, and we live in the middle of nowhere.

18:21
So there's not really any phone signal like that, which is a bit of a problem.

18:23
If you've got 5G, for example, if you're trying to get your young person off their phone, that becomes a little bit more difficult.

18:29
So then you have to use then you'd have to use that in in app controls.

18:33
So it's essentially removed screen time via the parent.

18:38
But yes, from a Wi-Fi perspective, it is now fully, you're fully able to isolate specific devices.

18:43
So, you know, like I can carry on working in the evening if I need to.

18:47
Yeah, my laptop.

18:48
Can you provide an overview of parental control tools?

18:51
So you've mentioned Microsoft family safety.

18:54
Are there any others that we should be aware of?

18:57
So family safety, PlayStation have one.

19:00
There are things like Apple have their own family controls which you can limit.

19:07
I said iPad ads and phones and laptops.

19:11
Yeah, Microsoft family safety, which will offer which will isolate your laptop as well as your gaming device.

19:17
Nintendo have their own in platform so you can younger.

19:21
The Wii tends to be younger people, so you can limit the amount of time they use on a Wii.

19:25
A PlayStation have theirs each each gaming platform essentially will have has its own parental control app.

19:31
So that works really well and there are lots of other things that you can add in apps that you can enable, particularly for phones.

19:42
If you are concerned about your young person's phone usage, there are lots of different apps that will allow you to do that.

19:47
We tend to just use the native one that's in and because we we have all I all have iPhones, but Android have their own as well.

19:54
Great.

19:54
And there's also Google have their own versions.

19:56
Well, family they do yes, like Google family link equivalents.

19:59
And for our listeners who want more information on this subject, there's a few useful websites that are just going to run through so.

20:08
Nspcc.org.uk, internetmatters.org and the National Crime Agency have a really good website called thinkuknow.co.uk and it's broken down into various age groups.

20:21
So from the younger children to teens to older teens with lots of resources as well.

20:27
So Lauren, I'm going to ask you a bonus question because I'm asking all my guests question in season 2.

20:34
The question is what is a small daily habit that has had a big impact on your success?

20:40
So mine is rather than have, it's a supplement and I don't know if that really counts, but I take Lions Mane supplement every day because I live quite a hectic life and I I have lots of children and I obviously run a children's clinic.

20:56
So I'm around young people all the time and I tend to get ill quite a lot.

21:01
So I take I, I have started at the ripe old age of 44 taking supplements and vitamins, which has really helped.

21:09
And I realise that's probably not a big, a big revelation for anybody, but for me, because I've always been a middle, Oh, it'll be fine.

21:16
But it's really made, Lion's mane in particular has really made a difference to the amount of time that I, I can concentrate because my brain is full of everybody else's information all the time.

21:25
And it has really, whether that's a placebo or not, I don't know, but I have to to say it has it definitely helped.

21:31
Ah.

21:31
And are you getting less illnesses as as a result?

21:34
Yes, I've not haven't been a sick since I've been taking like a high quality multivitamin and some vitamin C tablets.

21:41
One of my sons in particular gets ill a lot.

21:43
So he is also on the same regimen and we've seen a bit of a change for him as well.

21:47
Yeah.

21:47
So I'm not yeah.

21:49
I used to get a lot of coughs and colds particularly because obviously I'm in quite close quarters with young people a lot of my time and they bring, as every parent knows, when you come home from when your toddler starts nursery, you get everything.

22:02
It's sort of the same.

22:04
You know, the teenagers will come in, sneeze, cough, all over everything.

22:07
Hygiene doesn't really get any better.

22:09
I was waiting for, umm, these colds and illnesses to stop once they start secondary school.

22:15
But it doesn't does it?

22:15
It doesn't end.

22:16
No, they still come back.

22:17
And, and of course, I remember back to my uni days, there was always the freshest flu just so yeah.

22:23
So again, it doesn't end at university.

22:25
So maybe it never ends.

22:27
Maybe taking supplement is the answer.

22:29
Definitely made a difference to me because I was literally, I literally had a snotty nose or a cough or something like that literally all the time.

22:38
Right.

22:38
That's great advice.

22:39
And if our listeners wanted a bit more information about any of this, what is the best way for them to contact you?

22:46
Lauren?

22:46
So our group website is apcamgroup.org.uk.

22:50
You can follow us on all the social media and we are at APCAM Group.

22:55
We game also comes under APCAM.

22:57
We're in the process of launching its own sort of arm at the moment.

23:02
They can find us.

23:03
If you're local, you can come along.

23:04
All of our sessions are fully open to the public.

23:07
We don't.

23:07
There's no referral.

23:09
You would literally just walk in.

23:10
So that's the We game and the parent and the young person sessions that we do.

23:13
And yeah.

23:14
So social media and online or if you are local, just pop along.

23:17
Great.

23:18
Thank you.

23:18
And thank you so much for your time today.

23:20
Lauren.

23:21
I found that was really interesting.

23:23
No problem.

23:23
Thank you.

23:24
Bye.

23:25
Bye.