My 9-Year Old Stepson is a Junkie

And Yours May Be Too

Yesterday started out like most weekdays, seeing the kids off to school, kissed my wife goodbye as she did the same, grabbed another cup of coffee, checked email, reviewed my daily task list, took a few calls and sat down to write. Nice, calm and routine morning...just like I like it. That is, until a few hours after the kids got home from school.

     It was around 5:30 PM,  my wife was in the kitchen starting to make what turned out to be an amazing Mexican casserole, I was in my office finishing up a few things to prepare for the launch or our new website and out of nowhere, I heard my wife raise her voice in frustration. 

     If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting my beautiful wife, she’s an elementary school librarian who, maybe due to intrinsic personality traits or possibly occupational hazard, is a discerning intellectual who has incredible patience and a soft, kind voice. Hearing her upset in the kitchen lecturing her 9-year old son was reason enough for me to pause and listen in to the conversation. The topic of disagreement was not new, in fact, it had become a growing problem over the past year and ordinarily, I may not have thought much about it. However, earlier that day I had done some research to complete a lesson plan on the importance of systems development for business owners and reviewed the work of Harvard Professor, psychologist and social philosopher B.F. Skinner and his principle of reinforcement.

     My early interest in psychology and the scientific approach to  human behavior has helped me professionally in more ways than I would have ever imagined. While Freud, Jung, Erikson, Rogers and Maslow all have their own theory on why we are who we are today, they would all agree we are a complex product of the conscious and often subconscious decisions we make due to our environment, experiences and motivations. It’s my understanding of desires and motivation that has helped me lead sales teams to perform at the highest level and to help entrepreneurs build a business with meaning. How could I, often claiming to be somewhat of an expert in the field, have missed this transgression of a 9-year old that was happening right in front of me?

     I went to sleep bothered by the days events and it wasn’t until 3 AM, when it hit me like a freight train—our 9-year is a Minecraft, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach junkie! And although you may laugh, this is no laughing matter! Casino’s have used classic conditioning theory for decades with the lights and sounds of slot machines causing impulsive control disorders which was actually classified as a disease in 1980.

     Gaming/App developers which have mastered human behavior theory,  now take advantage of three facts to enter an industry which is expected to reach $77 billion in annual sales by 2017! The three facts are:

1. Children are impulsive and demanding little creatures,
2. Parents often give in to crying children, and
3. Electronics combined with app technology is the perfect platform to create a conditioned response stimulus to make a child beg for more!

     Already grossing over $1.5 million dollars A DAY (over $525m annually), Clash of Clans stimulates over 3.2 million child addicts and almost 60,000 new customers every day!

     According to the Illinois Institute of Addiction Recovery, evidence indicates that pathological gambling is an addiction similar to chemical addiction. Furthermore, Hans Breiter, co-director of the Motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, conducted an experiment using neuroimaging concluded addicted gamblers displayed more physical symptoms during withdrawal than did cocaine addicts!

     What happened to the good ole’ days when all we had to worry about was distracting our children from looking at the toys while waiting in the check-out line at Walmart to keep them from throwing a fit? Now, online gaming is like having a casino for kids right in our living room! And if not dealt with appropriately, I am convinced we will raise a generation of serotonin deficient, clinically depressed, compulsive gamblers who would prefer to bet on football games than save for retirement.  So, now that I realize it’s a real problem, what can I do to help wean my children from these mind-altering games and get them to go outside and ride a bike?

     Searching for answers, I found an article written by Christina Elgersma called 5 Ways to Curb Kids’ In-App Purchases on the iPhone. I’ve used a few of her ideas and added some of my own to the list.

• Restrict access. Create a Family Share plan in iCloud and require approval before any in-app purchases can be made. While you are at it, turn on location services and Find My iPhone so you can see where your child (or at least his/her iPhone/iPad) is at all times.
• Go with a gift card or an iTunes allowance. Let's say you want to allow your responsible kid to make purchases but not go wild. Opt to fund the iTunes account with an iTunes gift card instead of a credit card, or set up a monthly allowance in iTunes (go to Send iTunes Gifts, then Learn More About Gifting, then Set Up an Allowance).
• Set expectations. Once the device's settings are squared away, it's time to establish some rules about in-app purchases. Decide whether you're willing to pay for them and, if so, set a maximum amount through the iTunes allowance. Take this opportunity to teach your children about real money, budgeting and consequences for over spending.
• Just say no! This one is hard for all of us. Games are usually inexpensive at first and telling a child “no” who has done all of their homework, is on their best behavior and smiling at you from ear-to-ear is hard to resist. I’m not referring to my kids of course, but that may be an accurate description of yours. But saying “no” to this impulsive demand is best for your child’s well-being, your budget and after rules are established, harmony in your household.

About Jeff Hastings

Jeff Hastings is the President and C.E.O. of the Jeff Hastings Agency which is a business coaching service dedicated to insurance professionals. He is the author of three books including his latest, The Most Successful Failure in the World. Find out more by clicking the logo below and viewing his Amazon author page.