Warrior Mamas: A Christian Parenting Guide to Video Games
We have been discussing in our Warrior Mamas Series how the enemy, the devil, can speak lies and bring temptation to our kids and teens through media, such as harmful secular books and music. Today we are going to look at how he can speak lies to our kids and distract them with one of the most popular media outlets in today’s culture, video games. A study conducted by Harvard University revealed that two-thirds of Americans play video games. I would imagine the percentage is even higher among children, especially boys. There are some benefits to video games, such as increased coordination, creativity, and problem solving. Children and teens also enjoy playing video games with their friends, which can build positive relationships and develop cooperative learning. So playing video games isn’t necessarily a harmful activity. Problems can arise, however, if the amount of video gaming is excessive and/or the content in the video games is harmful.
Let’s look at the two common ways the enemy can lead our children astray through video games and how to combat these tactics as Christian parents.
1. Video games can become an idol in our children’s lives if used too much, distracting them from everyday responsibilities and from serving the Lord.
A Common Sense Media survey showed that 41% of boys spend more than 2 hours on video games a day and 17% spend more than 4 hours daily.
American College of Pediatrics believes “too much exposure to screens, including video gaming, is associated with loweracademic performance, sleep disturbances, obesity, attention deficit disorder, increased aggression, lower self-esteem, depression, and increased rates of high-risk behaviors.”
The more time our kids are allowed to play video games, the more they will want to play them, and there will be a tendency for gaming to become an idol in their lives, which leads to an increased risk of video game addiction. Recent studies reveal that around 7% of adolescent boys have internet gaming disorder.
The more our children are playing video games (and partaking in other screen time), the less time they have to do things that really matter, like spending time with family members, doing household chores, finishing homework, working a job, reading God’s Word, and serving others.
So how much video gaming is too much? In an American Medical Association article, Dr. Grant recommends “for ages 2-5, children should be limited to one hour of screen time a day, and for 6 years and older, it is important to limit the amount of screen time to two hours or less per day.”
2. Video games can have harmful content such as excessive violence, sexual themes, dark/occult themes, crude language, and unbiblical worldviews.
While certainly not all video games have harmful content, there are many that do. To help you navigate the video game world, I have chosen some of the most popular video games for different ages in a variety of genres and shared the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s (ESRB) Rating, Content Concerns, and Protection features for each.
The ESRB rating scale provides age recommendations and content ratings for video games.
E: Everyone: May contain mild cartoon-type violence and infrequent, mild language
E 10+: May contain more mild violence, mild language, minimal suggestive themes)
T 13+: May contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, some strong language
M 17+: May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language
I also added my own rating scale of caution next to the ESRB rating scale based on the amount of inappropriate/unbiblical content, the amount of access to and influence of strangers, and the amount of protective features in each game.
* Mild/Moderate/Strong/Exreme Caution specifically for Kids or Teens
Here are some common video games organized by the following categories: User Created, Social Simulation, Shooter Games, and Horror/Dark-Themed Games.
User Created Games: Certain video games allow users to create their own games for anyone to play. These games are not fully monitored, and your kids run the risk of viewing inappropriate content.
Minecraft: Rated E 10+ (Mild Caution Kids and Teens)
This game is great for children to use their creativity to create things like cities, towers, stores, etc.
Content Concerns: The more kids are able to interact with strangers, the more their risk of seeing inappropriate content or hearing crude language increases.
Protection Features: Choose Creative Mode for no fighting, just building, Single Player to play by yourself, and Private MultiPlayer to play exclusively with friends. Stay away from other modes like Mods, and Public Servers where content is created by others.
Roblox: Rated T 13 + (Strong Caution Kids, Moderate Caution Teens)
Because games in this app are all user-created, there are many different kinds of games from obstacle courses, role playing, to adventure games.
Content Concerns: It is hard for the company to fully monitor content in all the user-created games, and there is no way to play offline. Children can more easily get into games with inappropriate scenes. There is open chatting, so groomers have been known to use this game to pose as a kid and groom children over the internet.
Protection Features: Parental controls now allow you to turn off chat, choose a maturity level, require approval of friends, and monitor screen time. But because the games are difficult to monitor, I would still be leery of how well these settings prevent harmful influences.
Social Simulation Games: These types of games allow you to create a character, build friendships and romantic relationships, and do everyday things like pick out outfits, go on outings, or decorate homes or towns.
Sims 4: Rated T 13 + (Moderate Caution Kids/Teens)
This game allows you to create houses, people, and guide their lives, relationships, and environments.
Content Concerns: Some online modes contain inappropriate sexual themes, crude humor, and violence. Immodest clothing can be added with Sims Mods.
Protection Features: Stick with Build Mode (no avatars) and turn to Offline Mode
Avakin Life: Rated T 13 + (Strong Caution Kids/Teens)
In this game players create customizable avatars, design apartments, and interact with other players in virtual spaces like clubs, beaches, and events.
Content Concerns: This video game is similar to Sims 4 except that instead of being able to play offline, it is fully online. Because of this, your kids run the risk of seeing and hearing inappropriate things or even being groomed through interacting with other avatars through chats.
Protection Features: Much less control; you can only limit some interactions to friends but can’t limit full exposure to others.
VRChat: Rated 13 + (Extreme Caution Kids/Teens)
This virtual reality app requiring a headset allows your child to interact with others through 3D avatars where content is created by the people.
Content Concerns: Your child can’t control what anyone might do, so sexual jokes and inappropriate content are very common.
Protection Features: Can set a high safety level, but that doesn’t ensure they won’t see anything inappropriate. Can mute, block, or report inappropriate users, but these are reactive rather than preventative measures. Can create invite-only worlds.
Shooter Games: These games allow you to shoot your opponents either in war/combat scenarios or “last man standing” games.
Fortnite: Rated T (13 +) (Moderate Caution Kids/Mild Caution Teens)
In this survival game, players land on a large map and try to be the last man standing.
Content Concerns: The scenes are more animated and less graphic, so it’s not as intense as some of the other war games out there. Kids may see it more like playing laser tag with their friends, but it still centers around shooting people for survival.
Protection Features: Parental controls allow you to set a maximum safety rating or block content and require a PIN to unlock. Can turn off voice/text chat or set it to friends only. Can require permission to invite friends. Also allows you to monitor time played. Keep the game off of Creative Mode, where users can create their own worlds that are not fully monitored.
Apex Legends: Rated T (13+) (Strong Caution Kids/Teens)
In this war game, twenty squads compete in large matches, and players choose unique characters with special abilities.
Content Concerns: There is more intense violence, and it is harder to monitor than Fortnite due to more exposure to strangers and less parental controls.
Protection Features: The only mode to play privately is Firing Range Mode, which is just fire practice. You can change voice chat to a ping in other modes.
Call of Duty: Rated M (17+) (Strong Caution Kids/Teens)
This game is popular among older teens and contains realistic gun battles and intense war scenes. Players complete rescue missions against the computer, multiplayer, or survival mode with a large group.
Content Concerns: Violent scenes and crude language even in the missions created by the developers. Online multiplayer games open up to even more inappropriate comments, crude language, and even bullying.
Protection Features: Features will not block all harmful content, but you can limit some content by age rating, disable voice chat and messaging, limit to friends, block strangers, and set time limits.
Horror/Dark-Themed Games: These games center around scary and dark themes with jump scares and sometimes occult practices.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Rated Teen (13 +) (Strong Caution Kids, Moderate Caution Teens)
This game is based on a story about a man who murdered children, and their spirits became trapped in animated robots at the pizza place. You act as the security guard in the pizza place and must survive from midnight to 6 am without the animated robots killing you and solve the mystery.
Content Concerns: There is no chat or interaction with other people — it is an offline game. The main concern is the dark theme behind the game and the fear of being attacked.
Protection Features: None
Roblox Horror Games: Rating depends on the game (Strong Caution Kids/Teens)
Content Concerns: These games within Roblox can range from jump scares while running down dark hallways away from monsters to more intense and serious occult themes. Interaction with others in the game can also be risky like in other Roblox games.
Protection Features: Parental controls now allow you to turn off chat, choose a maturity level, require approval of friends, and monitor screen time. But because the games are difficult to monitor, I would still be leery of how well these settings prevent harmful influences.
Resident Evil: Rated M (17 +) (Extreme Caution Kids/Teens)
In this game, the players survive outbreaks caused by dangerous viruses, fight infected creatures like zombies, and uncover secrets.
Content Concerns: This game has lots of violence, blood and gore, and strong language. It is a very popular survival/horror game among teens today. It is more science-based horror than typical occult horror, but still dark, scary, and emotionally intense scenes.
Protection Features: This game is not appropriate for even older teens. Although you can minimize some of the gore, it’s still focused on violence and horror.
As Christian parents, in order to combat the enemy’s distractions and lies, we need to be proactive when it comes to video games. Here are five ways to monitor the amount of time our kids engage in these video games and prevent harmful content from negatively influencing them.
Five Ways to Monitor Time and Content in Video Games
- Seek First the Kingdom and Prioritize Responsibilities
Make sure your kids are spending time with God in prayer and His Word, completing work and responsibilities, and spending time with family before playing video games. - Set a Time LImit on Video Games
Consider your children’s ages, maturity levels, and propensity for addiction when deciding how much time they can play video games. - Check the Content
- Look up the rating scale and the reasons for its rating to find out what harmful content may be present and read the description of the game. Use Common Sense Media or search on AI platforms like ChatGPT for a parent review of specific video games.
- Ask like-minded families their opinions of the games.
- Determine if playing modes include offline vs online capabilities, chatting options, and user-created content.
- Set Parental Controls
Set parental controls to keep games safer, such as playing in a single player mode, just with friends, turning off chats, and monitoring time.
- Play Christian Video Games
There are many great Christian video game options that are not only clean but will encourage your kids in their faith. Check out Superbook for free online games for young kids. Lightgliders is a great Christian video game app for preschool to elementary ages that is designed to encourage Biblical faith, positive values, and meaningful conversations. The Christian game industry is growing, so in time, there will be more high-quality games available that even teens will enjoy.
At the end of the day, our kids are going to grow up and make their own choices about media, including what video games to play or refrain from. Because of this, it is important that we teach our kids why certain games are not God-honoring and how they can affect them in negative ways.
At appropriate ages, educate your kids on the different dangers of talking with strangers and why it’s safer to turn off chats with strangers. As they continue to mature, teach teens how to discern for themselves which video games are God-honoring and which ones are not, and help them learn to make wise decisions on the amount of time they spend playing. Give them more freedom to make these decisions as they become older teens and prove they can make wise choices under your guidance.
Video games can be a fun, engaging way for our kids to spend their time, interact with peers, and reward themselves for hard work. However, there are definitely some dangers, that as Christian parents, we need to protect them from. By monitoring both the amount of video game time and content, we can rest assured that the enemy cannot use video games to lead our children into detrimental lies, sinful behaviors, and social dangers that will harm them.
"Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." -James 1:21 (NIV)
For more Christian parenting guides for media, check out my one for books and music. And check back for more to come!
