Hello, Talk Talk Teenagers. My parents scold me everytime they see me playing computer games. I can barely take the scolding since it goes on and on everyday. I play games with a friend of mine for about 12 hours a day, and his parents never scold him for playing games. I really envy him.
You seem to want to play games without being bothered by your parents. Both you and your friend play computer games for 12 hours a day, but your parents scold you and your friend's parents do not. It is only natural that you are envious of your friend since he can do whatever he wants without any interference.
Males' mind requires positive moods at the moment. You are in a positive mood when you play games with your friend. Of course, you want to continue to have positive moods but your parents' scolding interferes with your pursuing positive moods, which makes you feel bad.
However, the absence of parents' interference indicates that parents are not interested in their children. Your parents keep scolding you since they are at least interested in you. You friend's parents may not even care whatever happens to your friend. Actually, scolding from your point of view may be showing interest from your parents' point of view. They may think that playing games too much is not good for you and they are concerned about your well-being. Your friend's parents may think that playing games 12 hours a day may benefit him in certain ways, but at least they are responsible for informing him of the possibility of developing addiction to playing games.
The benefit of you being reminded of the potential harm of playing games too much is that you become used to getting stress with opportunities to think and learn to cope with stress. However, your friend may never think about problems of playing games too much and raise the possibility of being vulnerable to stress in general and developing addiction easily. You may also be able to develop strategies to avoid or deal with parents' scolding effectively. On the other hand, your friend may not have the opportunity to develop different skills for dealing with stress responding effectively in diverse stressful situations in the future. We cannot say that either situation is completely good or bad and both you and your friend can learn different things from one's own situation.
Once you understand that parents' scolding is a way of their caring about you and can serve as a protective device for you, you may feel less stressed by their behaviors. Of course, it may be ideal that your parents also understand about your thoughts and behaviors from your point of view. Then, they will be able to provide a better environment for you to learn through experiences and trial and errors instead of simply imposing their own thoughts and causing conflicts.
We can go one step closer to harmony and happiness by parents understanding children's point of view and children understanding parents' point of view on top of understanding basic mechanism of human mind and psychology. It is not to say that getting stress is good or bad, but it is important for us to at least understand how stress operates in us and influences us.
