Should I play or should I grow?

PART THREE OF THREE

Play Attention vs. commercial video games
It’s clear that games whether video, computer, board, etc. can teach. However, it’s also clear that chronic play of the most popular video game titles can be detrimental to an individual with ADHD.

As a parent or professional, it’s imperative that one asks:

• Who are these games addressing?
• What is the purpose of playing?
• What is it that is being taught?
• Do these games provide the 3 catalysts needed for brain growth –  attention, challenge, and deliberate practice?

Our concern is with students that have attentional challenges. That’s who we address with Play Attention.

The purpose of playing Play Attention’s games is to learn skills that students with attentional challenges often have yet to acquire. 

Play Attention is not entertainment. It is an instructional tool that teaches discriminatory processing, memory, motor skills, visual tracking, time on-task, and attention stamina. You might consider it edutainment. That’s a term coined to denote a combination of entertainment and education.

A behavior shaping module is built into Play Attention’s core. It’s there to mitigate or extinguish behavior like fidgeting, calling out, distractibility, etc.  Since we hold patents on the integration of cognitive skills with behavioral shaping, no one else can do what we do in one package.

I’m often asked why I didn’t structure Play Attention’s games like the intense entertainment that Xbox or Play Station games  offer (those names are trademarks of Microsoft and Sony Corp. respectively).  The most popular games produced for those systems are incredibly visually intense and graphically frenetic. If one has a true attention problem, a hallmark is one’s ability to pay attention to visually intense, graphically frenetic things. Commonly, ADHD individuals can be entertained by Xbox or Play Station games for hours on end never becoming disinterested or bored.

As an educator, I knew it was important to develop a game with a purpose. Each game in Play Attention is played for a purpose: to learn a skill. Every game provides the 3 catalysts necessary from brain growth. The mind is the mouse or joystick as the user’s mind (attention) controls the action. Active engagement is required to make the games work, and that’s challenging. True learning can occur because we implemented goals, feedback, and a deliberate learning model within our core.

So, when asked why I didn’t create Play Attention like Grand Theft Auto or Halo, I respond, “I don’t think it’s responsible to allow your child to play games that teach nothing, likely diminish function in the frontal lobes as research has demonstrated, and simply entertain with no purpose. I create games that challenge, teach, and provide success.”

When I hear parents complain, “Oh, he’ll get bored. I don’t know if I can get him to do it,” I know it’s a clear underestimation of their child’s capacity. All children get bored. When you hear, “Mom, I’m bored,” do you jump to your feet to entertain them? Do you whip out a DVD that you’ve squirreled away for just such a moment? You’d be surprised how many parents will just to keep from hearing their child’s moaning or complaining. That’s just poor parenting. Period.

Set the bar higher. If your child wants to be on the baseball team, he’ll practice for hours with the coach. If your child wants to be on the swim team, she’ll swim many, many laps. That’s boring, but they do it anyway. ADHD and all. Why? Because they see the benefit. It’s not fun to practice throwing to second base over and over again. Nor is it fun to swim laps, but they do it because they perceive the payoff to be bigger than themselves. And that’s your job as parent. Get them to see the bigger picture. Do they want better grades, more friends, more success? That’s what we’re offering. It’s a truly happy medium between entertainment and learning.

I once told my mother I was bored. I was 6 years old. She barely looked up from her book and said, “Go outside and play.”

I said, “That’s boring.”

She said, “Use you mind, Peter. It’s a good mind. Find something to do with it.”

She was right. I haven’t been bored in 45 years. I learned to play and grow.

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