Transcript for
Exploring children’s relationship with video gaming

Nikki Taranis (00:00): Going back in curiosity will probably be the word from today. If you are a caregiver and you actually understand what that young person’s doing online, they’re much safer in the first place, because you’re curious enough that you’ve shown an interest., So you’ve shown a level of safety to the young person, which increases their ability to feel like they’d tell you something was wrong. The caregiver does understand parental consent controls and they understand gaming ratings, and they’re doing all that really good stuff to actually know what the kid’s doing, there’s still possibly a time when somebody’s going to send someone something explicit or harmful, and what we want to do is have enough safety in that relationship between the young person and the caregiver, that they don’t feel like they’re going to get in trouble if they tell. And so that’s some of the most important conversations that can be had around gaming and online interaction.

 

Narrator (00:53): Welcome to the Emerging Minds Podcast.

 

Chris Dolman (00:58): Hi everyone. My name is Chris Dolman, and today it’s my pleasure to talk with Nikki Taranis. Nikki is speaking with us from Burnie in Tasmania, and she has a background in social work and extensive clinical experience working with children who’ve experienced complex trauma, as well as their caregivers and support networks. She has most recently worked as a team leader with Australian Childhood Foundation and has had many conversations with children, of course, but also with caregivers who present with concerns regarding the behaviour or development, regulation and disengagement of children and young people. Nikki has a particular interest in the area of children and young people’s relationship with gaming, and that’s the topic for our conversation today. So welcome to our podcast series, Nikki, thanks very much for joining us.

 

Nikki Taranis (01:40): Awesome, thank you. Chris.

 

Chris Dolman (01:42): I was just wondering, Nikki, could you begin by saying a little bit about the history of your professional interest in gaming and children’s relationship with gaming?

 

Nikki Taranis (01:50): Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been a social worker for 14 years, and during that whole time, I’ve had lots of interaction with young people and children who engage with gaming, so like electronic gaming. But I’m a gamer myself, so I think that’s originally where my interest came from. So even during all my schooling, I was always a PC gamer back in the day, console gaming’s much more popular now, so that was what probably piqued my interest. But then throughout all of my roles, be them clinical or as a supervisor, come across some of the challenges, but a lot of the benefits as well of gaming and just and just that’s a big part of our young people’s lives.

 

Chris Dolman (02:30): So you’re coming across both the challenges as well as the benefits of gaming in children’s lives, that’s sort of what’s really encouraged your interest in this area. And so look, even when we are referring to this word gaming as it relates to children, what is this, what are we talking about?

 

Nikki Taranis (02:43): Yeah, so I think I’m specifically talking about electronic gaming. So who knows? One day I might come back and we can talk about tabletop gaming and role play gaming, all those sorts of beautiful things. But I think the one that’s most challenging for our caregivers is electronic gaming and online gaming. So the use of consoles like Xbox, PlayStation, or a PC, and lots of our kids are now using their mobile phones for gaming and predominantly online multiplayer games. So you might have heard of games like Fortnite or Call of Duty, those types of games are the ones that we cross the most in our work.

 

Chris Dolman (03:21): And when you say perhaps the electronic games are the ones that are proving most challenging for caregivers, how come?

 

Nikki Taranis (03:27): I think it’s a combination of factors. So for some of our caregivers, they have never engaged in that type of gaming themselves. So for one, it’s just really foreign to them. So when a young person is say, hopping online, and they’re actually engaging with maybe 99 other young people through either text or they’ve got their headset on and they’re chatting to them, that’s a whole world that they understand that the caregiver just is like … they look like they’re sitting down and doing nothing. I think the sedentary nature of it, the fact that for a lot of gaming it is sitting down and it looks like disengagement.

 

Chris Dolman (04:01): Right. Yeah, sure, sure. And so I’d like to come back to some of those themes actually, but just for now, in terms of, how does the topic of gaming, how does that enter your conversations with children and families? How does it even come up?

 

Nikki Taranis (04:15): Yeah. Well, I think us having an understanding of gaming elicits that sometimes, sometimes we’re asking the questions because we’re quite curious. But in our work, working with children and young people who’ve experienced complex trauma, a lot of the times it’s because of maybe the relationship they’ve developed with gaming that isn’t healthy. So that’s sometimes why that’ll be brought up by caregiver, say for instance, if the person is over engaged in gaming, they’re not doing anything outside of that. They’re struggling to get up in the morning, they’re staying up late, so that they can do it as much as possible. They might be becoming really irritated or aggressive when gaming isn’t an option for them, say it’s internet off time or it’s time to go to school. They’re definitely the times when caregivers are coming to us.

 

Chris Dolman (05:03): So both in terms of caregivers being concerned about perhaps gaming being implicated in what’s problematic for the child and for the family, as well as caregivers might make particular complaints about children’s engagement with gaming and the space that’s taking up in their life. Is that right?

 

Nikki Taranis (05:18): Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

 

Chris Dolman (05:20): Sure. And what about actually in your work or conversations with children, how does it come up? Again, is it something you’re on the lookout for to ask about?

 

Nikki Taranis (05:28): Yeah, I think we’re really on the lookout for it because we’re very child led in the way that we do our play therapy. So we’re exploring the things that they like and their interests, to try and gain an understanding of them, to create relational safety and comfort and engagement, often it’ll come out then of, actually, I really like this. And they’ll ask, “Do you have an iPad or do you have a phone I could play on?” And we’re like, “Oh, we’re going to do this type of thing today.” I’ve definitely engaged with young people with their gaming though, that’s something, because of my experience, I felt very confident to do. And I work with staff to develop their confidence in that area because sometimes it’s about saying, “Oh, what game is that? I’d love to have a look. Can you show me how you play it? And what’s that going on and what’s that happening?” And to gain a much better understanding of why that young person actually really enjoys gaming and why they’re going back to it every single day.

 

Chris Dolman (06:19): Is that an important aspect of this work of yours, to understand what it is about the gaming that draws the young person?

 

Nikki Taranis (06:25): Oh, absolutely. I think knowing young people is really essential to understanding their presentation. So in the work that we do with children who’ve experienced trauma, they’re presenting with particular behaviours that demonstrate their experiences, and sometimes their ways to communicate their experiences. And we always very much encourage looking beneath behaviour to understand why it’s happening, rather than just trying to deal or a behaviour, we really need to understand what’s happening for them. For our young people who present, who say are really challenged to disengage from gaming, they’re doing it quite a lot, they’re maybe using it for self soothing, somewhere where they go and they feel very powerful and in control. It’s great for us to be curious about what is eliciting that feeling for them, so that we can understand them more, but also hopefully facilitate something outside of gaming that maybe fulfils some of those unmet needs.

 

Chris Dolman (07:20): And as you’re speaking with children or their caregivers about gaming, I was wondering if I could just ask you a bit about what are some of the key understandings about gaming and children’s relationship to gaming that is kind of guiding your interest, that is guiding your conversations.

 

Nikki Taranis (07:38): Yeah, I think us being curious as therapeutic specialists, but also encouraging caregivers to be curious, truly wanting to understand what’s going on for that young person and why they’re interested in gaming as well.

 

Chris Dolman (07:52): Mm-hmm. So are there particular aspects to that curiosity that you try to foster in yourself and in the caregivers?

 

Nikki Taranis (07:59): Yeah, absolutely. Being curious about what it is they’re engaging with it for. So some of our young people really like what we call like solo, first person gaming, where it’s an opportunity to get away from everybody, you can log on, you’re not interacting with anybody, you’re being a character who explores the world in adventures and takes risks. Whereas another young person might be hopping on there so they can put on their headset and talk to two dozen people that they’ve never met in real life, but they feel very socially connected to, they feel very seen and heard and very wanted. And that’s the reason they game, they’re not actually very much caring about the game, they’re caring about the community that they get from gaming.

 

Chris Dolman (08:38): And so if you hear that from a young person, how it’s something about connection or community or however they’re describing that, what do you then do with that, when you learn that about the young person? How does that then support other work you’re doing with them or the work you’re doing with them more broadly?

 

Nikki Taranis (08:54): Yeah. First it would probably assist looking at the different areas of connection in their life. So social media is a really big part. Today we’re just talking about electronic gaming, but there’s so many different areas like social media and YouTube and lots of things that spill out of this area of electronic gaming. And so for our young people, it can help us to understand what connections they already have. So you’re understanding, okay, is all of their world something that’s not in person, that they feel a lot more safety in maybe engaging online than, say for instance, they say, “At school I don’t talk to anybody, I just go in, I sit down, I get through my day, I don’t have any friends, all my friends are the people that I’m connected to online.” So it can start lots of those types of conversations.

 

(09:40): And it can also for us in our roles where we’re working, say for instance, with schools and caregivers, it can support us to maybe look through some avenues of where they can actually, not just social connection, for young people, say for instance, we’ve had ones who recess and lunch were really hard for, like I think they’re hard for all of us, but really, really hard for because they didn’t kicking the football and they didn’t like playing basketball or four square and they were just at a lost what to do that period. And after exploring that they really loved first person gaming and that that’s their way of sort of just escaping the world, that school set up like a gaming club for recess and lunch. So even though it wasn’t electronic gaming, it was board top gaming, doing your own games by yourself, solitaire, whatever it was. And for him, that gave him a space where he did end up creating friendships, but also had a space where he was doing something that elicited his creativity, his enjoyment that was reflected in the schoolyard.

 

Chris Dolman (10:38): So for a school to take that sort of initiative, and I guess for practitioners to even advocate for that kind of initiative in a school setting, I guess that reflects a particular understanding about the place of gaming in children’s lives. Is that right?

 

Nikki Taranis (10:50): Yeah.

 

Chris Dolman (10:50): Is there something you could say about that in terms of, in your experience, what sort of view or position is important that practitioners take in relation to gaming?

 

Nikki Taranis (10:59): Yes, yes. That’s a good question because I think the reason I’m so passionate and like to talk about this is because I really like people to be aware that it’s not going anywhere, and it’s developing into something bigger than we even understand at this point in time, we’re just talking about the tiniest little bit of it. But that’s my biggest thing to share with practitioners, is it’s important that you understand this because it is a facet of a lot of our young people’s lives that’s essentially important to them, and how they not only navigate the world, but how they see themselves in it. And it’s essential that we understand it, but also allow them to guide us, be curious to understand.

 

Chris Dolman (11:38): And so how do these understandings, this position you take in relation to gaming and children’s relationship with gaming, how does that shape your work with parents who are concerned about the place of gaming in their children’s lives?

 

Nikki Taranis (11:52): I think one of the things it does is it helps us to get them to understand what it means for the young person, and within that, what also developmentally that young person needs. Because as much as I think gaming is fabulous, it isn’t something that a young person should be doing for hours a day and without any supportive guidance or connection with their real life. So I think that’s one of the big things working with caregivers around, because if they can understand it more, they’re much more likely to be able to give boundaries and consequences that are natural to say, overuse or situations that are challenging, that are really informed by what the young person needs from that process, and is it just as a reaction to something we don’t understand.

 

Chris Dolman (12:37): Yeah. I really appreciate what you mentioned in terms of what you’re wanting to encourage in parents is to really be curious and understand about the meaning and the place of gaming in the child’s life, what that perhaps offers the child in a sense, as well as, I guess, being aware of some of the perhaps unhelpful consequences of gaming as well. And at times, do you kind of advocate for caregivers to sit with the young person as they’re doing the gaming and ask-

 

Nikki Taranis (12:59): Always.

 

Chris Dolman (13:00): Always. And what’s your purpose in advocating for that?

 

Nikki Taranis (13:04): Yeah, multiple elements. Curiosity, absolutely. For the caregiver to really gain an understanding of what it is the young person’s doing online, because I think we make lots of assumptions about what games are and what they look like and being able to have a much more thorough understanding of what facets are actually in that game. Is it just like a first person game where you just bang, bang, bang? Or are they actually exploring a map? Are they getting some sense of geography and problem solving and risk taking? That’s a really good element that they get when they sit next to them.

 

(13:38): But also regulation, our young people rely on co-regulation when we’re younger, to regulate our breathing and our body and our arousal levels. Because if our kids are playing something like Fortnite where you’re going stress, stress, stress, and you’ve got all your stress hormones, your cortisol and your adrenaline’s pumping and you’re really, really stressed, and then say you get a hit or something like that, and then your body, big flush of dopamine, yes, I did that risk and I got that reward. A caregiver can sit next to a young person and actually see what’s happening in their body, which usually is a lot of tensing and then a lot of releasing, and they can work with that with a young person.

 

Chris Dolman (14:15): Right. So that can be helpful for a caregiver to sort of notice that about a young person. How would you encourage them to use that beyond the gaming context, that knowledge of the young person?

 

Nikki Taranis (14:25): Well, I’ll get them to help them reflect with the young person about, wow, I can see this is happening, for instance. So I’ve worked with a young guy who would curl his toes really tight, to the point where you had to get some help with it because it was really tight toe curling. And so you would see those things as a caregiver and say, “Wow, I can see your toes are curling up, or your shoulders are up around your ears.” And then they often will be like, “Wow, I didn’t even notice that was what was happening. I didn’t notice I was holding my breath the whole time during this part of the game.” And then they can have a talk about, well, after each, say each round in the game or each challenge or whatever a game’s segmented into, what’s a thing we could do for our bodies to make us feel better? And that’s a great curious way of finding out what regulates that person’s system anyway, which might be very different between each young kid and what works for them.

 

Chris Dolman (15:20): Nikki, I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about how the skills that children develop in a gaming context can be then transferred into other aspects of life, where they are contending with very significant problems. How are they sort of brought from one context to the other in your work?

 

Nikki Taranis (15:37): Yeah, I think there’s lots of ways, and I think we’ve talked about things like problem solving and challenges that happen in games, but I think one of the best aspects that we can see as transferrable and understanding more on how to approach them is the social aspect. Because for a lot of our children and young people, that’s a really big challenge for them in their lives, is developing and maintaining safe social relationships, and what we know is that our kids do that by themselves and take ownership of that online. So they’re already there doing something that we then see in real life is quite significantly challenging for them.

 

(16:14): So bridging that gap can be such an opportunity of having such a deeper understanding of why can you hop online and put your headset on and chat on the Discord server really confidently to a whole group of people about what’s going in your life and what you’ve been through. Maybe you’ve had a few different placements, or you’ve had a fight with mom and dad, that’s the stuff you are talking about on there. But then when you get to school each day, the teachers are saying that they’re not chatting to anybody. And so we know they’ve got a skill, we know that skill exists, they use it, they’re flexing that muscle skill every day. And then how are we going to bridge that gap? And maybe that’s all about safety for them and we need to find the ways that we can create safety at school. And maybe they need someone to help facilitate that, say like a teacher they’ve got a good connection with, or an older peer that they’ve gamed with online that can bridge the gap into real life in school. So I think there’s lots of those things.

 

Chris Dolman (17:09): What’s it like for the children you work with to sort of see that some of the skills they’re developing in gaming can actually be brought to bear in other areas of life, or even to have those skills in gaming made more visible to them in itself? What difference does that make to kids, do you think, to see that?

 

Nikki Taranis (17:26): Huge, huge, particularly younger kids, then moving on into adolescents. But our younger kids, when they’re seen, it’s like they’re being seen for the first time. Imagine a world where nobody talks about football and you’re the only body who goes and watches it, and maybe you have a phone and you chat to people on the phone and they love football as well, but you hang up the phone and then nobody ever talks about it or likes it. And then one day somebody says, “Can you tell me about football? Can I watch the football with you?” And you’re like, “Oh wow. Of course you can. That’d be great.” And then suddenly you’re seen, someone’s actually seen you and wants to know about you.

 

Chris Dolman (18:04): Great. I’d like to sort of ask you a bit about safety and gaming, because I imagine that’s sometimes one of the concerns that parents might bring to their consultation with you. Is that correct?

 

Nikki Taranis (18:13): Yeah, absolutely.

 

Chris Dolman (18:15): Yeah. In relation to safety, what are some key messages that you ‘re really wanting parents to understand or some key aspects of that you’re wanting to explore with parents when they do have concerns about safety?

 

Nikki Taranis (18:26): Safety is a huge consideration, particularly taking into account online gaming. I think going back, and curiosity will probably be the word from today, but being curious. If you are a caregiver and you actually understand what that young person’s doing online, they’re much safer in the first place because A, you’re curious enough that you’ve shown an interest, so you’ve shown a level of safety to the young person, which increases their ability to feel like they’d tell you something was wrong. If a caregiver does understand parental consent controls and they understand gaming ratings and they’re doing all that really good stuff to actually know what the kid’s doing, there’s still possibly a time when somebody’s going to send someone something inappropriate, explicit, or harmful, and that young person’s going to maybe receive or see or hear something that isn’t intended. And what we want to do is have enough safety in that relationship between the young person and the caregiver that they don’t feel like they’re going to get in trouble if they tell.

 

(19:25): And so that’s some of the most important conversations that can be had around gaming and online interaction, is if someone does that and you don’t feel safe or it doesn’t feel like the right thing that you should have received, you are not going to be in trouble because you came and told me and we’ll figure out how to tackle it together and what we need to do and how to make you safe. But the last thing we want to do is have our young people think that they need to keep these things secret because there would be a consequence to them.

 

Chris Dolman (19:52): I appreciate what you’re saying, that has me thinking that’s quite a contrasting approach to either amplifying parents concerns about gaming or diminishing them, sort of dismissing them as well, but instead being curious and also being present with the young person in their gaming experience, both physically, in terms of even sitting with them at times, as you were saying before, but also in terms of the interest a caregiver takes. Yeah.

 

Nikki Taranis (20:15): Yeah, absolutely.

 

Chris Dolman (20:16): So are there other things that you’ve learned from children and families about the influence on gaming on children’s lives, both helpful or unhelpful?

 

Nikki Taranis (20:29): Yes. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful social connection happen in families that have decided to take an interest. Say one young person comes into their care, say they’re somebody who’s in foster care, they’ve come into their care with this interest already, and they meet their family and they’re like, oh, we’ve never done that before. And actually they’ve gotten online themselves and maybe all start playing the same game together, and it’s elicited this shared understanding. And when we create really good connection, that all comes from shared understanding, it’s because we share the way we see the world just a little bit more with each other. And for our kids who have experienced trauma, often they feel that other people don’t share their experiences and can’t see the same world that they can.

 

(21:14): So I’ve seen some beautiful examples of them being able to share a slice of that with a family or with a friendship group, and then they’ve got these wonderful things to contrast back into the real world. And you can create a lot of fun things in the real world based off gaming, you can do lots of things in regards to pop culture that are very much related to gaming as well, which is really good.

 

Chris Dolman (21:34): Yeah. Great. So it’s been lovely speaking with you today and I really appreciate hearing about, well bringing your perspectives and expertise to this topic for us. I think what stands out to me is when you spoke about really centering, privileging the meaning that children make of gaming in their lives, the place that it has in their life, being curious about that and interested in the different avenues this can open up for exploration with practitioners, with caregivers as well in children’s lives, really bringing their view of it to the centre. So thanks so much.

 

Nikki Taranis (22:06): Thank you.

 

Chris Dolman (22:06): And thank you to everyone for listening as well, to this Emerging Minds Podcast, and we look forward to you joining us next fortnight. Thank you everyone, and thanks, Nikki.

 

Nikki Taranis (22:15): Thanks.

 

Narrator (22:17): Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise. Brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, led by Emerging Minds. The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child or Youth Mental Health Program.