Positive Effects of Video Games:

Despite the concerns of many parents, not all video games are harmful to child development.  Many games provide interactive forms of education for children.  They help teach children about a variety of skills.

1. Provide children with problem solving skills and enhance creativity

Games such as “Legend of Zelda” provide children the opportunity to think creatively as obstacles arise.  The character in the game searches, navigates, plans and tries different approaches to advance through the game.  Other games such as “Bakugan: Defenders of the Core” also involve planning and opportunities to problem-solve.  “Minecraft” is a popular game that encourages players to utilize “modding” (modification) options to customize their character’s appearance.  They can develop new worlds and levels. Modding gives children opportunities for self-expression.

2. Teach kids about history and culture

Certain games are focused around real-life historical events such as “Age of Empires”, “Civilization” and “Mythology”. These games can stimulate an interest in geography, world history, ancient culture and international relationships.  Parents can then tie these games to books, museums and media about culture and geography to inspire learning.

3. Help children make friends

Video games can encourage children to make friends as it is an opportunity for social activity.  Video games create a common interest for your children to make friends with others who share the same interest. Children can create peer circles both locally and online.  Research shows that boys frequently converse about video games with their peers.  Making friends through video games carries over into the teenage years.

4. Allow kids to share the joy of competition

Competition for recognition among peers is a normal and healthy behavior. Surveys note that one of the popular reasons for playing video games is to compete with other people.  It is a safe form of competitive expression and can give children who are not good at sports an opportunity to excel at something.

5. Enhance leadership skills in children

When children play games in groups, they take turns leading and following. Teens who play in groups online feel like they gain leadership skills in persuasion, motivation and mediation.  Online games also expose children to other children of different ages and nationalities as they play together in mixed age groups.

6. Motivate children to teach others

Many children enjoy playing video games with other children because they like to teach others how to play.  They teach each other how to go from one point to another, collect certain items, and combine different elements of a game to succeed.

7. Improve children’s memory

Video games can help improve a children’s memory even when they no longer play the games. Studies show that video games facilitate cognitive changes in the brain.  Adults who have had experience with video games before adolescence perform better at memory tasks than those who have not had video game experience as a child.

Negative Effects of Video Games:

Video games can have a negative effect on a child’s development.  This is particularly related to aspects of violence, antisocial behaviors and increased aggressive thoughts and feelings.

1. Encourage violent behavior

Studies show that those who watch simulated violence, like that in video games, can become immune to the violence and more inclined to act violently themselves.  There has been a correlation between violent game use and aggressive behavior. There is insufficient evidence to link violent video games to criminal behavior.  The interactive nature of some of the video games can worsen the effects of the game violence on children by encouraging repetition and rewards for the behaviors.

2. Promote social isolation and anti-social behavior

Spending too much time playing video games can isolate children. They may spend less time doing other activities such as reading, sports, homework and interaction with family and friends.  However, amongst video gamers, being a loner is not the norm.  Video games can actually augment a child’s social life.

3. Discourage children to do well in school

There are studies that show that the more time children spend playing video games, the lower their performance is in school.  A study found that video game addicts have lower grades and have more destructive behaviors such as arguing and fighting with parents and teachers.   Some students admit that their video game habits affect their school performance. 

What are parents to do?  Parents need to be involved in monitoring their children’s video game playing habits.  This includes being aware of which video games their children are playing and knowing when to intervene in their children’s gaming.  Be mindful of any kind of video games with violence and its effects on your children.  In addition, parents need to establish boundaries for their children in relation to their game playing to prevent it from becoming a bad habit.  Never allow your children to spend hours and hours playing video games.  Balance and moderation are key.  Be proactive in your children’s gaming activities and be involved in the video game world with your child.  As fun and educational as video games can be, it is important that parents be aware that they can be both beneficial and detrimental to your child’s development.

In this video, 2023 CDB Scholar Arul Kolla continues the series of videos about creative problem solving by talking about changing your point of view. In many problems, we often get stuck after trying for a long time. How do we get “unstuck”? And how do we change our point of view and attack the question from a different angle? In this video, we see more tips on creative problem solving in general and how to find new ways to look at a problem.

Creative Problem Solving Series 

It seems that everyone today talks about creative problem solving. Curriculum guides list problem solving skills as key objectives at all levels, and professional organisations recommend that creative problem solving becomes the focus of school mathematics. Many people believe that the ability to solve problems develops automatically from mastery of computational skills. This is not necessarily true; problem solving is itself a skill. A problem is more challenging than a typical exercise because the route to the solution is often not known beforehand, and requires some level of creativity.

1. Write a poem or story about science.

Get writing! Tell a story about your favorite scientist as dramatically as you can, write poetry about a cool science fact, or describe a feat of engineering using your most vivid vocabulary.

2. Teach your family about something you love.

The best way to learn something deeply is to teach it. Turn your family members into your students and tell them all about something you’ve learned recently whether it’s how to build the best paper airplane or how a chemical reaction works.

3. Create nature art.

Make a leaf rubbing, stick sculpture, or tower of balanced pebbles to integrate both sides of your brain.

4. Invent something to solve a problem.

What’s something you wish were easier? Design something to meet a need, starting with a blueprint and working toward a prototype.

5. Test your brain with riddles.

Find challenging riddles on or elsewhere, then attempt to solve them with your family.

6. Head to the library.

Ask a librarian to help you find books about STEAM at your reading level. Reading is a wonderful way to find a new interest!

7. Ask questions.

STEAM is all about asking creative questions and trying to find answers. Observe the world around you and keep a list of questions you come up with throughout the day: How do stoplights work? Why do some trees lose their leaves and not others? Then work with an adult to find the answers.

8. Build something using recycled materials.

Gather items you normally would have thrown away – packaging, receipts, dried-out pen, etc. – and see what you can build out of the items!

9. Interview a scientist.

If you were a scientist, what kind of scientist would you be? Research to find someone who has your dream job, then write them a letter or email asking them about their work and how they got to be where they are.

10. See what ÓĹĂŰĘÓƵ offerings are coming up!

If you’re local to the Pasadena area, check out our upcoming workshops (7^th-10^th grade), check back for the Spring schedule of classes (K-8^th grade) in a couple of weeks or mark your calendars for when the (10^th-12^th grade) externship program application goes live!

Celebrating a different way? Comment below!

Jennifer is ÓĹĂŰĘÓƵ’s Marketing & Communications Coordinator. Her position includes more traditional communications media such as newsletters and brochures, but it also involves much more modern technology, including email newsletters, the ÓĹĂŰĘÓƵ blog and website, and social networks.

that 65% of today’s grade school students will end up in jobs that do not yet exist. I can tell you that my job, which includes a great deal of social media and online components, looks very different than what someone in a similar role would have done when I was in grade school. So, how can you prepare for a career field that doesn’t exist yet? I’m going to offer some advice that helped me get to where I am today.

Find a skill that you enjoy and go from there.

“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” – Carl Sagan

If you enjoy a skill that can translate into several career paths, hone it. I have always loved languages and writing. So, I took every opportunity I could throughout my education to develop a command of language (English and Spanish for now, but I’m working on Italian and French next, just for fun) and better my writing skills. I entered poetry contests. I kept a “journal” of my thoughts and ideas and often wrote pages of reflections solely for the purpose of writing. My job now may be working with a variety of media that were rare – if in existence at all – when I was young, but at the root of much of my work is writing. I write every single day. It might be as simple as a tweet of less than 140 characters, or it might be an eight-page newsletter. Regardless of the length, the medium, or the purpose, honing my language and writing skills has helped me do my job each and every day.

Certain skills are also valuable across fields, so develop those, too. Written and oral communication skills are extremely valuable in any field. Critical thinking and problem solving are also skills that will take you far in any career. suggests building skills in key areas defined as “anything humans still do better than robots.” This includes “solving unstructured problems and working with new information.”

Find mentors, including at least one who has seen an industry – any industry – change over time.

Learn from that person how he or she adapted, how jobs and strategies changed. This will help you see for yourself what skills are necessary for the ever-changing business landscape. This can include academia, as well. You should also build relationships with a wide variety of people both inside and outside of your area of interest. While you are still in school, these can be teachers or peers.

Learn how to be a good employee, regardless of the field you enter. Be willing to learn new things every day.

Here are a few tips on how to be a good employee, most of which stress the importance of constantly learning new things:

• Learn from the people around you. Respect coworkers and their ideas.
• Learn how to respectfully voice your opinions and ideas. This can be difficult, especially for introverts, but your ideas are valuable to the discussion.
• Be willing to do something that doesn’t exactly fit your job description.
• Take responsibility for your mistakes, and learn from them.

Be flexible. Be open. Be innovative. Be well-rounded.

Gifted individuals are used to thinking outside the box. Go with that instinct. Just because something has been done a certain way in the past does not mean it has to be done that way in the future. Be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new ways of doing things. Be open to new possibilities.

Don’t pigeonhole yourself into a narrow job description or field of study. ÓĹĂŰĘÓƵ Apprenticeship Mentor Stan Kong, who is the Head of Product Design at Pasadena City College and a Graduate Industrial Design program faculty member at Art Center College of Design, thought he was going to be a graphic designer until he just happened to take an industrial design class. Opening yourself up to new opportunities and possibilities can really help you find your niche.

While you are still in school, get a well-rounded education and learn from a variety of disciplines. For example, using statistics and other mathematical functions to evaluate data is necessary across a variety of careers. Though much of my job is writing and executing an overall strategy, I spend a bit of time each week looking at web, email, and social media analytics to evaluate our marketing efforts and revise our strategy as needed.

Challenge yourself.

Work on difficult and varied research, which will help you develop critical thinking skills. Keep learning new things, as the landscape in any field will continuously shift. Get experience in a wide variety of areas. It will help guide you toward – or away from – a particular field by seeing it applied hands-on, and the lessons you learn can often be applied to almost any other discipline.

Read. A lot.

I’m not saying you have to read everything, or even that you have to read in a particular genre. I encourage you to vary your reading and include something that truly challenges you once in a while, but the most important part of this tip is that you learn new things and experience others’ ideas. I read everything from books to blogs to journals to magazines on topics ranging from pure entertainment to giftedness to business to education to personal success. I’ll admit that I don’t typically enjoy a few particular genres, so I generally stay away from those unless something really strikes me. And that’s okay. You don’t have to read everything. Just read.

Go beyond the job.

I know I’ve said this quite a bit by now, but I can’t stress it enough: No matter what you decided to do, keep learning. Remember, you probably won’t stay in the career you choose forever, especially if you are a gifted person with many different talents and interests. These skills will help ensure that you can transition to another option if you so choose. You might just end up on another, unexpected but much more fulfilling path, like one that leads you to spread the word about the unique needs of gifted children.

What skills do you think are most important in preparing for a variety of careers?

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