Joysticks and Controllers: Using PACT With Kids Who Use Video Games Obsessively

Jason Brand, LCSW
PACT Level II
Berkeley, CA
www.jasonbrand.com

Video games used to have joysticks—simple black boxes with a red trigger button and a stick for movement. Today they have controllers that are multi-buttoned, provide sensory feedback, and obey spoken commands. In many families, I see a longing to return to the joyful days of the joystick. In these families, the controller has become far more than just a way to manipulate video games on the digital screen; it is the nexus of a power struggle for healthy development in the child.

Michael, age fourteen, was caught up in this kind of family drama. Unlike kids who act out and do dangerous things outside the home, Michael was “acting in” by refusing to do anything away from the digital screen. His parents had lost control. They swung between desperate extremes. In one moment, they were gently delivering dinner to the computer because he refused to come to the table and eat. In the next, they were violently pulling the router out of wall to block access to his online game. In the process, they had become a parental team divided. In order to help their son, they needed skills that would allow them to maneuver together less like a Space Invaders and more like Call of Duty.

Working with families such as Michael’s, I developed a number of skills: accessing difficult-to-reach boys, providing a place for families to talk together about feelings, negotiating the sticks and carrots of behavior plans, partnering with schools and other wraparound services, and seeking often elusive answers to how digital technologies affect family life. I realized, however, that to be truly effective in a family system where the child has collapsed into the home, couple dynamics have to be addressed. Michael’s parents needed to learn how to support each other before they could expect to successfully provide a structure that supported their child.

Michael’s parents came through my door looking for individual therapy for their son and not a deep dive into their own relationship. It was a sell to get them to think about the entrenched problem from a different perspective, let alone experience the joy and pain of their relationship in real time.

My desire to be artful in my ability to firmly and lovingly confront couples who need to take control of the video game controller led me to PACT. I am learning to do PACT as a “verb” so the couples I work with can do it for themselves and their children. I am learning to stay calm so I can act on inspiration and not fear. I am learning to enter painful areas that divide couples, without losing faith in their ability to find better solutions by functioning as a team. I am engaged in a process of learning by doing, together. When we do this we run on all cylinders: brain, body, past and present.

Through my work at PACT, I have seen that:

• When parents function as a team, it is far easier to get a child from the computer to the dinner table with the appropriate amount of empathy and clear rules.

• Understanding the neurological shift necessary for a teenager to go from screened-up to sacked-out can be tremendously helpful for parents in building empathy, setting up clear limits, and getting their teen to go to sleep.
• When parents see themselves as the master regulators and grasp the importance of helping their partner to co-regulate (i.e., not “lose it”), they are far less likely to get into repetitive cycles of fight/flight showdowns with their child.
• If parents are aware of their attachment histories, they are better able to help their child to feel seen and heard, while also encouraging his or her healthy development.

Obviously, PACT therapy for the couple is not a substitute for the learning and social-emotional scaffolding kids such as Michael require. However, it is far easier for parents to successfully locate and get these supports in place when they feel supported in their couple relationship. Overall, I find that parents who have experienced PACT stop wishing for the return of the joystick era and feel they know the right buttons to push to be more in control of all the relationships in their family.