Relationships between video-gaming habits, parental monitoring and school performance

Children spend an average of 1.3 hours per day on video game and problematic video gaming prevalence is set between 2% and 8%. High levels of intensity and frequency of video gaming are associated with lower school achievement. Home is the most preferred place to play. Therefore parental monitoring is crucial. Objective: To analyse gaming patterns and to identify significant relationships between parental monitoring and academic performance. Method: Participants: 610 students of Secondary Education mean age 13.84 years (SD=1.27; range 12-16). Ad hoc scales were developed to analyse gaming frequency and intensity, school performance and parental monitoring. Results: Children, whose parents control gaming time and show interest in the contents continuously, play significantly fewer days, fewer hours and with adjusted contents to their age. Those with discontinuous parental control ("sometimes"), show a higher gaming frequency and intensity, and the proportion of unadjusted content, and do not differ from those without parental control. In addition, a greater number of hours of play are related to lower academic achievement. Discussion/ conclusions: This work helps in defining gambling problem behaviour. Results indicate that parental control is effective, on condition that it must be continuous and consistent.