How to Raise a Healthy Gamer

End Power Struggles, Break Bad Screen Habits, and Transform Your Relationship with Your Kids

By: Alok Kanojia MD MPH

Narrated by: Alok Kanojia MD MPH

A former gamer and Harvard-trained psychiatrist offers a proven, tested plan to help parents define, set, and reinforce healthy boundaries around video games and help kids who have developed an addiction to gaming.

How much should I let them play? How do I get them to be interested in anything else?!

When it comes to family rules around video games, most parents are at a loss. After all, our technologically invasive world is something previous generations didn’t have to wrestle with, so we have no model for how to guide our families through the rapidly changing landscape, no blueprint for setting healthy gaming boundaries and keeping them in place.

A former Harvard Medical School instructor and one of the foremost experts on video game psychology, Dr. Alok Kanojia—known as “Dr. K” to his millions of followers—has firsthand knowledge of this modern issue: He needed professional help to break his own gaming habits in college, an experience that fueled his interest in learning how to help others. Drawing on Dr. K’s professional specialization in working with people of all ages and varying degrees of addiction, and the most recent research from neuroscience and psychology, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer teaches parents a new skill set for negotiating gaming culture and offers solutions rooted in the science of treating addiction, including:

• An eight-week, step-by-step road map for setting, enforcing, and troubleshooting healthy gaming boundaries.

• Advice on how to react when your child becomes irritable, rude, or seemingly directionless.

• Essential communication strategies for reaching kids who have developed a serious gaming problem.

• The neuroscientific and psychological reasons that children gravitate to video games and how to help them meet these needs in real life.

• Insights and advice on dealing with behavioral issues that often accompany game use: ADHD, spectrum disorders, and substance abuse.

Whether your goal is to prepare your child for a healthy relationship to technology or to curb unhealthy amounts of time spent gaming, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer will help you better understand, communicate with, and—ultimately—empower your gaming enthusiast to live their best life.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of the Appendices and Bibliography from the book

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Alok Kanojia (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Of all the questions parents ask me as a child psychiatrist, the most common one—by far—is how to handle their children’s use of screens. This groundbreaking instant classic of a book answers that question definitively. Clear, persuasive, and rooted in the most current research as well as the wisdom of the ages, How to Raise a Healthy Gamer is the book you’ve been looking for—not only for your child but for yourself as well!”—Edward Hallowell, MD, author of Driven to Distraction and ADHD 2.0

“In homes everywhere, negotiations around gaming are tiresome and heated. Dr. Kanojia’s approach allows your child to be part of the solution—a valuable component to both reducing the combativeness that often accompanies these negotiations and to staying in close relationship with them. I highly recommend this calm, structured, and nurturing approach to better and less screen use.”—Tina Payne Bryson, PhD, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline

“Among the most important decisions we make about our parenting, screen use and—in particular—gaming will define our family. This groundbreaking book will give you what you need to come to an informed and sensible resolution that works for you. It’s a book that will give you the strength to live within your values and that will support your hope for a family that is deeply connected.”—Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting and The Soul of Discipline

Practical Everyday Parenting Help

I really loved this book and how it tackles a very modern day problem. It also didn’t attack gaming and say we shouldn’t allow it but how to live with it in a healthy way just like anything else. Good info on the neuroscience behind gaming and what a kid/spouse/friend is probably feeling versus our assumptions.

Great voice and message!

I’m in love with this approach of parenting, and would have loved to have been approached by my parents this way. I’m diagnosed with ADHD/ASD and had an extremely addictive personality, along with, issue avoidance and isolation. The mention of professional help is put in a positive light, encouraging people to truly understand what needs aren’t being met by their child. Absolutely love Dr.K’s teaching!

Insightful, Practical, and Actually Helpful

Dr. K does a great job unpacking why kids and teens enjoy gaming and how it can become a problem. He gives parents practical ideas and advice based in research and his own work as a clinician. I am a LPC also focusing on gaming problems and this book reinforced many concepts I use in my practice. Truly a fantastic book for raising a healthy gamer.

not the target audience but

although am not a parent I found the guidelines of how to have an open conversation well layed out and I hope to get practice using them soon. some of the lines felt stiff compared to Dr k other content.

Eye opening for Parents.

Dr G changed my life for better. I am the follower of Dr G on YouTube. “Be a producer not just a consumer” - my favorite quote from Dr G. With his gaming book, I can relate my son and his issues in context with video games & issues associated with the gaming & how it changed his personal life.

As a Gamer who is now a parent. This is Gospel to Parents

Where do I begin? As a 34 yr old that has been a gamer since 12 with counter strike on pc prior to steam. With 2 kids that are little; this is articulating the observations and experiences I have lived. This is an essential tool for parents who want to raise mentally healthy children.

Practical and understandable

Easy to understand, practical, and empowering advice. Loved the inclusion of concepts from ancient India’s wisdom to shed light on today’s struggles.

Very good analysis of kids' gaming habits

I am an addiction therapist and two years ago I freaked out when I started noticing that our kid shows all signs of addiction when she uses technology (games, social media etc.)
For a long time, my primary feeling regarding this question was panic. Panic is not a place where we can start a constructive conversation. Nevertheless, I panicked more and more. I mean ... I've seen heroin addicts who behave more chill and rational when they are in acute abstinence... so how not to freak out?
The book helps me understand several blind spots that I have had.
The kid is not a rational adult who realizes their problem and comes to seek help, I can't expect the same level of insight, I have to work together with her to see how her mood is affected by tech while we establish healthy boundaries (versus the prohibitions that are more and more difficult to impose to a growing kid) and not use the boundaries as a substitute for understanding.
The science communication in the book is very well-balanced and very accessible for everyone (not only to me but also to my husband who is not in my field).
The action steps are very well explained. I even consider recommending it to some of my patients.

Valuable for Gamer Parents

I really enjoyed this read, because I am a father of a three and four year old who are just beginning to experiment with video games. This book helped me structure my own feelings about my life having played video games for as long as I can remember. So much of what Dr. K talks about in this book resonates perfectly with my own experience. I think he captures perfectly what a lot of the problems are with video games and adolescent minds as they grow and develop..

All parents of gamers should have this knowledge.

As a Ludologist, I bought this book to study. However, after reading it, I believe this is the best book for a parent with a child who has an unhealthy relationship with video games.

As someone who struggled with video game addiction in my childhood, I wish this book would have been around many years ago for my parents to read.

The book is very thorough and it outlines the approach I hope to take someday if I too become the parent of a gamer.