COACHING SESSION: Boys Adrift: Why Boys & Men Turn to Video Games and What to Do About It

Rachel Denning (00:00.654)
Everybody welcome to the extraordinary family life formula. Yeah, podcast. So used to saying that we'll welcome to the formula. You guys were super excited that you're here or watching the recording. If you couldn't make it live today, we're continuing our discussion about boys and men and specifically about.

video games and screens and devices and why the effect it's having and why it's so appealing to boys. And it seems like almost everyone we talked to is having some kind of device screen time, video game struggle with all their kids. Right. And, and it's a different, what we're talking about this today, it's meeting a different need for boys and for girls. It's meeting a different need. So,

When we switch and do a whole series on girls, we'll talk about that. They're using it more to meet different needs, but boys are leaning into video games and screens to meet their unique needs. And we're going to talk about that today. But it's such an important topic. We have to understand what's going on. And it's so unprecedented, right? Because it is never before in history have there been...

screen addictions and video game challenges, right? This is, it started, video games came out when I was a kid with like the first Atari and you were playing like, well, even before that was like Pac -Man and like Tetris and these little things. And then it's just advanced to full on.

augmented realities and simulations and crazy cool stuff. And there is no sign of slowing down or stopping. This is going to be a part of our lives and our kids' lives and our grandkids' lives. And so we have to understand it and know how to operate effectively inside of it. And wrap our heads around it. Well, inside of it, not necessarily like inside of the game, but inside of what's happening around us.

Rachel Denning (02:16.942)
And it's fascinating because one of the things I thought of was, for those of you who attended last time, we're discussing things from this book, Boys Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sacks. And he said, if you haven't played video games in the last 10 years, which we fall into that category, they've become a lot more addictive because people who create games understand human psychology and their

implementing all of those, all of that knowledge into the way they design the game. Not necessarily more addictive than they used to be. Yeah. Not necessarily in malice, but in marketing and, and time and, and time they they're doing this with social media. They're doing every, everyone has like, you take any big organization, they have a whole department that's designed to help you click more often and stay longer.

to maintain your attention. Yeah. They're trying to keep your attention. So basically what they're addiction specialists, they're not, they wouldn't call themselves that. And they're not like, let's create addictions. They're just trying to, how can we get people to use our product longer? Exactly. So we have to know that in all those things, including video games, but movies and social media, all that stuff, they, they are strategically using.

human psychology and neurology in their favor to try to get that going. And so it's super, super, super important that we understand what's happening and the effect it has and how we want to engage with it as families. So, yes. And so last time we're kind of doing this series, just as a recap, we're doing this series from the book because the book has so much,

we could easily just, you know, do a fire hose of everything that's in there, but I feel like that's too much. And so we want to really dig into it more and glean more from each chapter. So last time we discussed why and how boys are disengaging from school and education and college in general, just they're losing their drive to want to achieve, to want to do well in school.

Rachel Denning (04:42.382)
So that was super powerful and insightful. Go back and watch that recording if you haven't. But one of the things it talked about was that in schools, boys have, well, boys are receiving the side effects or they're receiving the consequences of what's happening in schools. And one of those things is that competition is being removed. A lot of competition is being removed and people are seeing this.

but it's especially affecting boys. And then the other thing that they talked about is things as simple as what he calls, Dr. Sachs calls, generic violence. And that's basically, that could include things like throwing snowballs at school. That could include dodge ball, right? The boys' favorite game. I hated that game in school. Greg loved it. But it's any kind of wrestling or roughhousing or just this...

kind of hard wiring we have to be aggressive. Yeah. And it also includes things like, um, reading about or writing about specifically generic violence, which means something violence that's related to a topic that's relevant and appropriate. So if you're reading or writing about world war two, there's going to be violence involved and boys and men generally can appreciate or.

I don't know if enjoys the right word, more of the graphic nature of that violence, if that makes sense. But that is being removed from schools as well. And so as a result, I'm summing up what the last we discussed last time that boys are checking out. And one thing they're turning to is video games as kind of a replacement of all of those things. They had competition in schools. They had this violence, generic violence in schools. Now it's being removed.

And boys feel like they don't have a place. And one of the - Not only is it being removed, it's being socially discouraged in a lot of places. Yes, it's also being discouraged, heavily discouraged actually. And as a result, many boys are turning to video games because video games then fill that void that's missing in their lives. So that was kind of where we ended before.

Rachel Denning (07:08.334)
And then we're like, okay, we're going to, we're going to talk about video games and that's where we are today. And that's, that's kind of the lead in here. And in fact, um, I want to, I want to ask maybe you can finish your thought, but I want you to start thinking and sharing in the chat here, or you jump on Mike, just from your experience with raising, uh, well, being married and raising boys, or even if you have all daughters, like you've been around, maybe nephews or just been around boys, whatever. Some of you have worked with boys in church or school or other settings.

Like just being around boys and men. I want you to start thinking about sharing here. What have you just perceived on your own without reading, without research, without, you know, your doctoral dissertation? Just what have you observed that boys want and need? And it'd be I'd love to hear this. It's fascinating and put all of our minds together here. Throw it in the chat or you can turn on your mic. But let's let's start.

Let's start putting that together. And I hope you take some notes and jot that down and make a list because that's the fundamental basis of everything we're going to be talking about today is that they have these needs. They've got some basic needs and those needs are unique. And if the needs aren't met, they're going to find some kind of vehicle to try to meet those needs. And one of those vehicles today is obviously video games and it's a really poor substance.

Well, yeah, it's interesting that you're saying that because I don't know who originally taught this, but I know Tony Robbins teaches it essentially that every single human being has six basic human needs and everything we do, all of our behaviors, everything, this covers everything, is basically trying to fulfill one of those six human needs.

And so this definitely falls into that, that boys have basic human needs that differ from girls' human needs. And I know a lot of people, not a lot, there's people out there today that don't believe that, that there's a difference, but there is, and there's tons of research that shows that that's biological. And so they're using, they're turning to video games to fulfill those, one of those six human needs. But I think it also ties into what I was gonna actually say.

Rachel Denning (09:33.198)
where he, from the book, he says that, you know, a lot of boys and young men have desires and motivations that their parents and especially their mothers don't really understand. And so that's something that I really want to.

I like to be reminded of that, right? And I want us to keep that in the forefront that there are, there's things that we may not understand about our boys and our young men and our husbands even that they have these drives and motivations that are different from ours. And so a lot of times we can look at them and think, oh, there's something wrong with you. When really it's not that there's anything wrong with them. It's just that they're different than,

I am right. So I just, I just want to keep that out there. I think that's worth emphasizing because even in, even in my coaching experience with moms, they'll come and they'll express, like they'll be genuinely bothered, like, or really deeply bothered or disturbed by things their little boys do. And they're describing it to me. I'm like, yep. That sounds exactly like a little boy.

and where a dad wouldn't be bothered or a young man. You're like, yeah, well, of course they're going to do that. They're going to build things and then break them and destroy them and tease and run a rough house and make a disaster and build a fort out of your nice furniture and dive bomb off of it and bring the dog in and whatever. I mean, they're just, they're going through all these things or they're, you know, sort fighting or whatever. And it comes up that a mom,

Again, it's the yin and the yang, right? We fit together beautifully, men and women does. It's so beautiful. But you don't want to squelch out or drown the spark or flame of that pure masculinity. And you don't want to force it out of a boy because as a mother, you would never do that. And so you're trying to train your boys to never do that. And

Rachel Denning (11:48.942)
And it actually, honestly, in the long -term does them a disservice instead of allowing them. No, we're not giving them license to be barbarians and have be ill -behaved, right? We still be classy, but we're gonna allow boys to be boys, just like we would allow girls to be girls. I'm not gonna stop my daughters from doing feminine things. That would be very, very short -sighted of me saying, well, I don't need to do that. I would never do that. What are you doing? You don't need to go get your nails done. That's dumb. Stupid nails.

I don't get my nails done right. That would be very short -sighted of me and narrow -minded. And so we have to keep reminding ourselves. So as mothers, you got to keep reminding yourself, there's something I don't get having never been a boy. Well, and in the context of the topic today about boys turning to video games and why they do it and what to do about it.

it's important to keep this in mind because we're trying to understand, okay, they're turning to video games for a reason. And that's to fulfill one of the human, six human needs. And they're also doing it, it's kind of pretty much connected, but they're doing it to fulfill some sort of drive, desire, or motivation that we as women may not understand. So it's getting to the core of that.

and understanding that, and then as type of solution, finding a way to fulfill that need in a healthier, more real life situation is how we resolve this problem, right? Because ultimately we're discussing this because it is becoming a problem. It's becoming a problem for boys and men. They are turning to video games and virtual worlds.

instead of engaging in the real world. And in fact, in the book, he talks about how this is happening at schools, high schools, colleges, boys will get together and they prefer to spend time alone or with each other playing video games more than they prefer to engage with girls. They don't want to date them, talk to them, whatever. And girls are complaining because they go to a...

Rachel Denning (14:07.886)
hang out with boys and girls and the boys are all together playing video games and the girls are girls are being ignored. And they finally either start playing video games with them or they leave. Or in some cases they try to use their bodies to get attention. Yes. But ironically, some boys don't even care. They're like, I'd rather play my video games. This like, this is the real research. Like the mice thing. Yeah. The beautiful mice, beautiful mice. They find after a while.

How we share this before, but there's this awesome research. A short recap. There was, they put all these mice in there to see if they just made everything easy. They have to fight for anything. Everything was provided. Mice utopia. How long it would last. It didn't within, within a very short time. Maybe like three or four generations. They stopped, um, reproducing, they stopped engaging. And then all the male mice went over and they just hung out with each other and the beautiful little mice. And they called them beautiful mice because the males would just.

They stopped caring about reproducing. They stopped caring about engaging. They spent all their time alone and would just groom themselves and eat. And that was about it. And they called them beautiful mice. And then, so basically the, the population went extinct because the mice stopped reproducing. And then they eventually just all died out. And there's, there's so many patterns for that first society. What's happening.

But let's go back and I'd love if you jump on Mike or throw in the chat here. What have you observed that boys need? Laura said they need hands -on learning. And I think, you know, we could argue both sides of that, but a lot, a lot, a lot of boys want hands -on learning for men, the working and hands -on training. Absolutely. They want to touch things more. They want, they want to get engaged. They want to take things apart to see how they work. They'll take a...

perfectly functioning good thing and they'll break it just to see what's on the inside. And there's fascination to that. They're much more willing to get dirty and be dirty and do dirty things. But then you look around society and you look at the dirty, unpleasant jobs that most of us aren't even aware of because it's happening behind the scenes. And it's in the high 90 percentiles of those jobs are done by men.

Rachel Denning (16:24.782)
Did you see that real? I said, yes, that was amazing. I sent it real. I sent it to all my kids and it was, it started with a quote from share. She was on a daytime television show and, and I think it was like Joan Rivers or someone asked her, well, do you think men are important? And she said, for what? And then, but then the clip goes to showing all of these different jobs, like carpenters and, and of course the garbage.

You know, garbage trucks and prison, prison workers and like rail workers, all of these jobs, dangerous and dirty and hard and manual. And of course, make society function that makes society function and run. Like we don't have electricity or internet or anything because without these jobs and they're of course, 95 % or more male dominated. Right. And so it's like, yeah.

Of course, men are very important because they are behind the scenes making society work. Providing all those niceties and luxuries that you think are essential for society and it's happening. So it's so important. So if you have any more, throw them in the chat, throw on the mic, raise your hand. You can even turn on your cameras. It's that little camera button down in the corner. And share what comes to mind just in your experience. Like what do they need?

For me, we have three boys and four daughters, so it's been fun raising both and seeing that, well, I think across the board, they all want rough housing. My daughters want a rough house so much, but the boys just thrive on it. And they wanted to take risks and climb trees and jump off things. And they love, oh my goodness, my boys love knives.

and swords and guns and bows and arrows. I mean, they just love us. They've had this deep fascination with knives since they were little. And machetes, especially when we were in Central America, they're like, what? I get to use like a two foot knife? This is the best. And they want to challenge themselves. They thrive on competition. And so,

Rachel Denning (18:41.422)
in a, there's a healthy way for these things. In fact, I think in order to be whole and healthy, there has to be some of those needs met. And if we try to take them away because of some of the unfortunate elements or uses of those things. So if we try to take away the entire thing, because some people use it wrong. Like violence in school because of, I.

As I was doing the research or reading about this, you know, they started these no violence policies because of things like school shootings, right? And so you think, oh, that makes sense. School shootings happened because of violence. So if we eliminate violence, we could eliminate school shootings, right? Okay. That's a way of thinking, but it doesn't work, but it doesn't work. And what it's doing instead is isolating boys and.

disinteresting, I'm not sure if that's a word. They're becoming disinterested in school and the learning process because the violence and the competition has been removed. So they don't feel like they can thrive. They don't feel like they can achieve. They, okay, here's the other thing, right? What is it? Let's just, again, this is philosophical stuff. I love thinking about this. What is it? What is it that keeps evil at bay?

I want you to actually answer this. I want you to ask that question. I want you to answer it. What is it that keeps evil at bay? What is it that keeps really bad people from just overrunning society?

Rachel Denning (20:15.534)
We're going to sit here and look at your names or pictures or video. I sincerely I want you to answer this and I just want your thoughts. I'll jump on the mic. Sorry I'm driving so I'm not going to get on camera, but my husband's a police officer, which he does so he can drive fast and shoot guns, which completely relates to what you're talking about. But I would say what keeps violence at bay is having or not violence, but evil at bay is having productive things to do.

Like most of the population he deals with are not working. They're on welfare. They do not have productive things to do, and so they're turning towards crime and violence. And so that's just my observation from what I've seen through his job. Absolutely, and the other thing that you said inadvertently is that your husband is one of the men who keeps bad people at bay. Yep, so there it is again.

So yeah, it's having something productive and fulfilling to do, which is what we're talking about. If your needs are being met, you're not going to seek out the other vehicle that's unhealthy or evil or immoral because your needs are being met. You're actually going to contribute to society instead of take away. And then like you said, your husband's a good example. There are good men and women, but there are good men out there fighting against.

bad men we could say, or bad women or whatever, right? There has to be strong warrior type men and women that are going to keep bad people from overrunning society.

And I think in some ways that's maybe something the society has started to take for granted, especially in, we've traveled a lot, we've been to a lot of places. And I think in Western countries, we've started to take that for granted. Sometimes I think, some of us think there's not bad people out there anymore. That's been solved and fixed, right?

Rachel Denning (22:22.894)
There's no bad people not realizing behind the scenes what's going on because your brother was also a police officer, not realizing that there's people behind the scenes that are actually keeping this at bay, like keeping it in check. And keeping it out of sight for most of us so we can live these cushy, comfortable, safe little lives. And yet if you talk to police officers or...

soldiers, others that are fighting this day in and day out, the things that they're fighting and dealing with, you're just, you'd be blown away at the garbage they're taking care of. So I would go to Krav Maga two or three times a week. And I was training with these SWAT officers and every Tuesday and Thursday, they'd come in with stories of what they'd been working on. And this was just a few miles from my home that never makes the news. Nobody knows about the stories they would tell me were unbe -

leaveable and around the clock. They're working with just the most wretched things and this terrible stuff and they're keeping it at bay and these guys are true warriors and suffering because of it. Massive risks, massive toll on their lives and their psyche and their health and their families and relationships to keep it all at bay. So it's interesting to think about like for us to enjoy a good society there's a lot of

of difficult challenging things that have to be happening kind of behind the scenes that we may not be aware of. Which brings up another one. Oh, go ahead. I'm saying that. I was just going to say there's a guy that writes his name is Lieutenant Grossman and he talks about how military and law enforcement or sheepdogs, they have to be just as violent as the wolves, but the sheep hate the sheepdogs as much as they hate the wolves. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

That's insightful and they want to stay away from what you're talking about. That evil that all the I mean, I could tell you three things that my husband had to deal with just this week. That would be shocking, but society doesn't. They want to hide from that, right? So if the sheepdogs do their work and keep the wolves away, then the sheep start thinking there aren't any wolves around here and these dogs are just annoying us. And they're Bryant. They're violent and brutal.

Rachel Denning (24:37.806)
They eat meat. Read that in the news. It's all over. Except I don't read the news. Right. Right. So and there's so much more than just that. That's just one element of it. So and I bring that up just to... So hold on though, because I want to say one of the reasons why this is significant with the whole problem and epidemic regarding video games is that he mentions in the book, which I thought was very fascinating.

He used as an example, general patent. But I think that this applies to all types of people, all men. He calls it the will to power. And it was actually, it comes from Nietzsche, this idea of certain men have this will to power. And it's not power in a negative sense. It's just like this will to be the master of their fate type thing. But they're the type of people who are out there keeping evil at bay. If we want to call it that. But he's saying that,

Those type of people today, men and boys specifically, are more likely to become video game addicts than they are to engage in some sort of useful career. Like to become a policeman or to become SWAT or to be in the military or to any of these things, they're more likely, they'll have a job, but they'll be at home addicted to video games.

because that's where they're now putting that energy, that force, that desire to conquer, whatever, whatever you want to call that desire that can be used for good, right? In the case of policemen and the military. Well, entrepreneurs and businessmen, on and on and on. Right, because it can manifest itself in lots of different ways, but they're more likely to now focus that energy and attention towards a virtual world.

than they are to contributing to the real world. And that's why this is such a huge problem because in that virtual world, they feel like they can have autonomy and control. They can be the master of their fate. They can go in and just be expressive and just be boys and men. They can be great. But the problem is it's all virtual. It's all fake.

Rachel Denning (27:03.406)
not real. So all their achievements, they give them a dopamine hit. At the end of it, they've turned it off after a few hours like, yeah. But what have they done physically over the last few hours? They just sat on their butts. And so it creates this soul and cellular level incongruence of having achieved, being in control. Everything's great. I get to do all this awesome stuff.

But all I did really was just sit on my butt for a few hours. And now I come back to reality and I have almost no control. Anything I want to do, I'm being ridiculed for, mocked or being told no. I mean, no, like restriction has become like our societal thing. Just restriction, restriction, restriction, restriction. We talked about this before, like the HOA. Like the iconic HOA is like the, the, it's the perfect symbol of restriction. Like what can,

people do and boys do and go out and rough house building, build forts and do all this singing. Oh man, you're going to get fined like crazy from your HOA if your boys are boys. It's insane. Right. And where can you just go into the woods and shoot guns and ride four wheelers and build forts and. It does still exist in some places. Where? Where? It's Alaska, I think. It's the last frontier, but everywhere else is, is being so regulated. You with me?

And so these boys have these drives, but the more it gets restricted, the more they're going to turn to other vehicles and other outlets to try to meet the needs. And the problem there is, I know I'm repeating myself here, it's virtual. It is a poor substitute for reality. And so we have boys who are becoming the mere shell, empty shell of the men they could be. And that's the main point I want to make today.

Well, and what happens like you're talking about there is it creates this feedback loop where this contributes to this, which contributes to this and it goes around and around. And so because in the real world, they're not allowed to express themselves the way they feel through competition or roughhousing or whatever. They turn to the video games, which then they get good at the games and they feel like they're special or important or they're achieving, you know, great things, which then makes them.

Rachel Denning (29:26.126)
less capable in the real world, which makes them turn to the video games more, which, and this cycle goes on because the more they create more in congruence, the better they get at the video game, the better they get at achieving those levels of greatness. And I keep using this word greatness because that was actually the, may still be the marketing motto of Sony. Like you are great.

in this video game, right? Like you, your name should be reverence. Like you are the greatest of all time, right? That's what can happen in the video game where you become just so amazing by achieving all the levels. Clever marketing to men and the psychology that's just in us. But then what happens is you suck at everything else in life. So why would you want to stay there? So why would you want to go do that? Cause it's painful and hard. And he actually gives some examples of, of,

players who would play these NFL football games, the video games, and then they're like, oh yeah, I understand football. And they would go and try to try out, like what's the word? Try, apply, apply for the football team. They would try out for the football team. And of course it required effort. They had to run. And get hit. And get hit. And the coach is screaming at them and telling them, you suck. Yeah.

You don't even know what you're talking about. And you don't even understand this game at all. You thought you did. Are you kidding me? I crush it on my football video games. I'm the best player ever. And so then they don't do that because they want to go back to the video game where they actually feel good about achieving the level of success that they achieve in the game. And so it's this vicious cycle. And it's so, it's so...

disturbing because it makes it easy to achieve, easy to win, easy to succeed in a virtual world. And it robs you literally because you're getting all these hits of like, I'm achieving, I'm winning, I'm succeeding. Where in real life, it's so much work and so much effort to achieve. And you have to lose and fail and it hurts and it's embarrassing because people watching and it's on and on and on.

Rachel Denning (31:46.286)
Like the real price tag on achievement in the real world is so high. And so it's almost this evil thing where they're making winning so easy and it creates this massive deep psychological dichotomy and problem inside the psyche of a boy. Yes. Which I think actually is a perfect lead in to some of these side effects to video games.

because he says that, oh yeah, so one of the.

The top concerns or top things that are occurring that are obviously making this a detrimental thing is that it is creating literal changes in personality. Because the reality is... Okay, this is just the caveat here. I think people already know that you're anti -video games. That's nothing new. 100%. Right. And I have...

I have been, I'm someone who likes to question things. I'm like, yeah, okay, I get your point, but I like to go to the other side and be like, well, maybe they're good. Maybe they have a lot of benefits. Maybe you're learning things. And I haven't gone all the way down that, but I was actually, I'm reading the book and I was listening to it. And I was driving here today. We just moved out of our house yesterday and I finished cleaning it this morning.

And I was driving back with my 15 year old daughter and I was listening to parts of this and he was talking, the section we were on was just going through all of the side effects of playing in this case, specifically violent video games. And when we pulled up, I turned it off and I'm like, well, what do you think? Are you convinced Aliyah? And she's like, I was already convinced, but now she's like, are you kidding? Because.

Rachel Denning (33:50.126)
Everything he happened to be reading through was like, wow.

that's serious. And he was specifically talking about how they contribute to attention deficit disorders, like they reward and encourage.

switching instead of maintaining focus on one thing, you are rewarded for being able to change your focus every few seconds. It's putting the brain on drugs. Little drug hits, man. You're getting nailed. So anyone who has an attention deficit disorder is more likely to be drawn to video games, but then it also exacerbates their attention deficit. Risk taking.

There is a direct connection between violent video games and increased risky risk taking. Because we're pro risk taking. Foolish risk taking. Yes. Again, it's creating a distorted reality. Yes, a distorted reality where you are encouraged in the video game, you're encouraged or rewarded to take risky to.

do risky behaviors, to jump from the top of a 20 foot building, right? Or to do something insane. That's rewarded or encouraged because it's glorifying the risk and encouraging it. But then what's happening is that there is a carryover where they even did some research that teens who were...

Rachel Denning (35:28.238)
in dangerous, so playing violent video games or dangerous video games, you know, even like the ones where they're driving cars, the Grand Theft Auto is the one he mentions or Call of Duty. Those are the two he specifically mentions. That they're more likely to be in a car accident within the next five years.

Well, and he says they're going to be speeding and tailgating and weaving in traffic and they're more likely to be pulled over. They're more likely to be in accidents and more willing to drink and drive. Yes. He just just like direct connections to really dangerous, foolish behaviors. Right. So that was the one thing. Then the other thing was it is creases obesity because there is actually well, of course, you're sitting there. But this was fascinating because he said that.

playing video games was more of an appetite stimulant than watching TV. So you're more likely to snack while you're playing video games than you are even just watching TV. So you're going to eat more because it is stimulating the brain. So you're actually going to eat more than just just passively watching TV. It's interesting. And then you mentioned something about this before, but I thought it was fascinating because it talking the last thing it's talking about the changes in personality.

and dehumanization, that there is actually this effect where people, even the person themselves become dehumanized because of the violent video games they're playing. Now. Yeah, we're going to hit that. I want to hit this. Oh yeah. Same thing with TV, right? Playing a violent video game has effects on how you feel. We know that how you think we knew that how physiologically aroused you get.

like how it stimulates your whole body. It's greater than and different from the effects of watching a game or even watching violent TV. When you're engaged in it, it's creating physiological markers. It's registering on a cellular level. And I discovered just working with young men for the last 25 years, up close, intimate, personal, they tell me everything. I noticed that pattern, this was 12 years ago, that boys who were really into video games,

Rachel Denning (37:47.021)
switched over almost automatically when they hit maturity of adolescents to pornography. So the ones who are deep into video games just switched to pornography and it goes along with this. Playing video games causes all these physiological arousal and now when you hit adolescence what do you do? Well you just switch to a virtual physiological arousal, right? And the addiction just transfers and it goes deep and it's just

devastating. I want to switch to solutions and go against it. You want to do that? Yeah. I do want to do that. I want to say a couple more things. Of course, we all think, oh yeah, violent video games. Obviously, those are bad. He has plenty of research on nonviolent video games as well, which

are really connected to some of the things we already mentioned, that it makes achieving things in the real world more challenging. And I noticed this myself with my own kids, because despite Greg's abhorrence of video games, our kids have gone through trials of trying out the video games. So partly what we talk about is from experience, not just hypothesis, right? We have had periods of time where we have allowed our kids to play video games. And one of the things I noticed is that,

Let's not say we there. Let's say you. Okay. I'll take it. I'll have it. When we lived in Costa Rica, our oldest children were our oldest. Kaia was probably like 12 and they were younger than that. 12, 11, 10, nine, something like that. Cause they're all close. And that was when they first got introduced to video games and it was Minecraft and they had, which Greg loves to call Minecraft.

They had a friend come and he introduced it to him. He came to visit and I thought, oh, okay. It seems so harmless. Well, let him play. Even productive, even creative. Yeah, it's a creative platform. It's used for creativity. And of their own accord, they told me, it was after a week or two or something, Mom.

Rachel Denning (40:09.133)
I hate it because all I can think about now is Minecraft. We used to go outside and play. We used to, cause they, we lived on a farm, an organic farm in Costa Rica and they were outside all the time playing, chopping their legs with machetes. Just adventuring, just total adventures. Living outside and building forts and doing, they were, they could pretty much do whatever they want. But when they started playing Minecraft, they said, all we can think about is Minecraft. We don't even want to go outside anymore and play.

And we don't even want to do the things we used to love to do. Exactly. It was really insightful of wise of them at that age. Right. And so they said, we just want to get rid of it. We don't want to play it anymore. And so that's one of the things. And then, OK, and then obviously then we had our younger kids and they had to experiment with that. And but I would see what would happen is that because building things in Minecraft was so easy.

And fun, you could go out and chop down a tree and build a house and do you and have here's your animals and here's this you've got a whole farm and you're taking care of it. It's not like they were doing bad things at all, but they didn't want to do real world things anymore. They didn't want to go out and build a fort because that was hard and you would get sweaty and it was hot out and it was so long to build the fort that they just didn't want to do that stuff. It was more effort. It was more work.

And so essentially that's what he says about the non -violent video game side of things that specific, and he talks about, you know, not every kid, not every boy is going to get addicted to video games. And that's true in our own family. Like we've got some that are more prone to be addicted than others. And you know, not every boy is going to have these same issues, but the ones who do,

are the ones that we have to watch out for. They're the ones who will get into it and that becomes their world. They don't want to do other things because it's so easy to do these things and to get the same feelings and dopamine hits and physiological changes as they would get in the real world if they put forth the effort. But why would they want to put forth the effort when it's so easy to just?

Rachel Denning (42:34.989)
play a game and get those benefits. And that is a perfect lead into what I want to talk about. That we want our boys to put in the effort to become men. We want our boys and husbands, all the men in our lives, to put in the effort and the work and the creativity and the strain. We want them to work through failures and mistakes and do everything they have to do to gain the knowledge and the...

and the skill set, like whatever, and the heart set, right? Whatever they have to do to become who they could be, right? To reach for their potential, to have real, true achievement, measurable success. Well, we want that for them. And actually, the thing we want for them is the actual way to get it. That you and I, we have to put in more effort, more work, more creativity.

more resources, we have to acquire the knowledge, the mindset, the heart set and the skill set to create that environment so that they can do it. And so what we're suggesting here isn't an easy fix. It's actually a very challenging one, just like we're asking our boys to choose the more challenging path because it's more fulfilling and there's more expansion and more growth. And so in a nutshell, the way to

draw the boys away from the pseudo solution, the cheap substitute, is to try to make their lives more fulfilling, more meaningful, more engaging, more exciting, more challenging than a video game. Now, I realize what I'm saying there. You're competing against a video game.

That's a good challenge right there. That is a worthy opponent. What can and must you do to make sure your son's and your husband's lives are more adventurous, more competitive, more physical, more stimulating in a good way?

Rachel Denning (45:01.229)
challenging, right? And so some easy examples, and I love examples here, throw, you can jump on Mike and share, or you can throw them in the chat. Let's put together a bunch of examples. So we all have a list to work from, but martial arts classes are phenomenal because it's physical. It's competitive, competitive. It's quote violent. Right. You should see my voice.

And one of my daughters too, our 15 year old, she loves it just as much. But you should see my voice when they get in there and we put gloves on and they go after the bag or the hand mitts. Oh my goodness. They just, you see him light up. And our oldest, he's 18. He's like, I just can't wait till somebody tries to mug me and I get to use this on him. Right? He just, he gets this, he gets so excited about the violent part of it.

not because he wants to be a bad person, but because he wants to be a good one against bad guys. It's amazing. And it's just hardwired. It's in so many of us, not all, but so many. So some sports are good. I prefer individual competition sports, although team sports are great as well. Trips, adventures, challenges.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I'm sure you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I'm sure you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. I'm not sure if you

Rachel Denning (46:55.181)
The easy out of the easy video games. And so again, like I said, from our own personal experience, we've learned.

especially for those who have the personality who can.

become, they can become addicted to video games. And I think maybe all of us can pick those up. We could look at our kids and be like, yeah, that kid right there could spend all day watching, well, watching movies or playing video games. No problem. And the other one, maybe they'd spend an hour or two and then be like, okay, I'm done. I'm going to do something else. We have both of those. The ones who can spend all day, those are the ones we have to worry about the most because they will spend all day. Yeah.

and days and days and days and there's horror stories of worse, you know, like staying up all night. They will do that. They are the ones that need more boundaries. We like to call this headgates. It comes from the idea of irrigation canals, you know, this old school thing that people used to do. We had an irrigation canal and our very first house we bought was in a small farming town and we watered the lawn with an irrigation canal and you would have to open or close the headgate in order to direct the water.

You can't just go to the gate and close it. It's a similar thing. If you want your attention to flow into building a fort or playing sports, you have to close the other gate. You're going to have to close the video game gate. You get to decide what that looks like.

Rachel Denning (48:38.829)
a maximum of 30 to 40 minutes a day on school days. That should be the most. I think I know you don't agree with that. I think no more than a maximum of once or twice in a lifetime would be too much in a waste of time. But. So it's out there. We have found for us, for especially for those kids that are prone to the addiction.

really the only thing that works is cutting it off. Cause to me it's akin to look, we don't want you to get addicted to drugs. So you can only smoke weed three or four times a week and just one joint. It really has similar problems. And so it seems foolish to me that you would just, just, you know, stream it along and, and limited doses because what's going to happen when you're not around, they're going to binge. And then, then.

the lack of sleep decreases cognitive abilities. And then it spirals out of control to just absurd behaviors. Right. And so, you know, and of course parents will say, well, they might do that anyways, you know, when they grow up. And that's true. But the hope is, or the plan is, and this is again, something we've experienced with our oldest son, cause he had that personality and we had to cut him off and he was

now expresses how grateful he was for that. And he's like, mom and dad should have come a long time ago because he's learned how to replace it with other things. And ironically, his life right now is better than a video game. He's a stunt man in movies. So he just spent last weekend dressing up in a Spider -Man costume and getting pulled around on wires and getting filmed doing Spider -Man moves. And he's like, yeah, he loves that.

Right. Came home with like bruises all over his ass from the harness. He's doing these fight scenes, he's doing all this cool stuff. So in a very real way, his current life is more fulfilling, more meaningful, harder work than an actual video game. But I guarantee you he would not be there if we had allowed him to continue playing the games because he would have put all of his energy. He's he's very obsessive like that, which is can be a great quality.

Rachel Denning (51:03.757)
But he would have put all of his energy and attention into doing that and would not be a stuntman in movies now. So ultimately as a parent, you have to decide and say, you know what? This kid just cannot handle this. We've got to cut him off. But then you can't just cut it off and leave it at that. You have to fill that void because that's the reason they are turning to it. They're turning to the video games to fill a void that they have.

And I knew that sometimes. There was another period of time when we lived in Morocco and it was an amazing experience, but it also was ironically boring because we were renting a Riyadh in the middle of Marrakesh. It was very chaotic. And unless we went out with Greg, like we didn't really go out because there's nothing for kids. There's nothing to do. There's no parks. There's no, there's nowhere to go.

So we bought them roller blades and they rolled around the complex for like an hour and there was a pool that was literally probably freezing so they would jump in and get out. And that was it. And then the rest of the time we would be working or whatever and they were inside a concrete box for hours and so I thought okay maybe we do Minecraft again. And.

I now I totally forgot where I was going with the story. What was the point? I don't know. It wasn't good. You're using it strategically. I was, but I forgot. But the thing is like, you'll see the effects. And I want to point this out. I've seen lazy boys love to work and work hard when they get a disengage from it and lean into something that they actually care about. It's amazing. They boys love to work. Men love to work.

But it has to be something. And initially there's going to be some conflict. Like, I don't want to do that. That seems like so much effort and strain and struggle when I could just play and, but you get them away from that. I just took two of my boys, our 17 year old and a 12 year old drove all the way to Guatemala. We spent a month down there. It was amazing to watch those two work and work and work and be excited about doing hard, gritty work. Yeah. I was going to tell that. I do remember I was telling it was basically this idea of.

Rachel Denning (53:23.629)
I knew at that point it was intentionally filling a void that we couldn't find other ways to fulfill, if that makes sense. And so that's what's happening is that this void, they're using it to fill a void. And so if we remove the video game from them, we have to replace it with something. We have to. We can't just take it away and expect them to just be like fine with it. And I think sometimes that's where...

When we try to do that, that's where things go wrong. Cause we just take it away and then we expect them to just figure it out and they, they need help to figure it out and they need often our resources to help them figure it out. But back to this whole thing with that you took two of our boys to Guatemala. That was actually one strategy we used for intervention because our younger son had been having issues with video games. He, to the point he was sneaking.

And so this was one of the solutions we had was, okay, you were already going to Guatemala because we are moving, we're going to Portugal, we took our dogs and our truck to Guatemala. And we decided, you know what, this son needs to go. And he needs to go without a device, which was ultimately your call, which was a great call. So he went to Guatemala for a month, no device.

It was amazing. And instead he got to build rabbit hutches with our other son and they fed the rabbits and they took a motorcycle down there and rode the motorcycle around. They just did totally, you know, man stuff and playing mud and just getting filthy and disgusting. It was awesome. And it was a reset that he needed. And you know, so we have to get creative and we have to invest in interventions to help.

break these cycles and patterns. And it needs to be micro dosing and macro dosing. So on a small level daily and on a huge level, maybe quarterly or annually, let's, let's read some of these. So Laura said, my husband and son spent almost a month in Wyoming every year working for a honey outfitter. They ride horses into camp 10 miles up a steep Canyon, run things out of camp. That's remote, cold, and awesome. Fantastic. Great example. Bradley says, my husband is great at pulling our son and our daughter into work and our property.

Rachel Denning (55:42.509)
movie giant boulders with a tractor and building a shed for our goats and putting in fence and road tilling the garden. Exactly. All these things and you get them involved and get them to care about it. And sometimes it doesn't make you rhyme or reason. Like we had to build this dam out of old recycled tires and filled with mud. And it was just, it was a major pain and I didn't want to do it. My 12 year old loved it every morning. Can we work on the dam? Can we work on the dam? Like go bro. And it like.

Sometimes it's like he didn't want to test the shovel. He just wanted the pickaxe. Done. All you buddy. Throw that pickaxe all day long. You want me to go buy you another one? I'll even buy you a better one. I'll even buy you, they have this amazing tool there called the Asadon. Went and bought one of those. Cause he wanted to throw that thing around and pull down dirt. I'm like, dude, go. Like get blisters, get this muddy, filthy, just do it. And I'm like, you want to work on this? No, I want to work on the dam. Okay, go. Go work on the dam. Like.

But like wherever he wanted to direct that effort and he worked, he put in a lot of work and was excited about it. Right. So get creative, get innovative, restrictive, in a positive headgates way, stop the flow, open a gate in another direction, wherever that is, a dam or whatever. Sign up for classes, sign up for courses, take them on adventures, lead the way.

Make it fun and exciting, make it engaging, entice them in, lead them in, get them to want it. If you're really strategic, you can get them to come up with the idea and then you just support it and cheer it on instead of you coming up with all the ideas and trying to force your ideas on the kid. But lead this along. And as they change, you'll need to change your strategies. As they get older, you'll need to come up with new and different things. All right. You know, how you get an eight year old and an 18 year old is very, very different.

So that's parenting, right? We're going to be effective parents. Like we just got to roll with this, come up with this creativity and find ways to work. I mean, we're taking, and you can go big and we would never ask you to go big if we weren't going huge. Right? So we have tickets. Rachel just bought tickets all the way through Istanbul into Jerusalem. So we're flying out. Okay. It's almost to Jerusalem. Um,

Rachel Denning (58:05.933)
But we have, we're flying out Saturday to Norway, spending a month in Norway. That's like three days guys. And then we take a, we go to Denmark and then Sweden and then take a Christmas day ferry to the Allin Islands and then to Finland. And then we're spending New Year's in Estonia. Who would have ever thought Estonia and then trains and buses all the way across Eastern Europe and all the way down through Western Europe and the Alps.

and then flights into Portugal, flights into Germany, and then flights now to Istanbul, which we've always wanted to go. So it's like bucket list, huge stuff. So you can go as big as you want. Right. You can you can make a gigantic bucket list and check it off. And you should see our kids. They are just giddy with like, are you kidding me? Like they just can't even stand it. Right. Oh, yeah. We're leading trips in these places.

in Istanbul and in Jerusalem. I hope you join us. And in Egypt and wherever like we're facilitating it too. So you're like, I've never been there. I don't know how to plan a trip. She's the queen of the best trips on the planet. Right. And so like we're trying to help you do the big stuff and the little stuff. So you can start today to do the little stuff, the micro dosing, and you can plan for the big stuff, the macro dosing.

But you have to do it. The world, so circling back to where we began, the world we're going into is filled with a virtual reality and it's, it's only getting better, better as in more advanced, more addictive, more addictive, more appealing, more enticing. So it's a must. If you're going to have children. And for most of you that's too late. You can't decide not to have children anymore because you have children.

And because you want to be a great parent and you want to raise great kids, this is an absolute necessity. And we just, we have no other option to become really good at it. And to make the real world enticing. Yeah. And better than a video game. Make your life better than a video game. Now that's exciting. Okay. Love you guys. You're the best. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching the recording. Thanks for being awesome, intentional parents for caring.

Rachel Denning (01:00:28.941)
raising great kids and raising great boys and raising great daughters who will marry great boys. All of our kids still need spouses. So you guys better be raising some awesome, awesome kids. Cause I can't raise my kids' spouses. That's weird. Right? So we need spouses for at least seven of them, you guys. We're counting on you to do awesome things. Okay. Love you guys. Next time we see you, we'll see you from the other side of the world and we'll have some epic stories to share. So.

We're leading the way, right? We're going out. We tell you guys live your dream. We can't just sit here on our couch and be like, go do it. It's awesome. Like we're doing it. We're going out. We're having adventures. We're facing our fears. We're marking things off our bucket list. And if we can do it, you can totally do it. I guess that's, that's the point we're trying to make here. It's like we're, we're leading out and you can, you can do it too. Um,

Question unrelated. Can you tell me why a bunch of courses are maybe expiring on the 27th? I will have to look. Yeah, we're looking to. Okay. All right. I love you guys. You're the best. Get after it. Go love on your families. Have an absolutely fantastic. Oh, and are we meeting before Christmas?

I don't know. Sorry. Well, whether we do, sorry, that was a hard question with a lot going on. Whether we do or not, this is the best time of year. It's such a great time to love on your family and love on the people in your life. Look for opportunities to feel good and do good, be good. Don't get all stressed out. Don't waste December being stressed. Just lean into it and just feel the goodness of this year.

this time of year, just spend the whole month just loving. Just love, just care, just give. It's awesome. It's so good. Okay, love you guys. Reach out for it.