Joanna Fortune: My quiet teenager swears when gaming with friends 

When you are buying a gaming device, buy one for the family, not for an individual child. This approach ensures that you have more control of access to the device without a child declaring, ‘But it’s mine’. Also,  keep the device in a shared room, where you can freely walk in and out while they are playing it.

My quiet 13-year-old son is not in any way sporty, but is very competitive when gaming online with his friends. I’m surprised by his bad language and aggression. He says it’s just a game and that everyone swears when gaming. I’m finding it difficult to accept that this is normal behaviour.

Hyper-stimulating, high-adrenaline, and (often) combat-style gaming can immerse our children in a level of intensity and heightened frustration they cannot self-regulate, because they are still too young and their brains are still too underdeveloped.

When you are buying a gaming device, buy one for the family, not for an individual child. This approach ensures that you have more control of access to the device without a child declaring, ‘But it’s mine’. Also,  keep the device in a shared room, where you can freely walk in and out while they are playing it.

If possible, ask that your son not use headphones, and that way, you can hear exactly what is being said and exchanged during the game. Approach this with curiosity and openness, rather than risk him feeling interrogated or surveilled by you.

Tell him that you can see how much he enjoys this type of gaming and that you’d love to know more about it, so that you could play the game at some point with him.

Tell him you would like to listen in and watch while he plays, so that you can learn from him, but that you won’t distract him with questions until the game is over. At the end, you can clarify a few points about the game, but also raise any concerns you have as to how he speaks and behaves while playing.

When you talk to him about his behaviour while gaming, do so calmly and within the safety of your parental boundaries.

For example, it doesn’t matter to you what other children are doing; your focus is on him because you love him and care about him. So this is a conversation of concern rather than a critique.

Agree boundaries for use, by saying that he cannot swear and behave aggressively online because he wouldn’t be allowed to act that way in the real world.

You may need to say that you made a mistake and that you weren’t clear enough about the rules for access to gaming before he started playing, and you are now going to draw up a plan around this that you would like him to contribute towards.

Set boundaries around the amount of time he can be gaming online, and that homework and chores, etc, must be done first, as well as boundaries around how to behave while he is gaming. Agree with him on what the consequences for breaking the rules will be.

Make sure that he has adequate levels of activity in the real world with peers to offset the amount of time he is playing online and, if he needs it, create a plan to help him transition from online play to real-world connection. Use an everyday activity to help him decompress afterwards, so, perhaps, invite him to “come and help me prepare dinner or find a tin of peas in the cupboard”.

As best you can, set limits and hold boundaries with him in a collaborative, rather than combative, way.

If you have a question for child psychotherapist Dr Joanna Fortune, please send it to [e-mail]