Raising Good Gamers, with Psychologist Dr. Rachel Kowert

Debbie:
Hey Doctor Kowert, welcome back to the podcast.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Thank you for having me.

Debbie:
I heard about your new white paper, which we’re gonna dig into, which is called Raising Good Gamers. I was like, I know that name. And I was like, I talked with Rachel about video games almost 10 years ago. Like you were very early on in the Tilt Parenting universe. And I loved that conversation. So I was super excited to see where you’re up to and to check in because I imagine a lot has changed in the space that you’re inhabiting in the past 10 years as well. So maybe we could start there. I would love to know, yeah, kind of what you’ve been up to personally and kind of what is the landscape like in the video game space right now.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
It’s definitely evolved since, I think we said 2017 was the last time we chatted. I think in some ways it’s changed a lot, in some ways it hasn’t changed at all. So, in ways it hasn’t changed, is that I feel like we’re still having a lot of the same conversations about video game content or how much time is too much time. Those have remained steady. But what has changed is that the conversations are becoming more nuanced. People are starting to understand it isn’t about a magic number of times. It’s more about the context and what people are doing on the screen and not all screens are created equal. So I think we’ve just come to a more complex conversation, but still having them.

Debbie:
Yeah. Well, and I’m wondering, and we won’t go down this rabbit hole. Well, we’ll try not to. I’ll try not to. But you know, just, you know, right before record I was talking about kind of the overall tone in the screen time space. And there is kind of this anxious camp of parents who are following some thought leaders who are kind of talking about the, I mean, evils is probably too strong a word, but you know, the negatives of screen time on our kids and then there are others who reject that idea. And I’m just wondering, has that conversation influenced your work?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Certainly. It’s made my work more difficult to have more nuanced conversations and really dig into what it is we know from the research and what it is that we definitely know is not true. I mean, as humans, and we talk about this in the white paper, we are wired to be worried, right? We want to survive, we want the best for our children. That is totally normal. And because of that, when we see something that feels like an easy solution to our life’s problem, like screens are the evils, and that is the solution is to not have them. It’s natural and normal to be like, amazing, easy solution. We’ll take that. But it’s just not the case. And when it comes, especially when we talk about games, if that’s the approach that we’re taking, we’re missing out on so much opportunity to learn and grow with our kids because you know, screens and games are not going anywhere and they are part of our kids’ lives, certainly central to them. And so it’s better to take an approach from a parenting perspective to understand what they’re doing because restrictions don’t work, you know? Abstinence education, there’s a long history of that not being super effective. But what is more effective is engaging in the conversation.

Debbie:
Yeah. And I guess that leads us to your white paper. So it’s called Raising Good Gamers, What Families Need to Know About Video Games and Wellbeing. And so what was the impetus to put this together and get it out into the world?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
I think the primary one for me was that we are still having the same conversations. So parents are still coming to me asking about violent video games, for instance, and their impact, despite the fact that we know from, you know, 40 years of research that there is no direct relationship between playing violent video games and engaging in violent behavior out in the non-digital world. And so when I had a conversation with Games for Change and they were like, we’re really interested in creating some new resources for parents. It’s like, please let me come and talk about these top questions that I’m still hearing from parents and how can we get that information to them in a way that’s easy to read, easy to access. I mean, we did publish it as a paper, but there’s also a lot of one pagers and different approaches to get that information out in ways that parents can access it.

Debbie:
Yeah, I in fact found the tools that come with this, like you have a curious conversation starter guide, which I thought was great. Also the design is very nice. I love the font that you use. And you just have some really good resources for helping parents kind of just navigate this and kind of shift their relationship with games and as a byproduct their relationship with their kids really.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Yes. And that’s exactly it. It’s shifting the relationship. And that can sound super overwhelming. I know for a lot of parents too, like engaging with better understanding screens feels like an overwhelming thing to do. And so we really wanted to break it down and make it digestible and accessible to everyone. Because, you know, parent time is fleeting. Parents don’t have that much time. So how can we get it to them in the least amount of time? Because these conversations are important. We have to make time.

Debbie:
Yeah, a thousand percent. So let’s define what a good gamer is, because that is the name of the white paper and it’s your kind of work in the world is raising good gamers. So how do you define that?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
I define a good gamer as someone who is respectful, responsible, and resilient in their digital spaces. So just like you would define what is a good citizen out in the physical world, it’s like how does that apply into the digital world? We want them to be able to engage responsibly. We want them to be respectful and kind to the people around them. And we want them to be resilient to harm. So know how to navigate if and when harm occurs, because just like in the physical world, it’s likely that harm will occur also in the digital world and we want them to be able to face those challenges prepared.

Debbie:
So when you say there is a potential for harm in a digital world, like what does that mean? Just so, cause I imagine everybody listening is kind of defining that in a different way. Yeah.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Well, yeah, the spidey sense, the parental spidey sense is triggering. I mean, again, just like the physical world, there’s a potential for bad things to happen online. I’m not here to say that’s not the case. There’s stranger danger, there’s exposure to hate and harassment. We talk a lot about in online gaming spaces, there tends to be a culture of normalized misogyny, which is harmful to the people who are directly targeted by it and the people who directly witness it. And so we have to also have conversations about what do you do when you see that? How does it make you feel? Are there reporting tools? Is there a trusted adult you can speak to? Do you know how to leave that space? What does it mean to be a good bystander or upstander? Those kinds of conversations.

Debbie:
And just to kind of get a sense of how many kids are engaging with games. Like I think you talk about it in your white paper, I don’t remember the exact percentage, maybe you could share it, but it was surprising to me what percentage of young people are regularly gaming. Could you share that with us?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
There are 3.3 or 3.4 billion gamers worldwide, and a large proportion of them are kids. I mean, the average gamer is in their 30s. But when you look at research like from the ESA, for example, it looks at parents and kids in their relationships with games. It’s the majority of kids are playing games, and the majority of kids want to play games with their parents.

Debbie:
Really? They wanna play with their parents. Like at all ages or yeah.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Yes. They’re inviting us in. Yes. Well, the number increases at the younger ages. In the recent report from the Electronic Software Association, this came out in 2025, 58% of kids said they want to play more games with their parents. And for children aged five to seven, that number rises to 73%. So they are inviting us in to play with them.

Debbie:
Yeah, we’re a family of three. I have a husband I won’t give his age, but he’s, you know, solidly in middle age and is still a regular gamer. And then my kiddo is now 22 and actually probably doesn’t game as much as my husband at this point, but it is a very social thing. But it has been definitely an access point for me. Like it is still something that if there’s a game that my kid knows, I, you know, it’s more of like a, even a text adventure game or something like that, that’s something we’re like, I kinda wanna do that with you, or I’ll just watch. But that continues to be a strong connection point for the two of us.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
And that’s a great point, you know, even just watching or just listening to their conversations. I talked about this in the white paper. I spoke at the Games for Change Festival in New York in July of this year. And one of the examples I gave is like, I love Minecraft in theory. Okay. I’m not very good at it because it’s like 3D spatial navigation, not my strong suit. But I sit and watch my kids build the most amazing things in that space. And that fosters conversation of like, where did you see that? What are you building? Why are you building this giant dragon over the city? What inspired you to do that? And it becomes such a great source of conversation. And they just light up when you ask them about the things they love.

Debbie:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I’m gonna just give a little shout out that my husband and kid create mods for Minecraft and have for more than 10 years. So I’m gonna put a link in the show notes. It’s called Purpolicious Cow, is their little name, and they’re quite popular, some of their mods. So before we kind of continue on, I do want to talk about this idea of addiction. Or, you know, I read in the white paper about this idea of internet gaming disorder. And I think that is one of the fear points for parents, especially with neurodivergent kids who might really dive deep, right? And spend a lot of time and that can become a big part of their life. And from everything I’ve read, the word addiction is really overused and I would love you to just kind of demystify what is really going on and what differentiates a true gaming disorder versus kind of what we see in most kids.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Very happy to. This is, as you said, a point of fear for a lot of parents. So gaming addiction kind of became a our common vernacular back in 2019 when the World Health Organization designated gaming disorder in their classification. They call it the ICD of disorders. The issue with that is that researchers pushed back and said, hey, we don’t actually see a big research base to support this idea. Can you tell us, like, what evidence did you see, or how did you come to this inclusion? And the World Health Organization has been unable to do so. And the research community continues to push back and say, okay, well if you look at the research, there is no evidence to suggest that games are in and of themselves addicting. If you look at people who play problematically, which does exist, where games have become an unhealthy coping strategy, for example, for them, what you see is something else underlying driving that behavior. So the person has depression or anxiety or something else underlying and games have become the coping strategy for that. Now, from the outside looking in, a parent, all you see is my child isn’t doing well and he’s playing games a lot. So it makes sense that you, again about the easy solution to a complex problem, it makes sense you’d be like, A must be equal B. It must be the games that are the problem. But the games might actually be kind of the coping strategy that they’re using to try and mitigate something else underlying. So there is no broad research base to support this idea, the American Psychological Association has not designated gaming disorder in their manual because they say there’s not enough research to make that designation yet. So it’s in the back as like an area that needs more research. But it’s caused a lot of confusion among parents about whether games are inherently, is there something inherent about them that is addicting, and the research just doesn’t support it.

Debbie:
Yeah. Yeah. And just to touch upon mental health too, you wrote in your paper that studies show that pre-existing mental health challenges predict increased gaming, but increased gaming does not worsen mental health. And I thought that was such an important point because those two are often conflated.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Absolutely. And again points to this idea that the game itself may be some sort of mechanism that they’re using to help cope. Like anxiety is a great example. The social structures in gaming spaces, you can get a lot of your social needs met with a lot lower pressure than you have in face to face interactions, right? It’s asynchronous and you don’t have nonverbal cues and there’s all these other accommodations that are happening there.

Debbie:
Yeah. So could we talk about some of the benefits of gaming? You know, I certainly recognize them now after observing them in my family and kind of seeing that play out over the past decade or so. But what are some of the benefits that you see for kids engaging in gaming?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Social connection and community is a big one. Not just social connection with people that they’re meeting in gaming spaces, which certainly as our kids get older into mid and late adolescence, they are likely doing that. But as even you mentioned earlier, social connection with parents and the familial unit, being able to play together or talk about it and have that shared context and shared experience. There’s also stress reduction. At the end of the day, games are play and play is fun and play is important. It’s associated with reduction in stress. It’s associated with mood management. So taking you from bored to less bored or a negative mood to a more positive mood. Play is really good at doing that. And games are play. And then there’s a range of skills, you know, cognitive skills, reading, math, resource management, time management, 3D mental rotation. Unfortunately, Minecraft hasn’t helped me with that, but I’m sure it’s helped my children with it. There’s a whole bunch of things that games are teaching us. And they’re teaching us these things unintentionally, which I think is really the important point. I’m not playing Animal Crossing to learn how to read, but my kids definitely learned how to read playing Animal Crossing during COVID because there was no voice acting. And if they wanted to play, they had to learn how to read.

Debbie:
Interesting. Yeah. And you wrote in the paper that idea of, you know, when your parent says five more minutes, five more minutes on the screen, five more minutes on your game. You said that parent may not realize that in those five more minutes, their child is strategizing with teammates across three continents, problem solving in real time and learning to navigate both victory and defeat, or they’re trying to spend five more minutes with their best friend who moved away last year. And you continued saying the parent sees screen time, the child is experiencing something far more complex and learning more than you think. And that really struck me.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
It’s true. Oh my gosh, my kids are very into Fortnite these days. And the amount of cognitive flexibility you need to navigate those spaces is unbelievable. And you know, my daughter, also her best friend just moved back to Australia, which makes it really difficult, but she gets to play with him on there. And so yeah, I mean, I see those things in my house, which means I’m sure millions and millions and millions of other people are also seeing them.

Debbie:
Yeah. I mean, we’ve done several international moves and you know, that is a key point of connection and has been for many years, is that gaming time for a number of reasons. So let’s touch upon social life a little more because we know, especially for neurodivergent kids, that online relationships can feel safer in many ways, or, you know, it’s just, you don’t have to mask as much if you’re kind of communicating with people. Are there any things that you would want parents who are maybe concerned that their child’s social life is predominantly happening online or through games, you know, that would kind of help them feel like, actually this could be a really positive thing.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of research that shows that this idea that online and offline friendships or online and offline lives are separate is just not the case. Like online and offline is a false dichotomy. It’s a phrase I say a lot because it’s true. Research shows that the social and emotional benefits, for instance, that we gain from online relationships don’t just live in those invisible walls of the internet, like they carry over into the way we see ourselves in the world. The benefits of, you know, social connection and self-disclosure and having friends to joke and laugh with. Like all of that is very real. And kids especially do not differentiate between, it’s happening here or it’s happening in the classroom. It’s just happening. So I think the first thing parents can be relieved is that these are real relationships in the sense of real. And those benefits we do see them carry over. As you mentioned earlier about how neurodivergent kids may find it to be a safer space or an easier space to engage. You know, games are providing an anchor. It’s a shared interaction. It’s a structured space. It’s providing a topic of conversation, which often can be difficult. Like how do you start a conversation? Well if you’re in this world, there’s lots of things that are already there to talk about that you can talk about. It can help ease in and transition friendship formation. So lots and lots of positives and I think it all kind of goes down to breaking the idea that they’re separate spaces or like less valuable spaces when to the kids they do not see a difference.

Debbie:
Well, and that has to be a generational thing, right? I mean, it is two separate things to us, right? But our kids, I think they don’t differentiate between online, offline, right?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Well, we grew up before online was a choice, right? I mean, so you’re right. Like the kids don’t differentiate, they see it as fluid because it is, you know, we take our friends from school, we play Fortnite with them, we meet people online, you know, online dating is a thing, right? And you meet them offline, like these are fluid boundaries. And I think parents as a generational thing do see it as separate. But again, like the research speaks to the benefits that come along with it as analogous. So we might still be stuck in this idea that they’re different, but the benefits and all of the things associated with social interaction and connection are the same.

Debbie:
Yeah. And can we talk about competency for a minute too? Because I think that is another, especially for kids who may get a lot of feedback in their day-to-day life that they’re doing it wrong or, you know, that they are kind of struggling to keep up or standing out. I would imagine that spending a significant amount of time in a world where you know the rules and you can really kind of have a sense of mastery could be really good for self-worth. Have you found that in the research?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Yeah, I didn’t talk about this much in the paper, maybe in passing, but there’s this theory we use a lot in psychology called self-determination theory, which is a theory of human motivation. And the argument goes at its most basic level is that everything we do as humans is driven by the idea that we want to feel competent, we want to feel that we have autonomy, and we want to feel related to other people. And there’s been a lot of research that looks at games under this lens. And it’s like games are really good at all three. They give us a sense of competency and achievement. You know, you have achievement boards or you complete a quest and it makes a little bell sound and that makes us feel like we’ve achieved something because we have. Relatedness, playing with other people, being part of a social community, even having just the cultural touch points to talk about, you know, the new items in these games or the new mods on Minecraft that we all just downloaded. And then a sense of freedom or autonomy. So freedom to explore a virtual world or freedom to choose to play or to leave or you know to do this or to do that. And games are really good at all three. So if you have a person coming into this space who maybe feels like those needs are not being as well met in traditional spaces, games are a great place for that to be done and they’re gonna be highly motivated to play and have those needs met.

Debbie:
Do you see those experiences translating to, I don’t want to say the real world, but kind of in, you know, same thing, you know, that sense of competency and kind of building up that sense of relatedness and what you just described, but also those executive function skills, that strategizing, all of those things, does that translate?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
It does. It does. Research shows that what we’re doing in these spaces translates into other contexts, which makes sense because again, everything is very fluid. How many people work from home through a screen, right? We’re using resource management. We’re using different communication skills, 21st century communication skills, through our workspaces on our computers. The joke I make a lot when I give presentations is when I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft, I used to do the scheduling and that. That was such a crash course in using Excel, which serves me very well today. I use a lot of Excel spreadsheets in my day to day life today. So yes, we are seeing it cross spaces.

Debbie:
Okay. And that was a total throwback. World of Warcraft was a very popular game with my husband for a long time. Is that still a thing? Are people still playing it?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Yes. It is. Its peak membership was like 2021. So it’s yeah, still going strong.

Debbie:
Really? Fascinating. Okay. So let’s talk about how you are working to help parents kind of reframe their relationship with their kids’ gaming life and maybe with the way that they think about games. And in the white paper, you offer a framework called the SPACE framework. Would you mind kind of talking us through that?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
I realized that papers are great, but not all parents have time for papers. So I wanted to make sure there was a really quick, easy takeaway, and that is the SPACE framework. I talk about making space for engaged parenting. So it’s an acronym. S is show up with curiosity. P is play together. A is adjust for context. C is cultivate digital citizenship. And E is establish boundaries together. And if we’re only gonna start with one and we’re just gonna pick one, it’s gonna be the S, which is show up with curiosity. And that’s gonna be the starting point that’s gonna get us through all the other letters.

Debbie:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that shift. You had this in your conversation guide from are you off that game yet to tell me why you love this. So can you just talk about what changes in the parent child relationship when we show up with that sense of curiosity rather than surveillance, which is what a lot of us are doing.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
When we show interest in the things that our kids love, they really open up about it. And not just about the thing in the moment. Tell me about this game and what you’re building, but other things in their life because you’re showing interest. And for parents who maybe haven’t dipped their toe in the waters of engaging with their kids’ video games, think about how you talk to them about their sports or the instrument that they play at school or the school play that they took part of and how they light up and they really want to share with you the things that they’re doing. And again, this goes back to the false dichotomy. It is just as important to them to share with you what they’re doing in their game and the achievements that they have. My eight-year-old, I have an office with a door. My eight-year-old comes to the door every time he gets victory royale on Fortnite because he knows that I will cheer for him. Like it’s important to him that I see that and I recognize that. And when you show up, this is when you start to see the change. You know, they’re gonna talk to you about what’s happening. And most importantly, for the parents who are very worried, they’re gonna also talk to you when something happens that they feel uncomfortable about.

Debbie:
Yeah, that’s so important that they feel that you’re gonna be a non-judgy, non-shaming, kind of neutral, maybe even, you know, curious. Yeah.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Curious. Yeah. Yeah.

Debbie:
And so just to kind of reiterate, because as I said before, I am not a gamer. Like there are certain games like the Myst games I could like co-do with my kid, but it’s not something I’m drawn to. And I imagine I’m not alone there. So, you know, if parents are thinking, gosh, this is really not my thing, how do you encourage them to kind of bridge that gap so they can, you know, maintain their own sanity while they’re still engaging with their kids’ video gaming?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Well, showing up with curiosity could be just about asking a question, like you framed earlier, like what do you like about this game? Or, you know, who were you playing with? Or tell me what happened today, even if you don’t really care so much. Like you asking the question will show that you care at least enough to be curious about it and they will open up. The P in SPACE is play together. And in the paper, I talk about how I understand everybody doesn’t want to pick up the controller and play, but playing together could also mean standing behind them for five minutes and like co-viewing and watching what they’re playing. So for parents who don’t necessarily want to go full in or they don’t necessarily like to play the same games that their kids play, my kids like Overcooked. I don’t know if you’ve played that game. It is so stressful. You run a restaurant and things are on fire and there’s a lot of time and rapid things. Not for me, not for me. But I will watch them play it and scream along with them as their restaurant catches on fire.

Debbie:
Yeah, that sounds very stressful to me. Like, why would you want to add more stress to your life? Wow. Okay. Let’s talk with the adjust for context for another minute because I think this is kind of thinking, and this might also tie in with establishing boundaries together. But you know, I think this is an area where parents have a hard time understanding the context of gaming within their child’s overall life and where’s the balance. And so, how do you kind of encourage parents to think about the context of their kids’ gaming within the bigger picture of their childhood?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Adjust for context is really going against this idea of a magic number, which many parents ask me about all the time, and I always disappoint them and say there isn’t one. Is it a school night? Did they already do their homework or have they not? Is it a spring break? All of these questions are important in terms of how much time are you letting them play versus a rigid of like 30 minutes a day, one hour a day, regardless of what day it is, or regardless of how anything else is going. I say all the time on a Saturday, I have three children. If they are getting along, play. Like, of course, go outside and eat and take care of yourself and all these other things. But like I’m not gonna have a hard stop limit. You’re collaborating, you’re communicating, you’re giggling, you’re laughing, you’re getting along, you’re making memories. And that’s totally okay for me in my household. So the A is really like, what are you comfortable with as a parent in your household? But you should have some adjustments for context. It doesn’t have to be so rigid and there should be some flexibility around, you know, is it a holiday? Is it not? Is it a weekend? Or have they not done their homework and are they not meeting their responsibilities? Okay, then maybe the time is zero because you have other things you need to be doing.

Debbie:
Can you then talk about your family gaming code of conduct that you also offer and encourage parents to design in collaboration with their kids?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Rules are important. Okay. I’m not here to say there are no rules. We should all have rules. But when I talk about in the SPACE framework, E is establish boundaries together. Because it’s important to also include children in this conversation, regardless of their age. You know, if they’re younger, obviously parents are gonna have more direction in what the rules are being set. But as they get older, you know, we have to give them a little bit more leeway and freedom. So if you sit down and establish a code of conduct together with your kids, one, they’ll have more ownership of it. Two, it won’t feel like something that’s just like coming from on high without any explanation around it, right? They’ll have a greater understanding of what these boundaries are. And then three, they’re gonna be more likely to stick to it. So in our house, for instance, a hard line rule is we don’t play any games before school. Because we’ve done it and we’ve learned this is not something that works for us. You know, they need to get ready. It makes them too either agitated if they lose a match or, you know, too excited to get pulled away to actually get to school on time, whatever it is. You know, I’m more flexible after school, but before school it’s a no and it’s a never. And we talked about it, you know, as a family. And we decided, you know, you will have games when you come home, but you’re just not gonna have them before. And that’s what works with us. And we get, you know, better buy-in. I wouldn’t say a hundred percent. Sometimes they try to sneak the Switch away. But definitely better buy-in than we had before we set those boundaries together.

Debbie:
And do you see that as an evolving document, like something that you will continue to revisit and it will evolve with your family? Yeah.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Absolutely. Yeah, especially with age as well. You know, I touched on it a few times in this conversation, but as they get older, ideally, you know, parents are loosening the reins a little bit and letting them make more independent decisions, with the hope that we have set the foundation early that they will make good and responsible decisions. So as they get older, things change, time limits change, or what kind of age rated games they can play change, or you know. I would say I’m not gonna change the before school rule, but things definitely evolve over time.

Debbie:
Yeah. So just starting to wrap up, if I were to summarize, I think one of the biggest shifts you’re asking parents to make is from evaluating gaming from the outside to really understanding the experience that the kid is having while they’re playing in the game. So if there are parents listening who have been maybe locked in battles with their kids about gaming or they haven’t really thought about it through this lens, where would you encourage them to begin to kind of reframe?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Instead of approaching games with fear and restriction, which I think is where a lot of parents are coming from, I hope that the information in this paper and the resources help them start to navigate it from a space of curiosity and partnership. We have conversations with our kids all the time, you know, about partnership in life. You know, how do we act at school or how do we commit to our responsibilities or how do we navigate interpersonal relationships or girl drama, which is starting to be something, you know, conversations I have in my life. And this is one of the many things in which we should have these conversations. So just like anything that we don’t know anything about and the kids know everything about, which is happening more and more in my house, start with questions and curiosity. And it’s very okay to have some fear. I worry about everything when it comes to my kids. But hopefully some solace that the research shows that it’s more good than bad. Okay. It’s central to the lives that our children are living, and it is a space that we can navigate with the right tools in hand.

Debbie:
Yeah. So will you let listeners know what the Raising Good Gamers program is and how parents can get involved?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Yes, Raising Good Gamers is a multi-stakeholder program from Games for Change that brings together parents and caregivers and game developers and researchers to create information and resources for parents about how to raise good gamers. You can learn more at raisinggoodgamers.com. As part of this package with the white paper, which you can get for free and download on the website, we also have one pagers that you mentioned, and we’re also holding some workshops, some virtual workshops to talk with parents and engage with them. So if you’re interested in asking your questions or learning more and speaking with me and Arana Shapiro, who is the director of learning and partnerships, I think is her title over at Games for Change, we’re gonna be hosting those later in the year.

Debbie:
That’s great. I would love to stay in the loop of those because I share out events in my weekly newsletter. And I know listeners would probably really want to know about that. And I just want to also say, like, when you say like a white paper, like it sounds a little fancy and like, you know, not to downplay all the research that went into this, but it’s very accessible. Like if, you know, I read all the time for work. And I was like, okay, I’m gonna dive into this white paper. And I like blew through it because it was just so interesting and well organized and easy to read. And yes, the resources are great. So listeners, if you have a kid or kids who are gamers and sounds like most of you do, I highly recommend checking out the resources and definitely go to the show notes page. And Rachel, is there anything that we didn’t touch upon, like a last nugget that you would want to leave listeners with?

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
So a last nugget. You know, we play with our kids when they’re younger, and then our kids get a little older and we stop doing that. And part of it is I think we don’t know how to engage. It’s really easy to pick up some blocks or some cars, but it gets more difficult as they get older. But games are a great way to continue to play with your kids, even, you know, even with your son at 22. So if we can take a step back and kind of push through the discomfort, I think you’d be surprised at what’s on the other side.

Debbie:
Yeah. Great. Perfectly said. Thank you so much. It was so nice to reconnect with you and to see what you’re up to. And I just as you were talking, I’m like, she’s got the coolest job. Like you’ve blended your work life and your joy and your passion all into one bundle. And that must be very satisfying.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
It is. It is, yes.

Debbie:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. This was great.

Dr. Rachel Kowert:
Thank you for having me.