Online Gaming Help for Teens From Wisconsin

Online Gaming Help: A Place for Wisconsin Families to Start

Many parents that enroll their child at Camp Pocono Trails try in-home interventions first.  It™s important for families to remember that policing screen activity alone is not a permanent solution.  One day, your teen will be out on their own and they won’t have you around to monitor or limit their video game or screen activity.  Teens need to first understand the harm that they are causing by ignoring other areas of social and emotional growth. 

Once a teen understands the harm video game addiction is having on their life, they can make the decision to change.  You can help your teen understand the effect video games have by requiring them to start self-monitoring their video game usage.  Set up a weekly goal to keep their playtime under a certain limit they agree on.

However, is gaming is an ongoing source of tension in your family, you may be beyond the stage of trying an in-home intervention.  If any attempt to curb your teen™s video game use or cellphone/computer use results in a heated argument, please give us a call today.

Wisconsin Teens Can Find Success at Our Video Game Addiction Treatment Center

Wisconsin teens often struggle with internet gaming disorder, and our Pennsylvania-based summer camp can help.  Sometimes when teens spend more time looking at screens than interacting with others, they become socially awkward. Social opportunities like going to school dances become anxiety provoking.  

Falling behind socially can lead to depression, being victimized by bullies, and having a hard time making friends.  Part of our help process is catching campers back up on social skills they may have missed out on due to excessive gaming.

Finding success also means building motivation to pursue meaningful life pursuits.  Building motivation is fun! We use systematic self-monitoring techniques to guide campers to better habits that also build motivation.  Systematic self-monitoring is just a fancy term for carefully planning your daily behaviors, in addition to setting up support plans to ensure planned behaviors are executed.

Campers set themselves up for college success or life beyond high school by building the life skills they need to be successful on their own.

Now is the time for action.  If your teen is having negative interactions with others in school and missing out on social interactions, the window of opportunity is fast closing.  At Camp Pocono Trails, we can provide those corrective experiences your child needs to put them on the right path in life.

Online Gaming Help for Wisconsin Teens

Wisconsin families seek our summer camp for video game addiction because of our unique ability to adapt to the academic curriculum for Wisconsin campers.  Our residential video game addiction help center helps campers develop the internal drive and motivation to focus on academics- not the latest video game. 

At the core of our summer camp is the belief that help should not be punitive.  We take a natural approach, reconnecting teens with nature, friends, and themselves over time. Video game addiction help is not as simple as taking away the student’s video game system.  Screens are everywhere, and teens have become very sophisticated at bypassing

One thing we hear a lot at Camp Pocono Trails is a child’s belief that “All my friends are online, so if you take this away from me, I would be all alone.”  Video game addiction help is not an all-or-nothing issue. At Camp Pocono Trails, we take a harm reduction approach. This means educating the student on the harmful effects of certain online activities including:

  • Online pornography
  • Video game violence
  • How violence is portrayed in certain games
  • How gender roles are portrayed in certain games
  • How playing games without set boundaries can interfere with academics, social practice, or achieving your life goals

Using a harm reduction approach, Camp Pocono Trails campers become enlightened as to the habit-forming qualities of video games and social media, in addition to how exposure to different types of online media can change your perceptions of violence or gender roles.

Components of Online Gaming Help

Teens at Camp Pocono Trails receive individual and group therapy for video game addiction and internet overuse habits. We have licensed therapists helping teens develop insight and commit to new routines in life.

We also have family therapy sessions where we help parents best support their teen upon their transition home from Camp Pocono Trails.  We discuss in family sessions how parents can reinforce positive feelings when a child sticks to their behavioral contract and we also encourage parents to reinforce negative feelings when the child fails to live up to behavioral expectations.

At Camp Pocono Trails, we focus on meeting each student’s individual needs. We use Maslow™s Hierarchy of Needs as a phase progression model. According to Maslow, humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance among social groups, regardless of whether these groups are large or small. For example, some large social groups may include clubs, co-workers, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs, and online communities. Some examples of small social connections include family members, intimate partners, mentors, colleagues, and confidants.

Humans need to love and be loved by others.  Many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression in the absence of this love or belonging element. This need for belonging may overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure.

By creating a positive peer environment, your teen to connect with others in a face-to-face setting- without the use of screens.

 

Who does Camp Pocono Trails help?

Camp Pocono Trails helps teens struggling with issues similar to those below:
– Anxiety
– Family Conflict
– Social Anxiety Disorder
– Trauma
– Low Self Esteem
– Technology Addiction
– Poor Communication Skills
– Social Issues
– Impulse Control
– Autism Spectrum
– ADHD
– Video game addiction
– Depression
– Social isolation
– Addictive Behaviors
– School Refusal

Resources

Online Gaming Help: Online Resources

TechAddiction.com

TechAddiction is committed to providing helpful, informative, and high quality links to services and individuals who provide help for or information on internet and video game addiction.

Reaching out to your local therapy network may also provide the solution you seek.  However, if you™ve already tried therapy and you didn™t get the results you wanted, or if your child refuses to go to therapy, Camp Pocono Trails may be exactly what you are looking for.

You can also reach out to your insurance company and see if they cover group or individual therapy, or if they cover summer camps like Camp Pocono Trails.

Video Game Addiction: First Steps

Many gamers that come to Camp Pocono Trails use a Steam account to manage their game settings.  Here is a comprehensive guide for parents to manage your child’s Steam account.

Steam: Setting up Family View


We encourage you to create a Steam account with your child. If there are features of Steam that you would like to exclude from the experience, you can restrict access using Family View. You may also choose to enable Family View on your own Steam account if you would rather they share your Steam Account.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5149-EOPC-9918


To enable Family View:

  • Log into the Steam account your child will use.
  • Click the Steam menu in the top menu bar.
  • Open the Settings option.
  • Go to the “Family” tab on the left side of the window that opens.
  • Click œFamily View to start the Family View wizard.
  • Step through the wizard to select the content and features you™d like to be accessible while in PIN-protected Family View.
  • Select and confirm your new PIN.

With any gaming company, we recommend you check game ratings and actually have your child demonstrate the game before allowing any unsupervised play.  You can also go on Youtube to watch a game œwalk through to see how violence and adult themes are portrayed.

Camp Pocono Trails Helps Wisconsin Families From Cities Such As:

Some examples of cities from Wisconsin which may have families who could use Camp Pocono Trails: Milwaukee Madison Green Bay Kenosha Racine Appleton Waukesha Eau Claire Oshkosh Janesville West Allis La Crosse