Parental training program on mental health and video games for primary & secondary education. ”a world beyond the screens”

Abstract

Digital technologies remain one of the unfinished businesses for much of today’s parents despite the efforts of the European Commission and UNESCO. It is important to take into account that it is a real challenge not only because of a natural gap associated with generational changes, but because many parents do not know how to deal with the possible problems that their children may encounter in a hybrid world, not face-to-face, virtual in nature, with artificial intelligence... Hence the justification for generating initial parental training, through the conduct of an awareness-raising workshop. This communication will review the four training sessions “Beyond the screens”, carried out by telematics to a group of 20 parents from schools emerging from primary and secondary education. During the implementation of the proposal, the importance of knowing in depth the different elements and characteristics that form the social networks used by minors has been highlighted, especially because through the knowledge of adults will be able to cope with the risks existing in the virtual universe. At the beginning of the first session a specific questionnaire established the initial knowledge that participants had in general about new technologies and about those tools or games that their children used. Taking their results as a reference, the level of depth to be addressed in each of the sessions was modulated. Another central issue that most worried parents was the use of video games, in this case it was especially valued the characteristics and theme of each game as well as the most recommended times of use to perform parental supervision and accompaniment. It is especially these two subtypes of technology because they are the most frequent and the most at risk of generating their own psychopathological disorders due to alterations in their use. Mental health is particularly important, since the misuse of these tools can cause a whole series of psychopathological problems in children and young people that it is opportune to know, study and learn to control as healthy behavior, as digital competence must be integrated into the technological realities of our society today.