Adele has revealed that she was recently left worried about being a ‘bad parent’ for one relatable reason - and we've all had the same thought at one time or another.
It's perhaps one of the biggest and most divisive parenting topics in the modern age; screen time. How much screen time is too much? Do the benefits of screen time outweigh the impact of too much screen time has on a child's development? How can we reduce screen time for kids while still keeping them entertained?
There are so many questions that still can't be properly answered and understood simply because technology is moving on so quickly and we can't keep up with knowing the effects of it. But at least there is the solace that most parents are experiencing the same worries over screens as us - even celebrity parents who seem to have it all together like Adele.
While performing a show at her long-running Las Vegas residency, Adele revealed that she was left asking herself if she was a 'bad parent' after her 11-year-old son left a group of professional gamers shocked with the amount of hours he had spent gaming.
She shared that she had taken her son Angelo to a gaming event, using her 'Adele power' to get him through the doors. It made her feel 'very cool' to be the mum who could get her son into such an exclusive place but the gleam quickly wore off, she revealed.
"My kid completely held his own with these 20-year-old gamers. And they were clearly very impressed with him," she told the crowd. "And when he told him his hours that he’s played it, they were like, ‘Whoa’. And I was like, ‘Oh, sh**. Am I a bad parent?’.”
She also shared that he plays mostly video games on his own and isn't allowed to hook up to the internet to play with others who also like the game. “He’s a bit too young but I don’t agree with the internet yet,” she reasoned.
But while she was initially left questioning her lax rules around his gaming time, she quickly realised that he was talking about the games he plays in an intelligent manner and noted that he'd picked up some brilliant skills from playing so often - which only makes deciding whether or not to cut down his gaming time harder.
“People that I think of who play video games are like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto – which, no offence, is people that end up becoming zombies on things," she said. “But he was having very, very real, very smart conversations with them and strategy conversations with them.”
It's understandable that Adele is worried over her son's video gaming with new research linking video games to teen psychosis and showing that kids as young as 6-year-old are at risk of gaming addictions. But as long as parents read up on the 'life-saving' questions to ask your child if they’re online gaming and incorporate tips to help gamers sleep better, the negative effects of video gaming can be massively reduced.
