how video games can help you avoid bullying

My husband and I find it difficult to say what provoked the persecution of our son. Was it a matter of ADHD Or is he an adopted child?

Or maybe it all started with our boy getting into a fight with a bully who called his black friend a “slave” and demanded that he wear a bully’s cello?

Our son encountered racism early on, the day a drunken white boy demanded that his tiny six-year-old sister return to China, where we adopted her. Luke stood up for her too.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what caused the bullying; what matters is how we defeated them.

Start Game

Luke started playing Lego Star Wars at the age of five. Of course, I was opposed to any violence, but when Luke Skywalker (after whom we named our son) died in games, only small pieces of Lego flew in all directions.

Years later, he started playing Halo, with vivid images of people being shot at. This worried me. Despite the fact that the music score was much better than I have ever heard in any other game. But, as a professional musician, I can appreciate it.

At that time, our son was already showing himself to be a talented violinist, so I decided that listening to a fully orchestrated video game accompaniment might inspire him to pursue music. I hoped that he would play the violin more and spend less time playing, because there is a number of strong evidence that music can have a beneficial effect on the human brain.

But more important than whether our son spent time playing video games or devoting it to the violin, there was a harsh reality: almost daily, Luke was pushed, his backpack was ripped off his shoulders and called names that would not have passed the censorship.

The Games were the only world where he had any control over the situation. In the end, we let him play. And they recorded it in taekwondo.

Father began to take him with him to the exhibition PAX Eastwhere Luke met several indie gamers and began to take part in beta tests of their projects.

One company Novelline.net (Tenwall Creatives) was so grateful to Luke for his enthusiasm and help that when they developed the new game, Black– inserted our son into it as an Easter egg.

Players could find his name written on the monument: “For Luke, the young wizard whose bright eyes and unwavering support inspired the worlds.” Of course, needless to say, Luke was delighted.

“You know, being featured in something so public and permanent was very inspiring,” Luke said.

“During the Bleak beta tests, I learned a lot about the creative design process and various elements of game development. That’s when I thought maybe that’s what I really want to do in my life.”

After years of patience, which he was taught in the dojo, and after receiving a black belt, Luke nevertheless answered the bully – he pushed him off his foot and sent him to lie on the ground. It was in the sixth grade. Luke ran away from school that day and never came back.

“I don’t have to defend myself to go to school,” he said then.

It was impossible to argue with that, so our son spent the last six weeks of the school year homeschooled.

continue?

In the seventh grade, we transferred him to a private school, where he bullying treated without any tolerance; however, in the end, Luke got tired of wearing a jacket and tie – a mandatory attribute in that institution for boys – so we sent him back to public school, but, of course, a different one.

After graduating from the eighth grade, he began the ninth grade already at the fourth in a row, the local high school, again new to him.

“It felt like I didn’t have my own ‘home’ in terms of social space,” Luke shared.

“To be honest, I felt lonely. Every day I returned to my family, where there were the same faces. But at school, for me, all the people were constantly new, and I had no friends. Everything was constantly changing around, it was not easy to avoid hooligans. It was more of an inevitable school life than a choice.

They stopped mocking him after the seventh grade, apparently because by that time he had grown under 180 cm tall. However, it also had the opposite effect:

When I moved to high school, everyone already had their own bunch – guys from high school. While everyone was saying, “Meet my new friends,” I was an outcast.

Other guys had a certain social status, while I had a reputation as a person who had been bullied for many years. So for them, I was kind of cursed.”

From various sources, people learned my story, so in the end I ended up on the “iceberg of ignore”. In new schools, of course, there has always been a chance for a new life, but with ADHD comes great socialization difficulties. In addition, because of the bullying, I did not acquire the communication skills that society gives. Because of this, I was considered strange, loud, annoying …

“And I also interfered with everyone”

“In elementary school, I had a friend whom we met in a biology class. Matt moved from France, so I didn’t get bullied because of him.

Years later, when we were both in college, he admitted that he used to think I was annoying as hell. All because I talked a lot. True, he later added: “In the end, I realized that this guy really has something to say.”

“Mat and I are still friends.”

Luke has good muscle tone and lightning-fast response. This is what helped him achieve success in taekwondo, playing the violin and video games. It also made him good catcher in baseball, which, in the summer after sixth grade, gave him a chance to steal the ball from his bully, who had bullied him a couple of years ago.

By the way, one aspect of ADHD is hyperfocus. So, Luke could play Lego Star Wars and Super Paper Mario for hours. His hands did not leave the gamepad, and his attention remained riveted to the screen.

After a while, Luke began to play with strangers online.

“It worried me.

We hoped that he would have more friends in real life, but, unfortunately, the bullying he experienced continued to haunt our son.

Once upon a time I got BBC articlepublished in 2017. It said online bullying is real and can be just as devastating as bullying in real life.”

“If you go to school every day where you are relentlessly ridiculed, then you want to return home to the computer as soon as possible in order to save yourself from this,” the words of a sixteen-year-old gamer were quoted in the article.

“Therefore, if insults continue to pour on you on the Internet, then in the end it will push you away from communication completely. It’s been that way with a lot of people I know, including me.”

But despite all the misgivings, Luke’s experience in online games turned out to be the opposite of his encounters in IRL. (*IRL / In real world – In the real world). On the Internet, Luke met people who had no prejudice against him. This helped expand his social world.

My husband, Keith, commented on it like this:

“In the real world, friendship can be limited by where you are. This was the case with Luke in high school, where he had a hard time escaping his reputation. But on the Internet there is an opportunity to create your own worlds and fill them with friends literally from all over the world.

Being able to break free from everyday bullying in reality seems to be a key component of online friendship. Even if there are hooligans on the Internet, it is much easier to get rid of them and start everything from scratch.”

We heard how, like many other gamers, while playing with the guys online, Luke laughs and swears. He finally just looks happy. Therefore, we decided not to take this outlet from him.

However, then we had to stand over him for hours, so that the son would still do his homework.

end game

“I felt that online games were welcome,” Luke shared.

“In places like this, no one cares about your appearance, your race, the fact that you are tall and skinny. The only thing that really matters is your skills.

How good are you at the game? Although the latter applies only to competitive games. In co-op games like Worlds Adrift (which I played with my good friend Aaron, which unfortunately got shut down), GTFO, Destiny 2, VR Chat and Dungeons and Dragons, people try to be friendly to each other and help newcomers integrate into community”.

“Most often, acquaintances with guys take place directly in the game, but there are also thematic chats where gamers communicate outside of it. Some of those whom I met in games, I then invited to these chats. Among them there are those with whom I really became friends.

Luke began to lead streams on Twitch and he was good at it. Views grew and gradually our son began to communicate with local high school students who were also fond of online games. Some of them even came to our house.

Our son had a VR headset so a lot of guys wanted to try it out. Luke happily shared his devices and taught his friends how to play Beat Saber.

When it came time to choose a college, Luke had no doubts – he wanted to learn how to create his own game projects. We sent him to George Mason University for a summer course in video game development.

We wanted to give him a chance to try and see how seriously he takes all this. As a result, he made his first game, quickly became friends with other student developers, and when he returned to school, in his senior class, he founded the first esports club in history. Overnight it became the biggest club in his school.

In the end, we found a place that had a good reputation for its video game developer training program and a great student orchestra – Rochester Institute of Technology.

Unfortunately, the first course was cut short due to the pandemic and Luke returned home to continue his studies online.

During quarantine, while others were struggling with being locked in at home, chained to a screen, Luke felt like a fish out of water. He immediately became friends with the guys through games, started streaming again, and even started an online relationship, which, however, ended up at a distance.

To be honest, as a parent who has always been afraid of this son’s dependence on the virtual world, I was glad to admit to myself that I worried in vain.

It would be wrong to say that there are no hooligan gamers on the Internet at all. Toxic friends are everywhere. However, the history of his bullying taught Luke not to react to all this. Our son’s hyperfocus allowed him to just focus on the game itself.

“In fact, bullies on the Internet really can’t do anything to you,” Luke shared his point of view.

“It’s just that these kids have nowhere else to vent their frustration. Some need that psychological sense of power that comes when they put someone else down. In the end, I just felt sorry for them.”

Luke returned to campus with the self-confidence many of his peers lost during the pandemic.

He wants to graduate from college with a degree in game design and development to fulfill his ambitions and dreams.

“My dream is to create a game that will change someone’s outlook on life,” says Luke.

“I understand that it is very difficult, but I think that in the end I will succeed.”

What I feared the most ended up helping Luke. Video games not only helped him cope with bullying at school, they helped him find his purpose and strive to fulfill it.

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