VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Institute for Vietnamese Martial Arts and Sports Research and Development is the first one in Vietnam which has successfully weaned off games addictions for children of school age.

Pham Quang Long, Chair of the institute, said his institute recently received a lot of children brought there by their parents who ask to help the children detoxify from games addictions.

There’s a common characteristic of all the children that they are all from well-off families, where parents are too busy with their works and don’t have time to take care for children.

LTK is a boy from a family, where his both mother and father are the high ranking executives of a big bank in Thai Nguyen province. He was always an obedient student at primary and secondary school.

The tremendous upheaval came to LTK when his parents left for long term business trips, leaving the son with an expensive Apple laptop. His parents did not have time to find out what their son did in his free time.

Only when returning home and seeing LTK dropping off next to the laptop after many hours of playing games, did the parents realize what the boy spent his time. LTK had been playing games all of his time, mostly violence games.

Online games changed LTK so dramatically, turning him from an obedient into a indocile boy. He not only spent his non-school hours on games, but he also played truant from school lessons to go to public games shops.

He not only ignored the parents’ advices, but also dared to beat his father with a stick.

Long said his institute has received the children from over 30 provinces and cities, from Cao Bang and Ha Giang in the north, to Da Nang and Quang Ngai in the central region and HCM City in the south.

The detoxification method applied at the institute is practicing martial arts and playing sports, which has brought positive effects.

“Once children spend time on practicing martial arts and playing sports, they would have the chances to do exercises, relax and communicate with friends,” Long explained.

“Playing sports would not only help ease the addiction fit, but also help make everyone get stronger,” he added.

In the past, the games addicts refused to eat and did not sleep. But nowadays, with the reasonable mechanisms in eating, sleeping and practicing exercises, they can to bed punctually and have better lives.

Long said it would be easier to treat children for games addictions, if the patients are brought to the institute as soon as possible.

LTK has successfully said goodbye to online games and he has realized how he was rude to the parents. K is now studying at the boarding school in the institute and intensively preparing for the entrance exams to the Hanoi Banking University next July.

Veteran games addicts sometimes meet the problem in sleep disorder. It is because their brains have been overly stimulated by the obsessive gaming, especially violence games.

The patients cannot sleep, have nightmares regularly, and suffer from sleep apnea, which may lead to death.

Therefore, Long stressed that practicing martial arts and playing Qu Gong are very important things to games addicts, because they help patients regain equilibrium of mind, know how to regulate their breathing to avoid dangerous phenomena as said above.

“Games addiction is as dangerous as drug addiction. It can exhaust gamers spiritually and physically, which causes a lot of family tragedies,” Long said.

La Hoan