Introducing ADHD-Friendly Video Games to Kids
Welcome to Ask Lex!
Here’s our question from Jonathan S.:
“…what about games you would introduce to a child to get them into video games? My son is 7, and had ADHD, so I need to keep him away from games with particularly addictive game loops… but I want him to experience and enjoy them and learn to manage himself. So I don’t want him playing Roblox or Minecraft, but I want him to play some classics, and some newer stuff. Have you thought about this for your own kids?”
Please note: My neurodiversity training is for adults; however, I also have a child with neurodiversity and unique needs, so I’ll be using some personal references and experience with OT, screentime, supports, research, and gaming with kids and just referring to them as “Kiddo” in this post.
“Screentime” for kids is a big question, let alone games. Dr. Nusheen Ameenuddin, a Mayo Clinic pediatrician and member of the AAP, recommends: “Once kids are 5 years and older, and they're in school, we used to say no more than two hours of screen time a day of noneducational content.” I get it, but I know this can be challenging if your child actually regulates themselves using screens, makes friends easier across a screen, likes games as a hobby or to de-stress, and if you yourself work in gaming and you know, need to game for your job.
However, not all “screentime” is created equal, especially if it’s shared together. It’s actually been shown that chillin’ with your kid while they play is a good thing. There are studies going back over ten years that show “playing video games with your kids has a positive impact on adolescent development and long-term family outcomes.” It helps with bonding, communication, problem solving, even academic skills, and let’s not forget it can make you a better surgeon (supposedly).
There are also studies on gaming and its effect on mental moods and health. Particularly, there was a study on Pediatric ADHD that showed “the average change in scores of focus in children who played the video game was approximately 30 times as high as the children in the control group, who saw little change, if any at all.” Games can help teach both kids and adults emotional resilience and regulation, fine motor skills, pattern recognition, even coding!
“Screentime” as a concept is a bit outdated as digital content has progressed. Do what’s best for you and your fam and balance teaching gaming as a healthy hobby.
So let’s talk two things. First: ADHD and how it effects that “addictive game loop.” Second: let’s talk about getting your kids into games! If you want to skip the brain babble, click to the game list here.
Manipulating Human Nature in Games
Games have inherent psychological loops and cues built into their mechanics to help drive desired actions in games—sometimes good, sometimes bad. Recently, Kiddo asked why the music always changed at a certain point in a game we were playing together. I told them that this was known as an “audio cue” so you learn that sound means a boss is coming or that you got a really good item in a chest. There are other “cues” like tutorial information, icons, or color coding drops in World of Warcraft (gotta get them purps y’all).
Psychological Exploits
There are other built in psychological loops, often seen in Free-to-Play and mobile games, used to well…get you to spend money or help the game spread the word. For example, every wonder why you get into a game’s shop and the pricing for something like premium currency is always the same: $0.99 | $4.99 | $9.99 | $19.99 | $49.99 | $99.99.
Generally, if you’re not considered a “Whale”(aka someone who makes up the majority of the game’s money, but is only about 1-2% of the entire game’s userbase), you’re most likely to pick the $4.99 (maybe the $9.99 if you’re feeling splurgy in the moment on your favorite game). The reason? Perceived value—the other prices are there to get you to spend some amount of money. Looking at this, your brain makes you think in comparison to the other options which takes place in your frontal-lobe or top-brain: “the $0.99 option isn’t quite enough and the $19.99 is a bit too much and omg who would spend $50 or $100 bucks on a game?! Yeah, 5 bucks if totally reasonable.” You will then make enough justified “reasonable” purchases. This, mixed with game mechanics that drive you to “pay-to-win” or “pay-to-own/collect” against a timer or level up faster, etc, will drive you to spend more.
Is It Gambling or Gaming?
Gacha and loot box mechanics (paying in-game or real currency for a randomized in-game item and yes, similar but different) also scratch a specific itch in your brain to collect, complete, or earn/win especially with sunk-cost fallacies. Some of these mechanics, btw, are banned or highly regulated in several countries including Belgium, The Netherlands, Japan, Germany, and more as they can dubbed as “gambling” or “predatory”—but that’s another post for future us.
If you’re neurodivergent, or a bottom-up type thinker, the specific mechanics this drive can be even more vulturous on your brain as you have a drive for things that are novel, that you must complete, and are detailed or hyperfocused—big things in ADHD as well.
For some adults, they don’t even realize these psychological flips their brains are already making. For kids, especially games “designed for kids” can include MANY of these things and more, like ads for clicks, and likely won’t have the skills to recognize.
Teaching Moments
When you do see these mechanics in a game, or your kid asks for some in-game currency, talk them through it, ask them why they want that thing and have them reflect on what the cost is. I do this for advertising, or teach Kiddo share, save, spend system.
Here are some more teaching moments and watch-outs:
Limited-Time Events & Daily Rewards
What to Look For: Games that encourage logging in daily or participating in events with countdowns (e.g., “Log in every day for a prize!”) to drive FOMO or sense of loss.
How to Discuss: Explain how the game uses time-based rewards to keep players coming back and discuss how to set boundaries, like deciding on specific play days together.
Reward Timers and Progress Bars
What to Look For: Visible timers or progress bars that push players to keep playing to reach the “next goal” or get a big reward or prevent progress without spending currency or something of value.
How to Discuss: Talk about how timers create a sense of urgency. Encourage taking breaks before feeling “too close to the next reward” to practice resisting the urge to keep going.
Randomized Rewards
What to Look For: Games that offer randomized rewards when players pay in-game or real currency (like loot boxes or mystery prizes).
How to Discuss: Explain that these are designed like a “lottery,” so players keep trying to get a prize, and why it’s essential to be cautious with spending on “random” rewards.
Excessive Notifications & Alerts
What to Look For: Games that send frequent notifications about events, rewards, or messages, urging players to come back right away.
How to Discuss: Share that notifications are meant to pull players back into the game. Suggest turning off notifications or designating certain times for gaming to maintain a healthy balance.
Level-Up Boosts and Power-Ups for Purchase (aka Pay-to-Win)
What to Look For: Games that offer in-game purchases to level up faster or gain extra lives, often positioned to help players “skip the wait” or avoid repeating difficult levels.
How to Discuss: Talk about how these boosts are designed to encourage spending. Suggest setting limits on these purchases or trying to achieve the goal without paying to build patience and skill. Some of these mechanics are “Pay-for-Time”—you can earn these rewards but how much is your time worth.
So are all of these things in a game bad?
I don’t think so depending on a/how it’s implemented (looking at you Pokemon…gotta catch ‘em all right?) and b/how aware you are of your own abilities to play a game with these mechanics. I won’t lie: friends or myself quit playing games due to our inability to resist the siren song.
Know yourself and your child and what your rules, limits, and goals are with a game.
Introducing Your Kids to Games
After having Kiddo, I had to move a lot of games to the backlog because of gameplay attention or just…stuff happening on the screen. I really had to learn how to be a mom-gamer. This was a thing I loved and wanted to share with Kiddo, so learning along the way I’ve discovered a few things and made the following system:
Games That I Play and Kiddo Can Watch: these are games that I can play due to technical difficulty that are appropriate for Kiddo to see on screen and ask questions or help.
Games That Kiddo Can Play and I Can Watch: these are games that Kiddo can play that I enjoy watching and they can ask questions or ask for a “mom-boss-takedown” as we call it.
Games We Can Play Together: either co-op games or games we play at the same time.
Games I Play At Other Friends Houses and Tell No One….
Like any gamer, your kid will have things they’ll like and not like, so always take that into account. And before buying any game, follow the same rules you would for yourself with maybe a little parenting lens on it—read reviews, watch some gameplay, ask yourself if your kid can handle: how to play the game, the story, the themes, can read text (like menus), emotional abilities (do they get frustrated easily?), and have the actual fine motor skills to the use the controller appropriately.
These are things we know we can do ourselves, but assess your kid on that as well. For my Kiddo, they are learning to read, have solid fine motor skills in their hands that could be better (some grip weakness), and they love puzzles, building stuff like robots and legos, science, stories, and jumping. They like the iPad and the Switch, but also know how to use a PlayStation. Mixed with my love of J-RPGs, Platformers, and Fighting Games, I knew there was going to be some cross-over.
Teaching Gamer Etiquette & Safety
The joys of starting to game with your child is awesome but we’re still a parent raising a kid. Teach them gamer (and just human interaction) etiquette…and if the game gives you a save point, use it. Make gaming a better place with each generation. I also have two ongoing rules: I don’t let Kiddo play any games online (the one exception is Animal Crossing where we visit friends and family islands). The second is Kiddo can’t play any game without my permission or me in the room. If you want to know how I lock my iPad down for like “kid-mode” hit me up.
So some of these may work for you or not—check your Kiddo Criteria. Also, I realize there are A LOT of cat related games…
Games List
Legit Tested and Played with Kiddo!
| Games I Play | Games Kid Plays | Gaming Together |
|---|---|---|
| Zelda Franchise | Minecraft (Creative Mode) |
Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters |
| Newer Final Fantasy Games | Cat Quest | Cat Quest II |
| Stray | Calico | Animal Crossing: New Horizons |
| Luigi's Mansion 3 | Spyro Reignited Trilogy | Cats & Soup |
| Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom | Journey | New Pokemon Snap |
| Warframe (missions, gore off) |
Princess Peach Showtime | Project Diva Franchise |
| Super Mario RPG | Khan Academy Kids | Pokemon Cafe Remix Pokemon Go |
| Civilization Series | Teach Your Monster: Reading for Fun | Hole.io |
| Regular Pokemon Series | Puzzle Games like Tetris | Let's Go, Eevee |
| Cozy Grove | - | Mario Franchises (Paper, Kart, Party, all of 'em) |
| - | - | TMNT: Shredder's Revenge |
| - | - | Secret of Mana |
Other Games I Recommend for 7-10 year olds:
Astro’s Playroom
Sonic Mania
Untitled Goose Game
Yoshi’s Crafted World
Mario + Rabbids Franchise
Crash Bandicoot Trilogy
Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart Remaster
Overcooked!
MySims
Ori Collection
Various Sports Franchises
Harvest Moon Series
Stardew Valley
Spirit of the North
Various LEGO franchises
Splatoon Series
Kingdom Hearts Franchise
Pikmin Franchise
Neva
Various Retro Collections (I have the SNK one)
Ni no Kuni Franchise
Little Kitty, Big City
Minecraft Legends
You might have noticed a lot of “Cozy” games on this list. I find they are very regulating for neurodiverse folks (from color palette to music and even mechanics), plus, they’re fun! There’s even been a study about how Cozy Games can reduce stress.
Watching Games Together
Another cool thing out of this is that Kiddo and I can also watch gameplay together which has been great for us to discover new games they might be interested in, I get through my backlog a bit more visually, and honestly, there is only so much kid’s programming even I can handle—I feel I’ve watched both the entire backlog of PBS and Disney+ four times over now (no offense Bluey). I recommend gameplay content channels like BeardBear (no-commentary complete playthroughs), CozyK (cozy game recommendations and playthroughs), anone – cozy crossing (animal crossing meets lofi) and official channels. Bless YouTube for teaching Kiddo how to use Redstone in Minecraft.
Jonathan, I hope these ideas and recommendations help you and your kiddo get gaming together and share a lifetime of joy with only minor rage quitting. #Coopbuddies4life
If you have more recommendations, please hit me up or leave them below in the comments!