Tools, not rules – How to rethink conversations around gaming in a playful way (without the arguments)

“Parents and caregivers tell us they’re struggling with issues surrounding children’s gaming and how they play online, so we wanted to help,” says Diana Ringe Krogh. Building on existing research, the LEGO Group has released new, free tools, designed to make digital parenting feel a little less like a match-up, and more like a shared adventure.

Five years ago, Diana Ringe Krogh, Vice President of Social Responsibility, and her team began exploring how to better support children’s wellbeing as they increasingly engage with digital play and online experiences. With support from partners like UNICEF and the LEGO Foundation, their long-standing commitment to children’s digital wellbeing is now bearing fresh fruit with the LEGO Group’s updated fun, free activities designed to help parents, caregivers and children navigate the world of online gaming and digital play together.

And all in time for the summer holidays, when some potentially tricky conversations about screentime and digital dos and don’ts arise.

“It’s not that gaming is good or bad,” says Diana, recognising the potential of digital play to unlock children’s creativity and help them build social connections. Rather, it’s about developing digital products “designed with children’s wellbeing in mind” and then encouraging balanced usage patterns that can help children thrive online.

Unlike their parents and caregivers, children today barely distinguish between digital and physical forms of play. “Play for them is more fluid, they don’t see these boundaries,” says Diana. “And if children don’t see them, the LEGO Group – guided by research and its belief that children learn best when they are playing – shouldn’t either.”

So instead, the LEGO Group, together with partners, sought to address the understandable concerns that parents and caregivers have around digital play and its impact on their children’s wellbeing. “We saw the issue, the anxiety and concern that people were feeling,” Diana says, “and we wanted to engage, to be a part of solving that.”

But how?

In 2020, the LEGO Group and its partners launched the RITEC Project – or Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children Project – a multiyear research program co-founded by UNICEF and funded by the LEGO Foundation, which sought to gather actionable data about children and their digital lives. The goal, Diana says, was to build a foundation of knowledge that could inform the development of guidance for companies designing online play experiences. Ultimately, helping game developers prioritise children’s wellbeing. Alongside this, the LEGO Group conducted the 2024 Play Well Study*, in which over 60,000 children and parents and caregivers globally shared their views on critical topics including the power of play and digital child safety.

The survey was able to measure the anxiety and confusion surrounding digital play which many of us experience. While roughly two-thirds of parents and caregivers think that digital play is beneficial for their child’s development, 60% are also worried about their child’s screentime and internet usage. And while four parents in five believe that online safety and wellbeing is important, half don’t feel comfortable discussing these issues with their children, often because they lack the knowledge to talk about them confidently.

Thankfully, armed now with years of research and insights from thousands of children, parents and caregivers, the LEGO team could see some core principles emerging. The first was the importance of giving children a say in their digital lives.

“When children feel agency, there is a different kind of buy-in,” says Diana.

For parents and caregivers, that means having open conversations with their children and hearing their point of view, rather than imposing rules. Take a moment to watch the Kids Speak Up About Smart Gaming video to see how much they value their autonomy – and also how well they understand many of the challenges they could face in cyberspace.

“It’s building that bridge – instead of ‘put that away’ or ‘you can only look at it for 20 minutes’, it’s about engaging on their terms, being curious, talking and removing some of the tension,” Diana says.

Another important takeaway was the value of making these conversations as fun and playful as possible to overcome the awkwardness that parents and children might naturally feel.

“This is where the LEGO Group can bring something unique,” says Diana.

Besides having the trust of both children and parents and caregivers, “we can bring the playful aspect to it,” she said.

This approach, anchored in playful conversations, runs throughout the new digital parenting tools, which include Build & Talk activities designed to spark discussions as well as encourage free expression through LEGO building activities. In “This Or That?”, parents and kids play a fun interactive physical game while answering questions about their own attitudes to gaming. And the Audio Adventure triggers further conversations about the potential pitfalls of the online world.

To reach more families, the LEGO Group is now testing in-person workshops in China, Indonesia and the UK in partnership with organizations like the NSPCC, with a view to disseminating its new playful digital parenting guidance both physically and virtually. And as the feedback from parents, caregivers and children builds up, the LEGO Group will continue to develop the tools themselves and the ways in which families can access them over the coming months and years. Insights from this work are also helping to shape the LEGO Group’s own digital experiences, ensuring that its approach to children’s wellbeing is embedded not just in guidance, but in practice.

For Diana, there’s satisfaction in seeing the LEGO Group reach out to families in a moment where they might need a helping hand, sparking meaningful dialogue through play.

“This is a topic we know is challenging for many,” she says. “What we hope is that by taking a playful approach to this important topic, we can make it easier, and more fun, to talk about and thereby help families feel more confident navigating it together.”

About the LEGO® Play Well Study 2024

LEGO® Play Well Study 2024: commissioned by the LEGO Group, carried out by Edelman DXI between 13.12.23 – 24.01.2024. Total sample size of 61,532 respondents, including 36,000 parents and 25,532 children aged 5-12 years old from 36 markets.