One of the most significant signs of a lack of emergent outflow in a child is the experience of boredom. The very word boredom connotes a hole. When there is a lack of emergent outflow in the child’s system—that is, a lack of interest, curiosity, initiative, and aspirations—the resulting hole is experienced as boredom.

But what, some parents ask, about the teasing or ostracizing that may ensue from peers if, contrary to the norm, a child is not permitted videogames or Internet access? This may, indeed, be uncomfortable for a child. We reiterate, though, that there are worse things than being taunted by immature peers.

The most important kind of play from a developmental perspective is emergent play—when the child’s true creative, curious, and confident self emerges. This is a wonderful, venturing-forth kind of play that only happens in the wake of fulfilling attachment activity. Children, including youth, need lots of emergent play and thus lots of times of

Herein lies the problem. Videogames, despite their name and the fact that they are played, do not count in our brains as play. An activity is genuine play when it is not outcome-based. In true play, the fun is in the activity, not in the end result. True play is for play’s sake, not for winning or scoring.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that one of most significant responsibilities of parents is to act as buffers between the child and society. If this was true in the eighteenth century, how much more is it true today?

The secret of reducing the damage is in the timing of things. We want children to be fulfilled with what they truly need before they have access to that which would spoil their appetite for what they truly need.

As we have seen throughout this book, our primary and dominant need is togetherness. It is connection we seek, not factual information about the world. Human beings—often as adults but especially as immature young creatures—are hungry for information not about the world but about our attachment status.

Only the unconditional loving acceptance that adults can offer is able to free a child from obsessing over signs of liking and belonging.

Our challenge is to use our influence with our children to break their dependence on popularity, appearance, grades, or achievement for the way they think and feel about themselves.