A parent is at his or her wit's end over a seeming lack of ambition and drive in his 8-year-old son has come to you for help. All the child wants to do is play video games, the parent reports. As a clinical mental health counselor, how might you separately counsel both the parent and the child? Formulate your response around your understanding of physical development and multiple-intelligences theories as well as parenting styles.

To begin with, a developing child uses play in order to know himself more. Around this age, the central idea is play. Play enables a child to explore and develop his interpersonal skills. Thus, it is normal that he wants to play video games.

According to Howard Gardner, there are nine (9) multiple intelligences. This discusses that a person has a range of different abilities. This theory also believes that a person can have many kinds of intelligences. There are eight (8) intelligences: visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, musical-rhythmic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic. 

With this line of thought, as a parent, one should be cognizant that your child can be strong in a certain type of intelligence and at the same time weak in another type.

One can infer that the child may lack the ambition and drive because the parent might not see where their child's intelligence is strong at. In your case, his strength is playing video games which may be utilized to his advantage. Focus and find the child's type of intelligence in order to avoid any distress. In this way, the child can become more productive, can get better results be it grades or work. If a parent knows the child's intelligence then, they can know where his strength lies and where he can improve his weaknesses. For example, when you want him to learn something, use video games as a method. Also, one can look at the different parenting styles. In this case, I suggest to follow the Authoritative style of parenting because you need to put a lot of effort in creating a positive relationship with your child. You can make him understand that it is okay to play video games as long as it is not too much. Explain to them the reason behind your rules. According to Morin & Forman (2019), this kind of parenting enforce rules and give consequences, but take your child's feelings into consideration.