When Video Games Control Your Child

As I was browsing some parenting groups last night on Facebook, one post made me stop and think about how far we had come with a similar issue. The mom was concerned because her son, who was around 14, had no actual in person friends.  All of his friends were online through his video games. The boy didn’t go out and socialize, and he didn’t have friends over. Other parents started chiming in about how they were concerned with this as well.

Having seven kids, I see this to varying degrees in my own house, but I wouldn’t say any of my kids are not physically social in the real world. This has been a conscious effort on my part, and unfortunately, if you are having this issue, you will have an uphill battle to deal with it.

Video games are addictive!

My second oldest has always been a video game enthusiast. He has always loved to play since he was really little. If I had it to do all over again, I would not even bring a video game system into my house until junior high.

But, he is 19 and it’s too late for that.  Luckily for me, he is a social kid and although he plays video games more than I’d like, he also holds a job that he works 30 hours a week and he hangs out with his friends several times a week doing other things.

My youngest son is 12, and recently, I started noticing some of the same tendencies I saw with my older son developing in him. I knew I did not want to go down that road again because I knew where it ended up. So, I dove in hard and fast to deal with it.

The first thing I did was cut out all video games during the school week. His schedule included outside time, family time, snack, dinner and some TV with his siblings, and then 30 minutes of reading time before bed. I try my best to sit down one or two nights a week and play some kind of actual game with him.

The next issue I faced was that he was OBSESSED with video games and TV during the weekend. He would wake up and get on and stay on ALL day long. He’d forget to take out the dogs or do anything else he was supposed to do. So, to combat that issue, he and I had a heart to heart about why things needed to change. I asked him questions about his behavior and how he was spending his time and if that was healthy and how he would feel about what he was doing if he were a parent. I wanted him to understand the WHY behind what I was doing and not just feel like I was taking away his screen time.

I started out taking away his games for a while so he could re-adjust his system and detox. Then, once I was ready to reintroduce games to him, I came up with a token system. He received tokens for various things such as good grades, reading more than his 30 minutes a day, and completing his chores without being asked. If he did everything he needed to, he had enough tokens for about 6 to 8 hours of screen time during the weekend. It really made him aware of how much time he was spending on games and TV.

Eventually, I dropped off the token system and let him manage it on his own. If he drops the ball and doesn’t do a good job managing his time, I just have to ask him what we need to do to get him back on track. He will normally suggest going without games for a day or weekend.

All this sounds great in theory. In reality, it was super irritating and a lot of work!. Once I removed video games, my kid was left with NOTHING to occupy him. It’s hard to believe with all the books, toys and 6 siblings he could find nothing to do. But, there you have it! At one point, the idea entered his head that if he was really needy, I’d let him play his games just to get him out of my hair, And, no lie, it was really tempting. He does needy and annoying really well!!

But, I stood strong!! I finally told him that my objective was to have him be able to entertain himself without games. Once he could do that, we would discuss when he could have games again, and the longer he irritated me, the longer it would take for him to have games again. Once that sunk in, he started moving forward.

A really huge, important concept that we as parents need to understand is that boredom is not the enemy!

Boredom is the catalyst for creativity and ingenuity. It’s so easy to feel guilty when our kids are bored. Like we are failing them. But, eventually when kids get tired of boring holes into the back of your head with their eyeballs or staring at their walls, they will find something to do. Noah unearthed a series of books that had been on his shelf collecting dust. Another child of mine created a 3-D model of  what he wanted his future house to look like. Another kiddo started figuring out how stock market investing worked. Another one is figuring out how to create a forge so he can make his own weapons. My daughter is building a business plan to launch her own line of bath bombs.

The point is, they don’t think of all this if we don’t give them the time to think. And that means we need to not be concerned with filling every moment of their day with entertainment.

All that sounds great, but how does it look typically now?

At this point, Noah has no electronics on school nights. He gets some TV time with family in the evening. On Friday, Noah came home around 5. He did a few things around the house and got on his games and pretty much played all night long with the exception of a few family things and dinner. His bedtime is at 1:00 a.m. on the weekends. He got up at 10:00 a.m., let the dogs out, fed them, fed the cats and started his load of laundry without being asked (yay!), then announced he was going outside.

He was back in 30 minutes, and tried to come in and turn on games. I brought up the fact that it was the first nice weekend we had had in weeks and that he’d been on his games all night last night. He gets what I’m saying and heads back out. For 15 minutes this time. At this point, I flat out tell him that he won’t be getting on electronics until tonight. It’s a nice day. He’s 12. I had told him to talk to some kids this week on his bus who live in the neighborhood and make plans to hang out. I remind him of this. He has a friend in mind, so I send him over to that kids house to see if he can play.

That was 3 hours ago. His friend has a trampoline! I told Noah to send me the kiddos address, check in every couple of hours and be home by dark. As I am writing this, Noah is in the kitchen grabbing 2 water bottles and 2 oranges because they are planning to ride bikes to the baseball field.

My kid isn’t perfect. He would still spend all his time on video games if I let him. But, he’d eat crap all day if I let him, too. My job as a parent is to do what is best though, not what he wants. And if I let him eat candy all day, he’d be sick tonight. That’s no fun. And if I’d let him play games all day today, he wouldn’t have done all the things he did with his new friend. I promise he will be telling me all about their adventures over dinner tonight. He will have gain memories that are so much more fulfilling than progressing to the next level.

Points to me today for making my kid be a kid.