If you have 11-/12-year old boys who DON'T play Fortnite/video game all the time -- what do they do?

[Anonymous]

They need to learn it is all about the balance. Screens should not be forbidden. They need to learn to make them part of their life. Fortnite is social for them but so is riding their bikes and playing a board game. They can talk all about their fortnite strategies while they are outside on the playground!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two boys, one 12 and one older, and in my kids' case the interest eventually burned itself out. High school is more demanding and the kids play video games less because they have more interesting social and extracurricular options. Maybe it would help to think about this as a stage that boys go through but not one all of them stay in indefinitely.

This happened in our house too-
He still plays a bit of minecraft, but only if his friends are on at the same time (and it's rare)

If it's any consolation, my DS has addictive tendencies and I was concerned, but high school and it's associated demands (music lessons, sports, homework) take priority and gaming screen time is less and less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you, this is why I’m still resisting allowing my 10 year old to get it. He’s not good at self regulating yet.

How about you have him earn fortnite time with chores And/or physical activity. So...he comes home, does any homework he has, then he does a chore for you, shoots baskets or walks the dog or kicks a soccer ball around for 20-30 minutes and then if there’s time he can play. Then there’s a hard shut down of electronics at a certain time of night.

Your first paragraph is ridiculous. You don't "wait until they're old enough to self-regulate." You start them on video games at birth, so that they learn to self-regulate! That's how it works! Same with allowance (maybe wait until they're 2 or 3 and not putting everything in their mouths), coffee, walking to school alone...

[Anonymous]

This whole thread is really disconcerting. "Don't worry, they'll be overscheduled soon enough." So kids are either entertained by very high-stimulation, designed-to-be-addictive games (which also have some positive qualities!) or they have adults filling up their time with structured activities? When do they learn how to manage lives at a normal pace?

[Anonymous]

I let mine play to his heart’s content as long as everything else was done like chores and homework. He lost interest after about a year. He now skateboards a lot, has a scooter, is into finger skateboards, which I will never understand, and plays basketball with friends in the neighborhood. He also spent a good deal of time skiing on weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is really disconcerting. "Don't worry, they'll be overscheduled soon enough." So kids are either entertained by very high-stimulation, designed-to-be-addictive games (which also have some positive qualities!) or they have adults filling up their time with structured activities? When do they learn how to manage lives at a normal pace?

You do it your way, and we do it our way. How about that? Video game is a phase for our kids. Once they realize that it doesn't have to be a way of life, they don't resort to it. That's our theory and it frankly has worked for our kids. So to teach their own.

[Anonymous]

When we bought a big screen computer for the family room, we made some rules about screen time: 75% of all screen time must be "productive" rather than "consumptive"

So DS developed some new hobbies around the computer,including programming (starting with 'scratch' and moving into java) and also creating electronic music, starting with garage band on the mac and eventually with a more advanced program, which he asked for for xmas. Both hobbies have stuck very well- he has a lot to actually show for his screen time now.

[Anonymous]

My 13 year old would play fortnite from 9am until 9pm every single weekend if he were permitted. This is huge disagreement between my DH and I.

Lat report card had two Ds on it and my husband was fine to let him spend 12 hours of the daylight on Saturday and Sunday sitting in front of the stupid play station. I hate the thing.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 very different kids.

1 is a gamer... but he has great grades, tons of friend and is generally a great kid... so I don't stress it

1 is not a gamer, never plays video game... he plays lots and lots and lots of sport, he likes to fish, hang out with friends, play basketball, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So after resisting Fortnite for a year, we caved this year and let our son play. Before that he played Minecraft and War Robots, but all his friends were on Fortnite (literally all of them).

Now I feel like whenever he plays with his friends and I don't allow them to have screen time, they are just passing the time until they can get on their screens. If they go outside, they ask for how long, and then they come back the very first minute they can so they can get set up on screens. If I tell him to do chores or homework first, same thing - he does them but then goes on screens the minute he's done. It just feels like that's the default they want to return to, and that they don't really enjoy any other activities. I guess the one thing they do enjoy is playing basketball outside, but they can only do that for so long.

If it were just my son behaving like this, it would be easier to deal with, but it's his three best neighborhood friends as well. The pressure to turn the screens on is always there.

What I am wondering is, how are other parents - especially the ones who want their kids to have less screen time - dealing with the constant pressure to get back on the screens? (They have to be experiencing it too, since whenever my son logs on to Fortnite, it seems like a majority of his school friends are online!) And for those that have successfully lessened screen time, WHAT activities do your son(s) like to do? Should I enroll him in a sport or some type of activity every afternoon? Should I restrict screen time to the weekends? (I have tried this in the past, and then just got worn down, I guess.)

I'm not sure I've clearly articulated the problem, so I guess the tl;dr is, my son and his friends want to be on screens all the time; I feel like it's not enough to just limit screentime - I need to help my son find activities that are equally compelling, and could really use suggestions. Thanks!

We shared your concerns as well (DS is 13) and fought very hard against the games. We simply refused to buy any and his screen time is restricted. It worked——However, there are some consequences. Because what you say is true (that the rest of the boys are game addicts), it means my son doesn't have a ton of friends, or rather, the friends he has made are not the gaming kids. He plays a travel sport and an instrument and between that and homework, there's not a lot of time anyway. I don't have any great advice really, other than to stand your ground and not give in. The game-addicted boys are scary to me... They don't have good social skills and I wonder where it will lead them in life...

Actually, it sounds liek you are the problem here. Boys who play games are not addicts.

[Anonymous]

To answer your actual question, my 11 year old and his friends play floor is lava. Soooooo much floor-is-lava. Inside, outside, on my couch, through the kitchen.
And they'll still occasionally have nerf gun wars, although that's fading out.

Of course, that's because I let them jump on the couch and play with nerf guns. Which many people on dcum would think is the most-horrible-thing-ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is really disconcerting. "Don't worry, they'll be overscheduled soon enough." So kids are either entertained by very high-stimulation, designed-to-be-addictive games (which also have some positive qualities!) or they have adults filling up their time with structured activities? When do they learn how to manage lives at a normal pace?

Define normal. And if your definition is "the way it was when I was a kid" -- life isn't the way it was. Kids have balance, its just they balance activities that are different from what we were balancing. For example, we watched TV after school and after dinner. My kids have never watched a TV show. Not once. They have no interest.

Also, I grew up in a rural area and my kids are growing up in a city. Our childhoods are very different. Both are normal.

[Anonymous]

OP here. These replies are so helpful.

I wish there were a critical mass of boys my son's age who were just outside all the time. But often he and his friends are the only group walking around outside in our neighborhood (when I make them go outside). My son's friends all show up at our house with their devices - so even if I send them outside, once they get tired of it they go straight to the devices.

I too am torn about overscheduling (I have 2 other kids and don't want them to be in the car all the the time so we can drive my son to his activities) and wanting unstructured time (but then that ends up with the kids defaulting to screens).

I don't know that there's a solution to this. I'm also busy and have the 2 other kids so I can't always be monitoring the screen time to ensure that they are programming, for example, instead of just playing Fortnite. I did take Youtube off our TV and generally forbid it in our house... and that actually has improved things marginally (in that they are not constantly watching YouTubers and mimicking their speech and actions).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So after resisting Fortnite for a year, we caved this year and let our son play. Before that he played Minecraft and War Robots, but all his friends were on Fortnite (literally all of them).

Now I feel like whenever he plays with his friends and I don't allow them to have screen time, they are just passing the time until they can get on their screens. If they go outside, they ask for how long, and then they come back the very first minute they can so they can get set up on screens. If I tell him to do chores or homework first, same thing - he does them but then goes on screens the minute he's done. It just feels like that's the default they want to return to, and that they don't really enjoy any other activities. I guess the one thing they do enjoy is playing basketball outside, but they can only do that for so long.

If it were just my son behaving like this, it would be easier to deal with, but it's his three best neighborhood friends as well. The pressure to turn the screens on is always there.

What I am wondering is, how are other parents - especially the ones who want their kids to have less screen time - dealing with the constant pressure to get back on the screens? (They have to be experiencing it too, since whenever my son logs on to Fortnite, it seems like a majority of his school friends are online!) And for those that have successfully lessened screen time, WHAT activities do your son(s) like to do? Should I enroll him in a sport or some type of activity every afternoon? Should I restrict screen time to the weekends? (I have tried this in the past, and then just got worn down, I guess.)

I'm not sure I've clearly articulated the problem, so I guess the tl;dr is, my son and his friends want to be on screens all the time; I feel like it's not enough to just limit screentime - I need to help my son find activities that are equally compelling, and could really use suggestions. Thanks!

He reads, plays lego, jumps on the trampoline, torments his younger brother, does his homework/chores/music practice and in the very limited amount of screen time we allow, plays Minecraft. He also obsesses over Pokemon, which is marginally better I suppose. He's seen Fortnite and thinks it's dumb, so we're off the hook there.

My kids think Fortnight is dumb too. They are more Minecraft/Pokemon types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. These replies are so helpful.

I wish there were a critical mass of boys my son's age who were just outside all the time. But often he and his friends are the only group walking around outside in our neighborhood (when I make them go outside). My son's friends all show up at our house with their devices - so even if I send them outside, once they get tired of it they go straight to the devices.

I too am torn about overscheduling (I have 2 other kids and don't want them to be in the car all the the time so we can drive my son to his activities) and wanting unstructured time (but then that ends up with the kids defaulting to screens).

I don't know that there's a solution to this. I'm also busy and have the 2 other kids so I can't always be monitoring the screen time to ensure that they are programming, for example, instead of just playing Fortnite. I did take Youtube off our TV and generally forbid it in our house... and that actually has improved things marginally (in that they are not constantly watching YouTubers and mimicking their speech and actions).

Careful what you wish for; there is always a down side. In our neighborhood, the kids who are forced outside to wander the streets (which is what they end up doing if they aren't sporty), end up getting into all kinds of mischief and trouble, particularly vaping and drinking.