Video game addiction

[Anonymous]

Our fault we let our 14 year old son get into video games a year ago when he was diagnosed with a difficult disease and very depressed. Now we are paying the price and need to reign it in. Anyone with advice whose had to do similar? Please no super judgemental responses we realize our mistake. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I spent 15 years addicted to video games...fix it now, it ruined my life in many ways.

[Anonymous]

Well, it's your house. We only allow our 15 year old son access on the weekends--Friday evening to Sunday evening. You can start there. You control the internet access and the remotes. You can have him turn over the remote controller on Sunday evening. Any violation results in the internet being turned off.

As for his phone, you control that as well. It's perfectly fine to step in and limit his access. He'll throw a super tantrum, but, oh well. You'll all survive. As he is yelling at you, you just put this image in your head: Your son being a slob at age 35 still living in your basement and playing video games. That should inspire you to stay strong.

[Anonymous]

My 11 year old only has access Friday - Sunday evenings and he's still addicted. We have to micromanage his weekend usage. For example, 2 hours of ps4 usage and 1 hour of tablet usage on Sunday. Similarly we will give him guidelines for Sunday. If we don't do this he will play from the time he wakes until bed, only taking a break to eat meals.

[Anonymous]

14 is a hard age to set new boundaries.

Try one hour on one hour off.
Try setting a limit per day, but allow bonus time for doing chores, good behavior, etc.
Try planning some out of the house activities.
Try to encourage to have friends over. Even if they play video games, it is more social.

[Anonymous]

Its an addiction. Take it away cold turkey. After some period
reintroduce it with new ground rules. We do Friday to Sunday as well. No time limit Friday. Strict limits Saturday and Sunday. Some sundays not permitted at all if it feels like use is getting out of hand.

[Anonymous]

I would focus on what specific problems the video game use is causing and making rules/limits that address those issues. In that way the new rules will seem more logical to your son and you might be able to get more buy-in for why this change is necessary. Yes, it's your house and as the parents it is up to you to set the rules, but I've found that with teens everything is easier when (if) they can see for themselves the reason that new rules are necessary rather than creating an arbitrary power struggle situation. I'll do the latter if needed, but it's rarely been the best way in our house or the way that fits my parenting goals.

So, for example if he has not been getting adequate sleep, have a chat with him about why good sleep habits are important and that since video games are affecting this you will be instituting new time limits. The video games must be turned off X amount of time before bed, which is set for Y time.

Or, if his grades have been poor and you think a factor is that he's spending too much time on video games, you could
- have video games only on weekends so school nights are for concentrating on homework
- require that he complete all his homework and any studying for the night at the kitchen table before any video games
- ban video games until grades are at a certain level and he only has the right to play if his grades stay above that, checked weekly or whatever works for you.

If he is neglecting obligations (such as chores) or family events in order to have more time to play, I would require that he earn time on the video games by first completing other necessary tasks and allow no more than 2 hours per day maximum to be earned during the week.

For my kids something that often worked well, also, was picking a calm time to talk to them about why we thought something was a problem, and their ideas on how to fix the issue. Perhaps your teen notices that some things in his life are getting shortchanged and if that's the case he might be guided to see video games as a factor and suggest some of his own ideas for limits that work with how he prefers to set his routines.