Gerard & Leonie Westenberg

<<,Yet in the meantime, some kids are learning so much stuff through
gaming and parents routinely criticize it as entertainment,
obsessions, worthless use of time, expensive and wasteful and so on.>>>

You are so right.

One of the mothers in our homeschool group is having a hard time ( her words) with her fifteen year old. She ngas him about game playing and he responds in anger and it escalates from there.

Last week, at a teen group in the park, I spent a while chatting to this kid about his games and about the games I play and the games my dh plays. He seemed so happy to have someone take an interest in gaming.

Leonie



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Holly

I have a question about this. My d/s (9) LOVES playing games on his
computer but when he's finished is extremely irritable and rude whether
he was asked to get off or not. Does anyone else have this problem and
if so any/all suggestions please?

I encourage him to play because he has learned so much about strategy
and has taken one of his games way beyond what I even knew was
possible, but we are definitely having an attitude problem when he
signs off. Setting limitations just makes him more angry, but there is
life outside of the computer game and so much more that we could share
together...

soggyboysmom

--- In [email protected], "Holly"
<hbinkley3@a...> wrote:
> I have a question about this. My d/s (9) LOVES playing games on
his
> computer but when he's finished is extremely irritable and rude
>whether
> he was asked to get off or not. Does anyone else have this problem
>and
> if so any/all suggestions please?
>
> I encourage him to play because he has learned so much about
>strategy
> and has taken one of his games way beyond what I even knew was
> possible, but we are definitely having an attitude problem when he
> signs off. Setting limitations just makes him more angry, but
>there >is
> life outside of the computer game and
Could be he's plain old hungry. Can you provide a small plate of
easily maneuvered finger stuff for him while he's playing?

>so much more that we could >share > together...
Have you tried getting into his world and sharing in, learning
about, the games he loves?

Don't forget - if you've limited games, he's going to play like mad
when the limits drop because he knows from experience already that
the limits will come back. He needs time to trust they won't be
coming back before he can relax about it. If you had been limited
about your favorite food (like mint chip ice cream) and then someone
said Okay no more limit. So you ate a bunch and they said "Oops my
mistake, you NEED a limit" and you got limited again. And then they
removed the limit yet again, wouldn't you go a little nuts at first
until you came to trust that it was there for you *whenever* you
chose, however much you wanted at the time?

--Deb

Julie Bogart

--- In [email protected], "Holly" <hbinkley3@a...>
wrote:
> I have a question about this. My d/s (9) LOVES playing games on his
> computer but when he's finished is extremely irritable and rude whether
> he was asked to get off or not. Does anyone else have this problem and
> if so any/all suggestions please?

Sometimes they are frustrated because:

a) they weren't successful at the mission (didn't get to the next
level, got beat, felt like they were better at the game yesterday...
sort of like how when peoplel play golf for relaxation and come hom
irritible because their swing just didn't go well).

b) they sense that someone is waiting for them to get off and it threw
off their concentration.

c) they know that they have no one to debrief with after the game
(they won't say this to you, but I've noticed that if I just start
asking interested questions about the game itself, they will unwind as
they describe what happened online). We'd ask questions after a soccer
practice (sorry to keep using that example, but it works for me) if a
child came home irritible (was your coach hard on you? Did you get
tired? Was it too hot?)

Maybe for gaming you can ask, "Wow. What happened? Did you not get to
the next level? Was there too much lag? Who was online today? Anyone fun?"

Just be a friend, rather than wishing that the child wasn't cranky.

d) they are just cranky.

If your kids get cranky at the supermarket or while cleaning up the
ktchen table, we don't usually worry that those activities are the
issues. We usually work on helping them through the attitude or emotion.

Same with gaming.

My boys have had periods of irritibility during especially challenging
levels of games. They might go days not breaking through. That is
frustrating! But it is also building skills like perseverance when
things get tough and a willinginess to work hard even when feeling
cranky. :)

Julie


>
> I encourage him to play because he has learned so much about strategy
> and has taken one of his games way beyond what I even knew was
> possible, but we are definitely having an attitude problem when he
> signs off. Setting limitations just makes him more angry, but there is
> life outside of the computer game and so much more that we could share
> together...