kookiehazel

Hi! I'm new to the group but not to unschooling. My kids have never
been to school but I was a former teacher so I had a lot of unlearning
to do and I'm still unlearning. I have a dd who is 11 and a ds who is
10. My ds suffers from a birth defect in his kidney's arteries. His
artery is too small to allow blood to flow smoothly so it causes him to
have high blood pressure.If he ellivates it drastically he could hve a
stroke. He does so well anymore though physically because he is home
and doesn't have the stress that the typical child who would have gone
to school would have had to endure. Trying to find a balance as well
at home, we try to live as stressfree and peacful as possible for him.
He is on medications for his condition. My struggle is video/ computer
games. They are a big no no for his health. He doesn't have an actual
video type of gaming system for this reason but his best friend does
and he is like a kid in a cnady store who is not allowed. We try our
hardest to live by "unschool" standards and allow natural consequence
to occur. I don't want him to stress his condition etc... My dh and I
have discussed this and are unsure what to do behaviorally about it.
We are feaful of our ds having a stroke when he goes to his friends to
play. Help! Thanks Anna

Heather

Hi Anna,

<My struggle is video/ computer
> games. They are a big no no for his health. He doesn't have an actual
> video type of gaming system for this reason but his best friend does
> and he is like a kid in a cnady store who is not allowed.>
>






I am unclear on why you don't allow video/computer games. Are you afraid
he'll enjoy them so much that his
blood pressure will rise & result in a stroke? One reason we encourage
families not to make something off-limits, like you've done with gaming, is
that the results are often what you describe "like a kid in a candy store".
Of course, he'll be that way. Why wouldn't he? Wouldn't it be better to
allow gaming in your own home, so he can learn, with your assistance, how to
play these games safely? Couldn't he learn how to self-regulate, learn his
own body's signals of when he might need to take a break and so forth? Then
when he's exposed to gaming in his friends homes, it won't be something
special.

heather m


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wisdomalways5

if he is going to go out of your home to play these things you might
want to consider how to make them safe at home.

How are video games more stressful than anything eles he does? How
do you know that playing video games WILL give him a stroke? if he
is already playing them at friends houses with no stroke then how
will he be able to trust you. If he knows that basicaly ANYTHING
could cause a stroke and chooses to live life doing what he enjoys
than why begrudge him that.

Julie


--- In [email protected], "kookiehazel"
<kookiehazel@...> wrote:
>
My ds suffers from a birth defect in his kidney's arteries. His
> artery is too small to allow blood to flow smoothly so it causes
him to
> have high blood pressure.If he ellivates it drastically he could
hve a
> stroke.

My struggle is video/ computer
> games. They are a big no no for his health. He doesn't have an
actual
> video type of gaming system for this reason but his best friend
does
> and he is like a kid in a cnady store who is not allowed.

Joyce Fetteroll

On Feb 29, 2008, at 8:38 AM, kookiehazel wrote:

> We are feaful of our ds having a stroke when he goes to his friends to
> play.

The problem with rules is that once kids are beyond the reach of
rules, they can do anything they want.

In terms of life skills, forbidding him and then hoping he'll forbid
himself once you're not around, isn't a great strategy. I worked with
a woman with a 20-ish son who had diabetes that she controlled
according to the "rules" for diabetics. And boy was he self
destructive. She couldn't understand why he was fighting what made
sense and she was distraught. It was pretty obvious to me that he
wasn't fighting common sense but her control.

No matter how sensible the control, control is something to fight
against. It's just human nature.

> My struggle is video/ computer
> games. They are a big no no for his health.

I think you need to reexamine that statement. It's not video games
that are a no no. It's getting stressed -- at least from what you
write -- that's a no no. I truly doubt there have been studies done
that showed video games cause strokes in kids with your son's
condition. It's just an item put on a list by a researcher who took a
guess at things that might raise blood pressure. Then it became an
official "no no" because it seemed like some expert must have studied
this extensively.

You could forbid him to see the friend, but that sets him up to learn
to lie and sneak. You could forbid him to play games away from home,
but how exactly will you make that work? Strap a video camera to him?

Until *he* chooses not to play video games, there isn't a way for you
to stop him.

You could fill him full of fear that he'll have a stroke if he plays
video games (or anything that you want him to avoid doing) but if he
plays and doesn't have a stroke, he *knows* it's not a given. He
*can* play and not have a stroke. (And the stress of disobeying to do
something he loves could be far worse than video games!)

*Much* better to help him play in a safe way. Work *with* him to be
aware of his body, to take breaks when he starts feeling a certain
way. Come up with *a lot* of strategies and tweak them. Be his
partner in helping him live rather than his guardian.

> he is home
> and doesn't have the stress that the typical child who would have gone
> to school would have had to endure.

You can't keep him home forever. Life is stressful. *Way* better to
find methods to help him cope with stress than avoiding it.

Joyce

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