Q: Dear Great Scott,
We have four awesome kids that are doing well and generally mature choices with their lives and friends. Teachers have always said positive things about them to us, as well as neighbors and others people we come in contact with.
They get decent grades, treat people with respect, use clean language, don’t drink or do drugs, have good friends, date nice girls, are healthy, and the oldest is a dependable employee — so all’s well, right?
But we’re not so sure… we are concerned about how lazy it seems that our teens want to be. This really centers around their desire to play video games whenever they can.
Given the opportunity, they would love to play from after school to the wee hours during the week and all day and night on weekends. Their friends, who are also great kids who we enjoy having in our home, like to come over every few days and join them and we are happy to provide a safe, warm environment with easy access to snacks and sodas.
We designed our basement with kids in mind, so they have a nice place geared for their enjoyment. The guys hoot and holler and just have a great old time playing video games. (Very) occasionally, they’ll play pool, or poker, or watch a movie; but it’s as if their hooked to video games.
We are generally successful at limiting our teens’ game time to after homework and no later than 10 p.m. on school nights, but when we have tried to put other parameters in place (like no playing on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Sundays and no more than a few hours the other days like we do for our elementary age kids), our teens have gotten grumbly and cross.
Their perspective is that high school is tough, they do their jobs, clean when asked, and are really good kids so they should be able to play video games the rest of the time. And I must admit, I do enjoy knowing where they are and that all is well — so, as the house rumbles to the sound of gaming and the hoots of teens, there is that bit of comfort there for me.
So now we don’t have any gaming restrictions in place beyond the after homework and not too late.
So my questions are … Are we contributing to the laziness of minors by letting them play as much as they like? Should we set up some additional parameters to limit video game time for our teens and if so, what would be best for these guys? I’d love to hear your opinion!
– Halo2Live Mom
SCOTT: There’s a saying: you know you’re addicted to video games when you don’t want to go outside anymore due to the tacky graphics, low playability and poor sound quality. That’s your kids.
Know how I know that? Because you took the time to write about it.
Take alcohol away from an alcoholic or cigarettes away from a smoker and they’d be grumpy. Take video games away from a teen gaming addict and you can count on the same unpleasant result.
It’s actually a good idea to restrict your kid’s gaming time because — let’s be realistic — it’s not going to get them anywhere in life. Video games are for entertainment purposes and should be treated as such.
Yeah, we’d all love to be entertained 100% of the time but the fact is we have to fit in some time for reality.
And you know how manipulative kids can be. When they start acting up over the imposed restrictions, tell them their attitude will only cost them even more valuable gaming time. They’ll figure it out sooner or later.
There’s more to life than 24-hour gaming. You know that, I know that now it’s their turn to learn.
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– Scott