screen time, discipline...are we doing this wrong? HELP!

Post Reply New Topic

Also, keep in mind that not all of our kids hate socializing: my son desperately wants to be social and spends most of his time worrying about it and planning social contact - in fact, half the reason he wants to be online is to be with his friends. He just doesn't understand that you can't invite over a friend and immediately open up a comic book and turn your back on them, or that you can't play a videogame cooperatively if you only do things that benefit yourself - he tends to follow his impulses and forgets that there is someone else involved.

He does like socializing, but he doesn't remember to account for things like reciprocity, time management, rudeness etc., etc.

In other words, it really depends entirely on the individual kid.

Thank you everyone for your opinions, they give me a lot of valuable info to work with here and I truly appreciate it! A few thoughts based on all of yours

1. The happiness issue. We can get into a lot of philosophy here, can't we? That said, on one hand I could say that yes, he loves to play and it makes him happy. My alcoholic friend would also say that wine made her very happy...until she was done with the bottle. I don't think he is addicted at this point, I think it all falls into the special interest category, but I do see the possibility of addiction as a danger for him. He has never been like this with his legos or his books, that's for certain. Sometimes he is playing and he is having a great old time, one that I would equate with how happy he is when swimming, or building his latest lego ship, for example. Other times, he is using it strictly to fill a void, much like I might sit down to a pint of ice cream after I've had a particularly bad day. I think we all do that sometimes and it's okay, but the balance part of it is what's tricky.

2. One writer mentioned that it seemed the problem is the affect it has on his behavior, and yes, that is a big issue. If he disappears into his books for four hours and emerges back into the household, he is usually in a good mood. He won't flip out if I ask him to take out the trash, he won't body slam his little brother just because he is singing a song he doesn't like. He gets it if I suggest he eat something other than apples or maybe take a shower. But four hours on video games? He comes out of it just unable to do anything, other that beg for more game time.

3. Screen bias...never thought of it this way but I'm glad some of your brought it up. We are not a computer family, and while we use them as tools and for communication, and a bit of entertainment, they haven't served us as entertainment the way they serve our son. In fact, my Aspie husband is the most anti-screen person I know (he had no TV growing up) and if he had it his way we would all watch a family movie on Friday night and that's it. So I have my anti-screen Aspie husband up against my "I love video games" Aspie son. I'm in the middle somewhere.....What I am trying to get our family to come to terms with is that this could be his path and that's cool, I want to make sure it's healthy for him and doesn't get in the way of other things. I appreciate the idea that we may need to think out of the box here.

4. Structure vs. strictness. I do sometimes think that maybe I am too strict with him. Before his diagnosis this year, we spent the last year deciding that maybe we were just not strict enough with him, that we were letting him walk all over us and maybe that was our trouble. You can all imagine how that backfired! Now we simply just deal with a lot of control issues with him, and in the process of learning about how to work with my Aspie kid, I'm getting the necessary structure part mixed up with just being too strict with him, in regards to many things. I want him to have fun, enjoy himself, be a kid (and not work in a mine ) but at the same time, he is kind of king of the castle right now, and his little brothers are starting to notice that he doesn't set the table, doesn't do his homework, doesn't come on time to supper, etc.

Lot's to think about, and perhaps I'm just thinking out loud now. Lastly, for those of you on the IT side of the world, how do we get him started? My husband loves to take apart computers and fix them, but he's a hardware only kind of guy. Any suggestions on how to help him learn? (I barely know what Linux is....) I do see a difference in general screen time vs. game time. If he spends two hours researching Egyptian gods he acts much differently than two hours of Subway Surfer.

Thank you everyone!

Just to play devil's advocate for a sec - you need to bear in mind why games are such a release for our kids - they are highly visual, repetitive, predictable and not socially demanding. I feel to take it away from him entirely could slightly unfair on him

Our son isn't allowed to play games during the week, he is allowed to watch youtube in order to gets ideas for building mario lego. At the weekend, he is allowed to play games with his dad (within reason).
Could you teach your son about negotiation/compromise - he gets an hour of computer games for chores/homework etc

I understand the total happiness of special interests for autistic people, but what I see here is addiction.

I want to start by saying, Becca29, that I appreciate the thoughtfulness you exhibit in your post, and willingness to read everything and try to figure out what applies to you. We can be a little rough sometimes around here, but it seems like you know how to take it. That bodes well for your family. I think you will figure out how to help your son.

I'm not a techie but I'll share what I've observed with my son. Not sure how useful those observations are, but maybe they will be a start.

There are some fabulous tech camps that kids can attend, but they are expensive. The tools used at age 10 can be added to almost any computer, so at least with that you aren't finding yourself training your child to do things he can't even do at home. My son (16) has enjoyed coding since he was 11, and much of it is self taught, but he is more of a game designer than a coder, so he hasn't gone as far with coding as he once expected to. Still, he can code a little in 4 languages right now, mostly self-taught following a few weeks of tech camp.

The equipment needs do eventually change, and in order to run the game design platform the teenagers train on and that can be used to develop professional games, we had to buy my son a much better computer than my husband or I had ever felt a need to own. We figured that was better than spending the same money on another camp, but the problem we've run into is that now it is just way too tempting to keep playing computer games, instead of programming them. On our other computers, the fancy multi-player games don't run well enough to create a long-term engaging experience, but on his new computer they do, and between my son and my daughter that computer ends up used nearly 24/7. That is not what we paid that money for, and I've become a bit of a nag about it. I don't really know where to go from here, because he is very much interested in doing professional game design, but it is also so much easier just to play.

The good news is that the game programming platform my son has is free for download, because the idea is to open source game development on the platform, and then charge for the software once you've got a sellable product. You'll find a lot of that in the tech industry, because open source allows the future workforce to basically train itself.

If you have a child destined for tech, he is likely to run with it the first time you introduce him to coding. There are kids my son's age who are programming phone apps and selling. There are kids already fluent in 5 programming languages; coding is what they do to relax, for fun; they'll spend their full summer vacation on it. I thought that was my child for a while, but he no longer has that level of interest. For some kids, it really takes hold.

Anyway, best of luck. It is never easy to figure out what the right road is for someone else, but if you keep an open mind, I believe you eventually get there.

Alright, reading through this...

From the first post, I think the issue is that he likely doesn't understand why the time is being limited - there's likely not a good reason, or at least a well-established one, in place.

For me, my family has two-hour rotations on stuff like this because we have four brothers (Myself included) whom all play videogames in one fashion or another. I don't really think there's anything wrong with playing a lot of games in itself, and it's likely that he just doesn't understand why it's being limited, which is causing frustration as his favorite hobby - It's just as much of a hobby as reading, so he doesn't really understand the point of it being limited in the first place, unless it's something like giving a sibling a turn on it.

That said, the swearing/spending money without permission is something I generally don't agree with. Perhaps the swearing is a result of external influence (School, maybe?) So that might be difficult, but the money thing can be rectified quite easily (We kind of need that for food...)

Generally, he doesn't understand why the time is being limited - and he's fighting back against a rule with faulty logic behind it, or at the very least logic he has yet to comprehend.

Is there a viable reason for limiting his time? I don't really think doing a lot of computer can be that bad for someone, really...

The app-design idea sounds good, and it could work since it's already sort of his special interest.

I think one of the larger ideas with ending would likely be the issue with transitioning from one thing to the other - if you are going to have him stop, at least give him a warning a half hour prior to it, just to let him know so the transition is easier. (If there's a viable reason for him to stop.)

Are you planning on getting any more systems? Games can have just as much of a story as a book or a television show, discounting it just because it's a game isn't something viable.

PS3 would be the likeliest choice, there's a lot of games in that area on that system.

I do think this sounds more like addiction than special interest.

For comparison, some of my special interests are video games.

I sometimes complain if someone tries to stop me in the middle of something or if I haven't gotten a turn in a long time, but I will often willingly get off when my brother's turn comes up and let him play. I also have things I enjoy doing that do not involve the computer, and I'll gladly do those instead when I'm in the mood. For example, I often go for a walk and videotape wild animals, or read books or journal articles, or write. In addition, if my schedule changes in such a way that I get a lot less screen time than usual (I'm in university, so this is usual when I'm in classes), my overall mood stays about the same and I don't really miss it all that much.

I do find anything on the computer tends to be really hard to shift away from, so I can easily spend hours on the computer without noticing, but I think that's a separate issue. And I counter it by working in time in my schedule when I can't go on the computer (even though I'm an atheist, I go to church with my parents and sit in the basement to work on my stories or read journal articles).