Managing Video Game Time

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I thought this was worth starting its own thread. How do you actually implement and police the minute-for-minute time? I find that when my DS starts playing, I tend to get busy with my twin toddlers or household tasks or surfing the internet, and before I know it a huge amount of time has gone by, way over what I said he could have.

Set a timer.

My parents were oldschool. Well I was also raised in a Fundie Baptist household/church/school, so there's that. I had no video games, until like 5th grade I got a gameboy, then 6th an SNES and N64. Then I also discovered emulators for the computer. But I didn't have internet until like 5-6th grade, late year 2000. So partially my household was dysfunctional, but I did see some value in my the way my parent's raised me up to that point, even if it was a bit extreme. I got a lot of time outside.

I think parents should encourage their kids to go outside more. I was lucky in my case, as I had an acre yard, and my house was pretty much out in the boonies. So safety wasn't much of an issue, but my mom was so paranoid she'd not let me walk on the street because I'd get hit by a car. Again, dysfunctional. But still, all the time I had outside was good for my development. I'd get home from school at 3 or so, and then just play outside, by myself, until it got dark. Then TV was for after it got dark. So I don't know how solitary time like that was for my development, and my ASness, but yeah.

So anyway, my opinion is, the only time my computer/video game times got to be issues was when I stopped playing outside, which sorta happens as you get older (in my case I had nutritional problems that made it so I stopped all athletic things) and then to replace the outdoor time, I'd just play video games and be on the computer all day. So, it's sorta a divergent point, but make sure your kids get outdoors and do something on a regular basis. I'm not saying be like my parents, but make sure they get outdoors. This might require effort on your end, and time, ie, to take them to the park, but I think it's VERY good developmentally to get kids outdoors and active.

As far as your original question, though, I'd say just make sure they get their homework done somehow. My parents never made me do cursive practice, as I'd have that in school because I didn't go to terrible public school. So my workload for homework was pretty adequate, I just had to figure out a way to get it done, and usually I did in elementary. But I think going "minute by minute" like that is dumb. Just make sure it doesn't get in the way of other more important things, like sleep (this becomes especially important as adolescence comes around, I know from experience) and schoolwork (well at least it's important at the elementary level) make sure they get outside, and then whatever video game or computer time fits in after those things are fulfilled they get. As far as discipline in general, the main thing is being consistent, it's a lack of trust if you do not fulfill your "promise" to discipline, as strange as it sounds. How do I know you'll be consistent in anything you do? So it's less about hard rules and minutes and seeming OCDness like that, but just consistency in how you discipline.

Those are my thoughts.

timers set my son off. He has OCD with time and timers. I DO use timers, but he gets majorly hung up on issues revolving around time, timers, etc...

We used to have him earn money for following directions, good listening, etc... and the money turned directly into time. He had to count the money at 6pm and then he cashed it in for minutes. So, if he earned 55 cents,he got 55 minutes of gaming.

We HAVE to get back to a structured routine for video games, but my son had surgery where he is now on activity restrictions, not allowed to be physically active at all, so what else does he have to do? One this is over we will be back to structure with my son and video games!

During the school year, let your son play outside in good weather when he comes home from school. Then after dinner, he has to do his home work--no TV, and no video games on school nights. On days when the weather is too bad to play outside after school, he can start on school work before dinner. If he finishes before dinner, then you can make an exception, and let him either watch an hour of TV or play video games for an hour on school nights. On weekends, have him do chores and weekend home work in the morning, and then he can play outside in the afternoon if it's nice during the day. If the weather is bad, he can play video games and/or watch TV in the afternoons. Weekend evenings, the same thing, unless he has more weekend home work to do.

Remember, though, you are in charge, not your son. It's up to you to set--and enforce--the rules.

Yup, we set a timer (and I try to give him 5-minute and 1-minute warnings.) Otherwise, you can find another way to delineate the time within the game - but it means you're going to have to be hands-on.

The other key is, don't give the paycheck EVER until the work is done. I screw this one up periodically, trust me, it's a bad idea even if he proooommmissse that he will do the job afterwards. You can renegotiate if there's some sort of specific reason for flexibility, but the message you're trying to send is that you get ______________________ only if you do ___________________________. Later in life, this is a message he's going to need to understand better than he does now.

Before we began, as I mentioned, we wrote up a whole contract. I was helped that we started out with no game system at all (DS was only playing computer games and apps on an iphone) and we made the purchase of the equipment contingent on agreement with the contract. You might think about implementing this idea along with your next upgrade or game purchase, etc.

We also restricted the types of books: only chapter books he hasn't read before, with no pictures, so - no graphic novels, no re-reading the same book 100 times, no Diary of a Wimpy Kid in-between chapter books. This is consistent with DS's abilities, but he is so visually oriented that he would read comics 100% of the time if we let him (of course, we don't restrict his reading at other times, other than for content.) This was also written into the contract. We've been doing pretty well this summer with 1 hour of TV a day, 1/2 hour of video games on weekdays and 1 hour on "non-school" nights. I know most kids get far, far more than that, but this amount seems to work for us.

This all sounds incredibly OCD on the parent's end.

Your opinion would likely change if you were a parent. When you become a parent, you are no longer just responsible for yourself. You are responsible for someone else. Things that may seem trivial to a non-parent take on new significance when you realize 10 years down the road how you handle something might impact this person's ability to function in life and do what he/she wants to do.

I will admit to having a tendency in that direction that I have to fight daily. However, we came to this agreement as a family team, with some help from a therapist - and I'm confident that my deficits aren't at work here. As InThisTogether noted, I have to do what's best for my kid: at this point, he isn't able to regulate himself well enough to keep video games from taking over his life, and he needs both a predictable set of rules to follow in a format he understands, and to gain a general understanding of the expectation that he contribute as well as consume so that doesn't come as a shock in adulthood.

The times are arbitrary, you are right. We could easily give him an hour a day and two hours on weekends. Or fifteen minutes a day and half an hour on weekends - or whatever. This seems to work for both him and us, and it won't be too hard to reduce it once homework is back in the mix.

Well my issue is like, as an adult, the way you manage your time is always kinda variable. I'd LIKE to be able to set everything up by the exact minutes, but as it is I'm already too inflexible with what other people refer to as my "routines" and learning to manage your time in "real time" is sorta more important to adult life. Possibly if I lived alone and had no friends or other people in my life, I could plan out my days by the minute, but because of other people, I cannot do that. As far as what Zette said about taking care of the kids, and forgetting to go minute by minute with the timing of her son's video games, it's the same issue. Kids emulate their parents. Honestly I can say I emulate what my parent's did back then, their good and bad habits. Thankfully now I've learned to sort out what behaviors my parents had that were unproductive/bad, but my "automatics" if you will are what my parents did. So Zette's child, I would think sees the way Zette manages time, and is like "well my mother's not going minute by minute exactly, why should I?" Because in real life, things do not work minute by minute, except that certain things must be "on time." And to a point, as an adult, it's completely irrelevant if you stay up until 2AM playing video games even if you got an 8AM appointment the next morning, as long as you get to the appointment. Kids realize this, but they lack the self control to implement it as adults sorta can (though even as an adult doing such negative things will catch up to you.) So "no iPad before school" is one thing, since he's demonstrated that it legitimately interferes with his life, but I just find the whole "X minutes for X minutes" kinda thing just weird.

One thing for me, not regarding video game times, was, my mother would come home late at night. Like 1-2AM. I'd stay up so I could see my mother. But even when my mom wasn't working, she'd be up until then anyway. So I learned to stay up until then from my mother. How am I supposed to take bedtimes seriously if the person giving them doesn't have one? Meanwhile, I'd take bedtimes more seriously from my dad, as he'd go to bed at 8-10, and wake up at 6, he'd actually do what he was telling me himself.

I'm sorry for that tangent, and you know, I myself am not a parent, so yeah, but seriously, what you DO affects your kids much more than what you tell them. That's my main point. I don't wish to guilt trip anyone here, and I don't know the specifics of everyone's situation, but yeah.

As far as video games themselves. Well, lots of adults are addicted to them. I wasn't quite addicted to video games, but I spent much more time playing them before I was physically active, as, well...they're there and I didn't have anything better to do. You must find things that are better to do than video games. I think in this case, it's more "well roundedness" that comes into play.

As far as things to do that aren't video games and don't need physical activity. Well.... lots of stuff? Model kits was a big thing for me when I was younger. I loved Gundam models. I cut my fingers a few times with the exacto knife, and there's solvents and paints, but it's pretty safe of a hobby. As a kid, I LOVED taking things apart. I think I took apart my first thing at like 4 years old. An old clock. For a lot of years, I had the mainspring out of it and used it as a windup top. Taking apart old electronics is a relatively safe thing to do, too. Just make sure they're unplugged/no batteries. I mean, I never got most of the stuff given to me to take apart back together, but it was still great fun. I once took apart a computer (at like 1st-2nd grade) and got to see the inside of a hard drive, it was fascinating. Old electronics are pretty much free, whatever you find on the side of the road or trash, just give it to him with some screwdrivers and let him have it, it'll occupy him for hours. Just make sure they're unplugged and that he doesn't plug them in. I never got shocked from taking apart electronics. Just in general encourage creativity. One time I made a record player as a kid with a sewing needle, spool of thread, and a pencil and a paper cone. I remember the old World Book Encyclopedias used to have instructions for all kinds of things, how to make an FM transmitter, how to make a telegraph, etc. So many fun projects your kids can do for really not much money. Kids wanna feel...productive. But unfortunately for video games, video games and computers is a simulated feeling of productivity and accomplishment, give your kids some REAL things to accomplish that they have interest in doing and they shall. And I think in general for addictions, you have to replace things, it's a much harder effort just trying to not do the negative thing, if there's no positive thing replacing it.

Also, you single mothers both of you? My father would always like, if he was doing car repairs, take me and show me what was happening and have me help out (usually as the pedal pumper for bleeding brakes) and we had a machine shop and stuff, and lots of tools. Once I was about middle school aged, I could even use a bandsaw unsupervised, never cut myself. You might not wanna do that with your kids, for obvious reasons, but yeah.

I don't know, I'm sorta just venting...

EDIT:
http://scitoys.com/ This was one of my favorite websites at like 5-6th grade age. So many good projects. Wow, even more now. Awesome.

I'm lucky to have a very involved husband who helps as well; as I said, we came up with the video game thing as a team.

All people are different and have different needs - so, to offer a similar example, if you do everything your parents do they are early-morning person and you're a night owl, are you going to stumble around half-dazed all the time because you get up at 5am, or does the logic just apply when it's your preference? What about the differing sleep needs of kids and adults? I'm also not trying to pick on you; this type of logic comes up a lot here with teens and young adults with AS, whose perspective I value. I just want to point out that there's more than one way to look at it.

For instance, while there isn't necessarily an x minutes for x video game in real life, there will decidedly be an x minutes for x dollars, at least during the summers when he's old enough to work but still in school. People get paid by the hour, and even if they don't - they will have to pay for things by the hour like parking, babysitters, lawyers, etc. There is a value that's placed on time, and it's important to develop a sense of it. Otherwise, we don't plan out our whole lives to the minute - right now, this is the only timed thing we do.

And, OMG, thanks for the website!

To answer the original question, perhaps you should set the timer for yourself. I have the same problem,DS will have 20 min "to burn" so I let him go downstairs where the wii is and I get busy with housework and before I know it an hour has gone by. Not the end of the world but not the model of consistency that I am striving for. Perhaps a digital watch with the ability to easily set multiple alarms? You could set the first one for 5or 10 min warning then another one for end time.

I guess I didn't even think about that aspect of it - in our house, the timers are always for us!

You are going to be my son's hero! He loves stuff like this.

Thanks!

We have issues with games and 'screen time' in general. If I tell him that he needs to do something else for a little while, play with toys or draw then he thinks he is being punished. He is only 5 and already he is obsessed (father doesn't help, he doesn't see any problem with it). The problem is he is technically savvy so he walks into the room and turns on the PC, logs in and loads up the games, it's ridiculous. I am hoping it will improve once he starts school and knows that he has to do homework first but we'll see. We have tried the timer but it almost sent him into an anxiety meltdown waiting for the noise and I didn't want to torture him.