Tantrums about computer games?

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My 10 year old aspie daughter has really bad tantrums when her computer game is going wrong. She gets so frustrated when she doesnt know what to do or cant get past a level. She screams and shouts and breaks things.

What is the best way of dealing with these tantrums?

my daughter is the same but she is only 6. although she doesnt have major tantrums, she does get very frustrated and this usually leads to tears.

i have banned her from most games except for the simplest linear ones. Before she plays i explain to her that if she loses her temper or gets too frustrated then the game will be banned for a certain time. usually a couple of months.

I agree with DarkMage. You should ban any game that causes an outbreak for a month or two. Also, tell your daughter, if she actually throws or breaks anything during these outbursts, that she is banned from using the computer games for a week. At ten, she is old enough for this kind of consequence. Due to her extreme level of frustration stress, it would be a good idea if you have some place in the house that can be set aside as a "mad" room, where she can go when she is upset. It should be kept dimly lit while she is in there during a "mad", and it should have a mat, like an exercise mat, on the floor, with a blanket and pillow, and there should be a few soft toys in there, like a teddy. She can go there and rage all she wants, and gradually calm down, and maybe take a nap. Obviously, there should be no really breakable stuff in there.

You also need to start teaching her ways that she can use to calm herself, starting with taking a number of deep breaths. Also, exercise is good. It burns off excess energy and stress, and releases mood boosting endorphins. You need to tell her that when she starts getting too stressed out by one activity, she should put it aside for a while, and go do something else.

Something else you need to do. NO caffeinated beverages for your daughter, and cut way back on drinks and snacks with added sweeteners. --NO soda, it's garbage. Even the ones with artificial sweeteners are bad. Those artificial sweeteners are not safe, for instance one of them converts to formaldehyde in the body, and all the others also have unhealty aspects to them. Just give your daughter water, milk, juices with no added sugar, soy/rice/oat/almond/milks, herbal teas with no caffeine added--sweeten with apple or grape juice. And cut down on the pastries--there are a lot of tasty fruits out there she can have instead.

In case you think I am just being a pest, caffeine, sugar and related sweeteners make kids hyper and cranky. If you reduce these you will reduce the hyperness and crankyness. Be warned though, if your kid has been accustomed to eating/drinking a lot of sweets and caffeine, they will be worse for a week or two when you first cut back, as they will be going through withdrawal symptoms. It would be best to start this during summer vacation because of that. Letting your kid have a lot of fruit during this period should help some though, as the natural sugars in the fruit will help offset some of the problem. The natural sugars in fruit are different than processed sweeteners. Our bodies are designed to handle those, so they don't cause the same problem as processed sweeteners.

I do hope this all helps. I am in my 50s, and still suffer from extreme frustration at times even at my age. I am somewhat better at dealing with it now, but it is still a problem at times.

ive been a gamer since i was about 6 or 7. im now 33. when i was in my early teens i used to get extremely frustrated at games. it was so bad that i used to hit myself in the head with the joypads or punch myself in the face.

i dont like talking about it but this where it could lead if you dont put your foot down.

the most important thing to do is to make sure you explain what will happen BEFORE she starts playing. after a couple of weeks without moshi she may change her ways.

with my daughter there seems to be a tipping point. she is okay for so long but then she begins to get frustrated and she slips into a zone where you cannot reason with her so she has to come off the game and go into another room on her own until she calms down.

good luck. let us know how you get on.

I would just take the game away from her for a week and every time she has a tantrum, the game goes to time out for a week. But I would give her a warning first that if she doesn't stop, the game gets taken away for a week.

When my DD (who is 9) got this way about computer games last year, her therapist got to the root of why my DD was so mad. Part of it was the frustration of the game, but it was also my response ("This is only a game...!", "Don't you dare throw that (computer) mouse!", etc.). To her the game is very real and the consequences are serious. Putting things in perspective only worked when she was calm (we talk about Elephant-sized problems and Peanut-sized problems).

What we decided to do, in addition to scaling back some of the game time on the computer, was create a little card that said "Taking a break, will be back in 5 minutes". I armed her with a few of these cards as well as myself and when she was particularly frustrated, I would just gently slide the card in front of her field of vision. No comments, no facial expression, no stern body language...She would typically hop off the computer and sometimes even run away. But she was always back, much calmer, within the 5 minutes. I gave her a small stress ball to utilize and take with her to the computer and when she was frustrated away from the computer as well.

When she was calmer, we would talk about the trigger and I also tried to get to understand her games. We looked on the "Wikis" for the games and characters, talked about strategies, and basically tried to come up with another means to get involved in the game in a non-confrontational manner. She would draw pictures or write "fanfics" instead.

I also tried modeling "appropriate" behavior when computer games weren't going so well for me (it helps that I like the same games my kids do )...I would play and then say, in almost an exaggerated voice, "Oh Man! I just lost! I'm really mad but I'm gonna do something else for a minute or two and then come back." I wouldn't tell her I was doing this, I would just do it. I also took opportunities in other situations (like when I was running behind schedule or when I lost something) to show that yes, mom gets frustrated too, but we have other channels for expressing anger.

At one point, I also showed her how much a Mighty Mouse from the Apple Store cost ($60+) and told her that if it broke, not only would we have no computer mouse, but she would have to pay for the replacement out of her allowance...this was discussed when she was calm, of course, not to "fuel the fire".

thats another good point. saying its only a game is like saying to race driver that its only a car.

my mum used to say to me that its only a game but it isnt and still isnt now.

Ugh, I sooo feel your pain. My 11 year old son often has this problem.

He struggles with chance and with games of all kinds anyway, and he has this idea that he's going to be perfect at everything the first time he tries it. We've several times had to leap in and rescue the computer because he was just about to smash it.

Things are getting better, though - in large part because he's having lots of specific therapies with winning/losing, and dealing with general rigidity e.g. board game therapy. He still doesn't enjoy board games, but he's gotten to a place where he can almost enjoy the simplest preschool ones (like Hungry Hungry Hippos) and he can sit through a regular game without tantruming, largely by telling himself he hates the game and doesn't care.

Problem is, he DOES care about video games. He's slowly, over time, starting to learn that he needs to practice, and practicing means failing and starting over and doing it again to get better. Sometimes this helps him, sometimes not.

It can be one symptom of systemic rigidity/perfectionism and developmental issues. Is your daughter getting help for those?

I agree with LeagueGirl.

Something that I do with myself when I'm not performing as well as I want to on a game is that I turn the game off for the rest of the day and do something else. Something that relaxes me. Maybe you can teach her to do that, as well.