Pro Gamer Me

My son has made some bad choices.   He's made a series of them and each time we thought he'd learned his lesson but it would appear he's not that smart, or he's hardheaded, or he's stubborn, or all of the above.   The rule is he can have screens on the weekend, within reason—that reason being at our discression—but none during the week.

'Screens' means no shows on the Alexa Show, no television, no video games and no iPad.   We make some exceptions like he is allowed to watch cooking recipes on Alexa while he's in the kitchen with my husband.   There are other times we let them watch a show before bed together because they've gotten everything done and haven't caused mischief.   But for the most part we try to stick to no screens because my son will start to think about ways he can get screens if he thinks we're easily swayed.

Three times recently we've found his Nintendo Switch in his bed during the week.  Two of those times we foolishly forgot to remove it from the cradle at the end of the weekend.  It was too much of a temptation for him we found out and he agreed it was better to be elsewhere and not relatively close at hand.

This is where the not so smart part comes in.   His level of deviousness is very low.  He's using the switch and not even bothering to cover his tracks, double back and returning the switch later so we wouldn't be any the wiser.  Each time before he lost screen privileges and was told he had betrayed our confidence in him and that had lost our trust.   So tonight when I found the Switch, yet again, in his bed as I was putting things up at the end of the day, I had a bigger talk with him.

This time, we hadn't left the Switch out.   This time I had put it away, in a spot he shouldn't have known about, which means he went looking for it and took it intentionally from a spot he shouldn't have been in.   This time, there was going to be a bigger consequence.

Initially, I told him he lost screens for all of Friday.   He asked if I wouldn't tell his father but I told him I had to.   Then, he reminded me we would be out of town on Friday, so I thought about it and decided on another consequence: no more Switch.  Period.   I would decide when he could have it back.   It definitely wouldn't be for the time his father and I were away.   He would have to make do with his iPad or television.

He wasn't happy so we brought evidence to bear on him.  My husband showed him for the first time exactly when and for how long he'd been using the Switch—because parental controls showed us that information.  And yes, we'd be checking in the future.   He didn't like that.   At all.

He was okay with losing the Switch at that point until I explained it meant he wouldn't get it back, for any reason, until he proved to me we could trust him, and that included playing games with Uncle Jonathan.   That's when it hit him this was serious.   He told me something like his life was over.

My husband and I got on with the homework and other things the end of night in our family entails when my son came downstairs with an interesting piece of art he had made using tape and paper.   He thinks in three dimensions and a lot of his art involves things like this.   This is him, sitting with his legs crossed, playing on his Switch with the title, "Pro Gamer Me"

It was a fair piece of work he created in about ten minutes.   He was over the loss of the Switch by then but wanted to talk about how he was a "Pro Gamer".  We agreed, he was quite a good gamer for an eight-year-old.   That ended the night I thought but I was wrong as he came down not ten minutes after he'd gone to bed.

He said he had a scary thought.  He was worried that we might not love him someday.   I wrapped my arms around him as he curled into a ball against me nestled amongst the pillows of my bed and told him I would always love him until the day I died.   Parents, don't say, "until I die" to your child unless you want to start another discussion and possibly add to their worry.   Fortunately, my son was easily thrown off this line of thinking by some deft explaining in a tangential direction and was laughing moments later and feeling better. 

I've hidden the Switch in a wholly new location.   It's such a good location I'm afraid I'm going to forget where I put it so I messaged my husband letting him know.   Ideally, my son will forget about the Switch and do more productive things with his time than trying to figure out when and how he can get screen time. 

The Big Boy Update:  When my son isn't focused on screens or getting screen time (he does really like playing games and watching videos about playing games) he has a lot of fun.   He plays with his friends and comes up with all sorts of things to do.   It's why the weekdays are (ideally) screen-free.  He gets a lot more physical activity when he's bouncing around, running in and out of the house, playing basketball and other non-screen things.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter called me from her cab today.  She does not like the cab ride.   The driver keeps the cab too hot, the students in the cab right now aren't interesting and the driver has not much in the way of personality or interactivity.   Starting tomorrow I've loaded a long audiobook on her watch and we'll be sending her to school with headphones so she can tune everything out and get lost in a book.   I hope this will help because she doesn't like the cab ride at all.   Today she called me and asked why I wouldn't pick her up at school.   She didn't like the answer that her brother and she had to be picked up in two different cities at the same time, making getting both of them impossible.