Son computer addicted (Fortnite) and has 5 in math?

I'm a single father of a son who attends the 8th grade of a secondary school. Soon the first half-year certificates will be issued and yesterday my son has announced to me that he will get a 5 in math on the certificate. Remarkable was the indifference, he brought it over as if it was nothing bad, ate briefly at the table and strolled comfortably into his room to play computer again. I did not do any stress because I have been planning how to proceed from today. The fact is that there will definitely be consequences. The boy has been playing a lot of computers for a long time, especially on weekends, when it can be at least 8 hours. Then has his headset on the weekend and roars through the entire room until 4:00 in the morning. The game is called Fortnite. He seems already addicted to this trash. Have already researched on the Internet that makes this game extremely addictive. I do not understand how one can obstruct one's life like this. I would most like to bag the game completely and install a parental control on the computer, access to the computer then he would only have if he has to do something for the school. At the same time I would compulsorily register for matriculation and only allow computers to be played on weekends and not more than four hours. Do you find my approach too hard? Would like to get advice from other parents. I just want to make sure I'm not too hard.

Luckily I'm not a dad, but as a child I was just as fond of computer games as your son is now.

The craze for computer games is often not the cause of a problem, but its consequence. If a child has social problems in, for example, the school, it will look for a place where it can be articulated and recorded. A game like Fortnite comes as an oasis in the desert. If you take these away from him, he will be completely without anything and then there may be more problems than "just" a few bad grades. So before you take any consequences, you should first search for the origin in terms of your son's well-being.

If it really turns out that the kid is simply addicted to the fun of the game itself, things will look different again. Whereby you should consider in your planning that gaming is the number one topic among children and adolescents these days. If he has not had any social problems yet and you take the console away from him, he would not be able to have a say and be kicked out at the latest. That would also not affect him and his grades well.

School is not easy - you learn all day and then write ones. A tutoring and independent learning brings nothing if the motivation is missing. It goes into one ear and out of the other ear out. He would still bring you home, except that bad mood is the order of the day. Is that the point? I do not think so.

If you want to do him a favor and prepare for the real life, then use this computer addiction as your own tool. For example, you can choose to spend an hour playing first for an hour. As a result, he has a motivation to learn and the duration of the gambling will almost halve. Gambling for 8 hours will teach 4 hours and gamble for 4 hours. You may even consider buying an adapter for the power adapter that will automatically cut power after a set amount of time. There are certain. Maybe as a program.

In any case, the fact is that he hardly knows what to expect if he does not pack the school well. He will only realize that when it is too late and when he sees what "work" actually means. Therefore, act now and not rush from one extreme to the next.

The craze for computer games is often not the cause of a problem, but its consequence.

You can't emphasize the sentence strongly enough. And the addiction to computer games can generally be replaced by addictions. Addictions are the result of much deeper problems.

Your references to the social dependencies I find also very good and well explained.

You also try to offer a solution and clearly point out the dangers in the project.

Thank you so much.

greeting back

Gorgeous written. For this answer you should get a star.

I'm really looking forward to your compliment.

I also wrote a comment now. Maybe you can comment it too.

I'll take a look, I'm curious.

I know this problem…

My daughter is 16 and likes to play.

The reason was initially that she was bullied in her class. But since teens do not like to talk about themselves and their problems, despite inquiring and talking to their teachers, we did not have much success finding out.

The first one was more about her. In addition a restriction of the on-line times. During the week all devices including smartphone from 9 o'clock in the evening to 6 o'clock in the morning no connection. At the weekend, the network for the devices now turns off at 12 noon at night.

In addition trips, common food and tasks in the household so that they are more involved in everyday life.

Since my wife and I also like to play computer games, we have made them play with us sometimes. That also helped a lot, because she saw that we got involved with her.

However, the final solution was only reached after she changed school and thus came into a new environment.

Great answer

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately I was hardly different in my youth (even when I was 44).

At that time it was still the C64 and there was no Internet but at the time computer was more important than school. My problems were rather with the English, even if I did nothing for the other subjects, it was always just enough.

With tutoring I always felt punished, clearly today I know that I should have done more but I did not care. Unfortunately, this insight did not come until late (when I was at 40 my technician and thus the Fachhochschulreife made).

Therefore, I would not necessarily threaten with tutoring but rather take the time myself and together (if possible) to learn with the boy. I know being a single parent also means that you do not have much time, so here you have to look if a fixed time can't be found. The best way to vote with the teacher what has come over the week and then rework again.

You write that your son is in eighth grade, so I suspect that he might be 14-15 years old. Of course, your son should continue to play, prohibitions obtain rather defiance and are therefore hardly effective.

In Windows, you can set up user accounts with which you can also set a time. So you should limit the user time on weekends to max 1h at night (which should rather be the exception but in today's youth that is seen differently.). And the max. Use time to play at the weekend should not be more like 5h (I guess you meant 8h per day) (which is well above the recommendations of educators). In the week then correspondingly less 2 hours in the evening should be enough time to play.

The problem is that you can also use mobile phones to play, so, should make sure that the cell phone is stored separately during the homework and in the evening at home by your son (best off).

Since these are already major cuts, you also have to provide compensation and reward in the event of success (here, too, talk to your son and respond to your wishes)

My full respect, a big compliment and an even bigger thank you, that you are leading by such good example. I hardly know a father or a mother, who deals with her child over a "how's at school", away. It should think and act more like you two.

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