10 year old and electronics

Post Reply New Topic

I'm a new step dad to a 10 year old with autism and ADHD. He loves his electronics laptop, DS, iPhone, tablet.... etc; Me and his mother are coming to the realization that his attachment to these is becoming unhealthy and hazardous to himself and people around him.

Example he loves bonding with his 5 month old baby brother and insists on carrying him around but we ask him to put his phone away while doing that so his focus is on holding his brother properly. His response is that we are ruining his life when asking him to do this and sometimes he goes in to meltdown mode. This always happens when we want to try to draw his focus away from his devices to the current task he is doing. Getting a drink, snacking, using the restroom, showering. I could go one listing but whatever it is he is doing he has to have his phone or DS be front and center.

Me and his mother set a rule that all electronics need to stay in his room so that when he leaves his room he can focus on whatever it is he needs to do. Was this the right thing to do. It just kills me inside when he accuses us of ruining his life or when he has a meltdown because of this?

Caveat: I'm not a parent.
I was, however, an autistic child (undiagnosed at the time).

10 is old enough to begin understanding, and have explained that the big wide world is full of rules, more and more of them as you get older, and many are related to safety.

Try not to let the emotional "You're ruining my life" thing get to you, you're not, you're teaching and setting boundaries, for his safety and wellbeing, and that of those around him.

If you allowed him to blunder round, trip and break his neck, because his head was in his phone at an inappropriate time then you'd have ruined his life.

I understand the need for safety, so the rule about the baby makes sense. I guess whether the general rule is excessive depends on whether and how often your stepson is allowed to retreat into his room when he needs to recharge.

If he is expected to remain outside his room most of the day, then it may be excessive, (and he should be allowed to retreat when he needs to). You may want to move to a more nuanced set of rules ie. No electronics while you are holding the baby or walking around or whatever at some point any way, mainly because I am assuming that if his electronics are easily portable it is because you want him to be able to carry a cell phone or whatever in the real world, in case he needs it. If so, then he needs practice learning when to use it and when not to.

Basically his room is his sanctuary. If he never wants to walk out and see us that is his choice.

He isn't learning healthy habits like this.

Do you expect him to maybe someday go to college or technical school? Hold a job? Can he be continuously on his DS and do those things? Or have a life at all really?

The answer is no.

Hes addicted to his electronics, essentially. HE's avoiding any and all stress and is in a continual state of decompression. That can be a cycle that is very hard to break.

My daughter was like this, but we realized at a much younger age that it was up to us to make sure she could function with out a constant crutch, and with out throwing a meltdown over doing normal things like eating dinner at the table with out her tablet. Nor should she hide in her room ALL the time.

So we set the following rule. She is allowed to have her electronics AFTER she has read a few chapters of a book, done her homework AND gotten exercise. However much time is left after doing these things, but before bedtime, is how much time she gets with her electronics in her hidy hole. We set this rule because that's basically how life works. I don't get to sit down and watch TV at night until I have all my other stuff sorted, right? IT's decompression and no one really has the luxury of decompressing ALL the time. She (And your son) needed to learn that stress is normal and can be dealt with. Constant avoidance or decompression is not healthy.

Well it was really rough for the first month(she was 7 or ... REALLY rough, like holes in the wall and stuff, but now she is 9 and she goes along with it very well. No issues. She in fact loves walking to the park and playing there now where before she would just sit and cry and have a big meltdown. IT's helped her way more than we ever thought. We are about to add a "clean room" component to the mix because she leaves her clothes on the floor all the time.