computer games all day?

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All my seven-year-old wants to do at home is play computer and video games. He has no interest in other toys apart from Legos, and even those he will only play with if he's been grounded from the computer. He really likes strategy games such as Civilization and Oregon Trail, which I think is great because at least he's learning problem-solving skills and not just shooting at things.
Is it terrible for him to spend so much time this way? It sure beats him micro-managing his sister and spinning in the middle of the room. Sometimes I feel guilty that the computer is "baby-sitting" him, though.

Sounds like me when I was 7. My parents limited my computer time to before 10am and after 4pm. I did a lot of reading, playing with toys, and other thingsi n between those two times. Then went right back to playing computer

Limit his computer time, and try to get him to do other things. The key for anything is balance, so too much of anything is bad.

One of the kids I work with is 7 and does the same exact thing. It doesn't seem to affect much of anything negatively, although I am going to try to implement some other activities sometime soon. He mainly plays after school before dinner, and then after dinner until bed time or so. I'm working on getting the computer turned off a little bit before bed so that the brain can wind down but I'm not sure if that is an idea that he will get used to or not. We'll see!

We struggle with this also, my daughter is only 5 and already we struggle with getting her to do something other than play with electronic gadgets. She's not picky, a phone, tablet, laptop, or the wii will do just fine. Even her MP3 player. Getting her to do anything else is hard. Once we GET her into doing something else she generally enjoys it. You can tell if she doesn't because she begs for her games back. If she does like it she'll stick with it, but will immediately ask for games after.

Im addicted to the computer. it did help me in some ways though I primarily played games you had to read. it unlocked my desire to read things, also playing games online I made friends. I could actually communicate with people through text. I was actually popular on a few games. it led me to make a handful of friends that I talk to frequently over skype for the last 6 years. it also made things a lot less lonely

I do personally think it is important to try to strike a balance and we do set limits on Wii/computer time. However, I would say that you shouldn't feel bad if your "balance" is weighted more heavily to screen time than other peoples'. We limit because DS gets really difficult in multiple ways if he has too much screen time, like he won't even want to come to eat. I find that there is a definite momentum factor. If I can get him rolling on Legos or some other non-screen related activity, he will spend more and more time without asking to play Wii/computer but the more I allow screen time, the more he wants. Oddly enough, I feel a little better, and I think he behaves better, if he at least changes up what exactly it is he is playing, like switching from the Wii to the computer so his mind isn't getting so set in one pattern.

On the weekends my kids are on a 1-on, 1-off schedule. 1 hour of screen time followed by 1-hour of something else. Anything else. Reading. Crafts. Other toys. Going outside. Otherwise they would be at the computer all day long playing Minecraft or Roblox. On school nite, after dinner is finished and all other responsibilities are completed, they are allowed to do whatever they want until they go to bed. This is most often Minecraft or Roblox.

I gave up caring that my kids have more screen time than other kids a long time ago. Other parents may judge, but they are not responsible for my kids. The best thing you can do is find something that works for your family. It may not look like what works for other families, but as long as your solution isn't focused on what is easiest for you, I would not say that the computer is babysitting him, ykwim?

I am pretty lenient about computer/screen time for my son (9 yrs). I actually don't mind the computer time, but is not all games. He is learning to program (he has a tutor helping 2 times a week), which involves all kinds of great skills - logic, math, typing. He really enjoys programming. When he does play computer games, it is often ones the requiring reading, which is something he struggled with in the past. He does play on-line with others (mostly his cousin), and they talk on-line so he does interact with others. I even allow him to get up 30 mins early in the morning to play before school (this has really helped our morning routine, he used to cry most mornings about going to school, playing computer before school helps him relieve some of his anxiety, and there has been a lot less tears). I also let him play immediately upon returning from school, to de-stress, before homework. I do have him do other things, Karate and piano, but his free time is weighted to screen time. School is such an unhappy place for him, it is hard to put a lot of limits on something that makes him happy and builds his self-confidence. Funny thing is, in my line of work, I am in front of a computer 9 hours a day (I am NT). No one (except me) is trying to limit my screen time.

Two things: one, the Xbox can be a social tool when they are old enough to use it that way - kind of like FB for boys (there are girls on it, too, but it seems to be the boys' primary method of socialization nowadays.) We also have a Kinect, which has turned out to make it easier to get DS active: depending on the game, they can be a real workout.

More importantly, we use Xbox time as a carrot - all his video game time is "earned," either by doing what is normally expected of him for the normal amount of time he gets, or he can earn extra time for working on specific issues, skills, or tasks that we give him.

On a completely different note, I'd urge all parents whose kids are into video games to get them started on Scratch (a shareware program) learning to program their own games. You can also buy Scratch-driven USB powered devices that make programming make more sense to them. Always good to bend their interests towards a viable skill whenever possible.

We have the same issues with DS - who is nearly 6. Left to his own devises, he would play computer games or nintendo almost all the time. As a pp mentioned, we limited this time to 'after dad gets home from work' although he then sits on youtube and watches other people playing computer games

www.alice.org also has free programming-geared materials for kids.

DS9 loves Scratch - that is the program he started with. He now uses Ruby and is writing code. He is having fun, learning a lot, plus it is a marketable skill.

I worry about this with my 10 year old daughter too. However, given the amount of time I myself spend on either the laptop or playing games on my Blackberry it hardly seems fair to criticise her for doing the same thing. So most of her free time is spent on her laptop. To maintain some sense of balance she does swimming lessons and is in the sea cadets. She has always loved water and seems to get on with some of the other kids at her unit, which is good as she is so lonely at school.

I spend so much time online looking up topics of interest to me that I have recently started doing some distance learning in order to achieve something with it - maybe that could be an option for her when she is older. We have the Open University in the UK, so it can be an alternative route to getting a degree.

When I was 9 years old and joined Neopets, my stepmom and dad encouraged me to take breaks from the website itself and draw pictures of what I imagined my Neopets doing in my absence. I enjoyed that since I'm good at drawing, and that way, being on Neopets.com wasn't all I did in my spare time.

When my son was that age, we made a daily schedule and included his computer time on it. He would try to push the boundaries, but the schedule did help him from spending all of his time gaming!

We are stingy with computer time for the balance, but it also allows for us to increase the time and make him happy. The norm is 30 mins of computer time per day. But I increased it to 35 minutes for all of November b/c he did a great job staying on stage for a performance. I wrote in another thread that he gets extra minutes for when other kids irritate him. It helps to put aside his emotions when he can get something for it.