Videogames

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I would like to open a candid discussion about videogames. Do you let your child play them? What kind of limits do you impose? Do you screen the games? Do you take your child to arcades? (I'm aging myself here) Do you select the location where games are played?
I welcome ASD/Aspie teens, adults and all parents to talk about this.

Yes, we allow video games but after an hour or two, we require a brain-break. Some games, like anything Pokemon, do affect behavior. We usually allow him to go back to videogames, but we do require a brain break since we've noticed unlimited gaming makes him mean.

He's 10 and we first noticed the problem when he started gaming ~7 or 8. He was not as tuned in to gaming until then - he used to be happy with a controller that wasn't plugged in. It took a few years before he figured it out.

Now, he's quite good at it and I see where it's an esteem issue. That's why we allow it with the brain break.

three2camp, thanks for being the first person I've seen on the boards other than myself, that has had the brains to recognize that video games do tie in with esteem and feelings of accomplishment. I really understand the whole brain break thing myself, being addicted to Okami for PS2 recently, and realizing after a couple hours I do feel sort of stressed, head-achey. I just find it appauling that parents will just say no to video games, because they don't want to understand them..or feel that there's some sort of duty that they push and push their child into being social.

Well, a lot of NTs see video games as negative retreats. They only see the indulgent side of video games. They don't have the same level of sensory issues that require actual breaks from socializing. They also don't require the same level of tangible "carrot" to accomplish "normal" everyday tasks. For instance, my son requires a lot of encouragement to keep from tantruming. I can't give him a cookie every time he says please and thank you. I can't give him a stern look when he says something naughty. But I can say, "You can make a choice, follow directions if you want to play Nintendo. . . "
Long range behavior issues/communication break throughs are followed up with video game rewards, visits to a game store.
He has to accomplish certain things to earn his games on work days. On the weekends, it's a lot looser.

I don't really see it as a self-esteem issue, except for the fact that it's his choice of entertainment-and we're honoring that part of him. He writes his stories about the Super Mario characters and playing on the computer. He reads the rule books and looks at pictures a lot.
But the game itself isn't really good for his self-esteem, because either it's too easy or too hard-and he doesn't understand the context of the "hard level". He just wants to win and gets VERY angry when he loses too many times.
That isn't the point, though, not everything has to be educational and wholesome to be educational and wholesome.

My husband and I are video game players so there is no video game debates here. As a matter of fact my husband and I use to spend time playing video games together when we were dating and kind of fondly look back at how they have changed. My husband's father used to take my husband and his brother to the arcade all the time too.

The only difference is in the different types of games we like to play. I like the Tetris type games or puzzle games or Super Mario types. I don't like any shooting games or role playing ones. I also can't play some of the newer games because the graphics are too weird visually. I think I was motion sick from one before so I like flat or platform games better. My husband loves the other type games better.

I also don't think of this stuff as having to be earned but that may be because we often play them together so it is interactive for us anyway. I can relate to liking the sameness and feeling the sense of reorganization from playing some of them.

Well, we had huge problems last year and brought him home for homeschooling. He had a complaint that really stuck with me and made me realize I had to change - "mom, why can't I EVER win??"

We tried homeschooling and there are several methods. My m-i-l dropped off an article from the Chicago Tribune about unschooling and he read it. He begged to try it (technically he is a grade ahead so we didn't really have anything to lose, I just had to swallow a lot of panic). So, he spent a couple months moving from computer to GameBoy to GameCube.

I finally had enough and asked him, "Just WHAT do you think you're learning with this unschool thing?"

"Mom, I'm learning self-confidence," he said.

Even then, we did enforce brain-breaks, but you know what?

He was right! He was kinder, he was nicer, he was different and he had been playing a lot of video games and hitting new levels without trying to really kill anyone.

Oh, he still occasionally gets "grounded" from gaming but it's extremely rare - it's only when gaming interferes with real life (and I tell him when he has 10 minutes, 5 minutes). His grounding is then for the rest of the day. It rarely happens anymore though, he knows if he wraps up and does what needs doing, then he's free to go back to gaming. If he doesn't get something done because of gaming, then gaming is done for the day.

I guess the esteem issue comes in since the game is computerized. My son realizes there are rules and those rules stay the same. Defeat the level according to the rules and he's rewarded by going to the next level. It's not like swimming with Joseph who may or may not mean it when they get into the whole dunking and splashing and neither one realizes they've gone too far.

Before we had our son, we had superNintendo, then Play Station. We played the killing games like Tomb Raider and Doom, Duke Nukem. And Donkey Kong Country and its carnations.
But then when Pop was born, we got rid of the Play Station, believing they were baaaad.
I don't remember how we figured out how much he liked video games, it probably stemmed from PC games and pinball. But we got the Nintendo DS last year (for Xmas, he was turning 6) and haven't looked back.
When I was a kid, I loved Pong, Centipede and other Atari games and pinball. Now, I have Atari games on the Nintendo DS.

I belong to a completely non-autism related board where there are quite a few homeschoolers and quite a few relatives of ASD kids. Anyway, they all talk about having structured time for school but nothing like what they would experience at public school. It seems a lot of that structure is about waiting for other people to do stuff on their schedules.
I tried it for a day and it takes about 2 or 3 half hour stints to cover the subjects.

all of my kids are allowed to play video games whether it be on their handheld games, the playstation, or the computer. i monitor the ratings of the games they play~ the older 2 can play games with a rating as high as T...sometimes M ( if the M is for language, and not violence)...my daughter is allowed to play games that have a rating below T.
my main concern about video games revolves around the amount of time they spend playing them. i've found now that the boys are older, they monitor themselves fairly well. my daughter still needs reminders that she's had enough time, and needs to find something else to do.

Hi,

I have a PSP which means portable gaming ,

I started gaming at the age of 5 i think. I started on a C64

I then went to a dos computer

then a PS, PS1, PS2 then GB ,GBA, GBASP and know PSP and PDA and PC

erm it depends on where i am and what i am doing i suppose. If we do car journeys i might watch a movie or play a game.

The most time i have spent on my PSP playing games is around 49 hours

I think gaming is a good idea but it must be done in moderation ( I need to learn that word).

But there is so much variety out there when it comes to games it is unbelievable. I play on a a variety of genres from sports to puzzle, from action to platform games.

What I love about the PSP is that it does so much. One minute i am playing a game and the next i am watching a movie.

I also love playing games online. I spend most of my days over the summer on a computer playing internet games. As a result my social skill have kinda regressed.

I love gaming and I think I will always be a gamer.