14YO obessed with minecraft. Won't talk about anythin else

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I never really felt that interested in sharing mine. Which is odd becuase they are collaborative cultures.

I do have have load of random information that I enjoy talking about. It is appreciated some of the time, just my mind is lateral so when somebody says something it makes a connection to something have picked up.

I would think having his interest restricted will ensure he will never grow tired of it, myself, I would tend to become even more obsessed, imagine somebody is hungry, if you limit the amount of food they can have they will remain hungry.

He got the minecraft books for christmas, as well as a lego minecraft thing to build, but he only wants to play games. I mean he'd love to read the books and make the lego, but he says that one hour a day is not enough time so he chooses only playing the game. these gifts were given before his psychologist dedided to reduce the minecraft time. He has a 3 day holiday coming up soon and she said that if he followed the ihnstructions she'd give him 90 minutes each of those days. But i gave in yesterday and when he begged that he had not played a full hour i let him have the 20 mintues that he was missing but only out of not having the energy to fight about it.

toward the end of his christmas vacation before the minecraft restriction, when i tried to do some homework with him to prepare for the return to school my son was already seriously unmotivated about his schoolwork and has now come to a full halt at home. I cant blame it on the minecrft restriction because he has already been like that after playing minecraft to his hearts desire during more than 2 weeks of vacation.

I have opened up 3 windows in that aspergers blog. Let's see what it says.
thanks everyone.

I did a search on the blog, which is very nice, but only got one entry which only touched on minecraft. if anyone can send me a link on those articles more at length on minecraft it would be great.thanks.

Again I would have to disagree with all the futility.

I have an obsession, which I have to wean myself off at times, to do other things that I want to do. It is part of life. My other interest and needs are important too. The hardest part is the detachment phase, but once you get past that you can get a sense of achievement from other things. Of course I go back to my obsession, becuase it not inherently bad, and can be quite broad (I have to wean myself of specific aspects of it, to do other things within it).

If minecraft didn't exist he would have some other obsession or no obsession. He also interested in a particular type of computer game, with specific activity. He has not shown an obsession with minecraft broadly.

I also disagree with the therapist for the following of reasons:

- It is unrefined.
- There is no incentive, simply taking an obsession away doesn't itself motivate. I think restricting to an hour a day is the wrong approach. Instead you you need to create an intensive such as banking mincraft time, for increased interest in other things. There has to be choice however.
- Minecraft isn't itself bad, it is more a problem of lacking motivation for anything else. [/list]

Minecraft can have some problem solving and strategy. But if someone uses in a particularly narrow way, then it isn't really developing them as a person.

I generally think it is good to develop many interests, or more to be interested a little in almost everything. It helps you in later life.

Well, I've come up with an idea. My son's always loved table games - risk, monopoly, chess, etc. He was always begging us before this minecrft thing to play with him at any table game at home and no one wanted to bother (me from doing my stuf, husband too busy, sister not interested in those particular games. So I just decied and told the child that i will learn to play monopoly. and then the rest of the games because i realized I let my child down and now I'm going to set it right. He wants table games, well table games he's got.
Wish me good luck. we start tomorrow.

Does he like trivial pursuit? I like that game.

If he like board game he might try go / wei qi

Allowing him to have Minecraft as a reward sounds like a good idea. I'm not a therapist. but as a person who is obsessive, it seems that it would probably work.

It started as minecraft as reward for studying but developed over the last year into obesssion. So last night i had a lightbulb go on in my head as i remembered that before minecraft teh child was always begging his father, his sister and me to play board games with him which he loves (risk, monopoly city, classic and empire, chess, etc.) and we always said no. So I realized that i had made a huge mistake (I dont know how to play these board games and am veryvery lazy about learning), because my son's wellbeing depends on it. if i could turn back the clock....So I "apologised" to him last night for not having done that with him and if he would give me another chance and i would love to learn to play these games. He thought it was great, and we are now about to start monopoly empire just the 2 of us. I hope this works. Then i'll have to remember how to play checkers and teach him backgammon which ive also forgotten how to play. Youtube here we come.

You shouldn't take it away from him. My parents did that to me and now that I'm over 18, I do whatever I want on the computer, and I have a meltdown if they even come near the room when I'm on it because even though I'm old enough to do it anyway, I'm so scared they will find a way to take away my special interest again, and for months when I was housebound due to mental and physical illness, the special interest (fan communities) was my lifeline.

If it's interfering with school then maybe you should just make sure he finishes studying first. Or, you could learn all about minecraft and incorporate minecraft things into the subject he is having issues with, and help him do his hw. Like, for example if he's doing math you could set up word problems with mincraft references to help him remember.

I agree with 0 equals True's point of view.

While i write this he's playing galaxy life, which is a game he played before he discovered minecraft.(He already had his one hour minecraft today).

He is having a good time today with the board games and taking turns a little bit of board game, some studying, and some non-minecraft computer, some studying, etc. Yes he's asked if he could play more minecraft and I again said no you've done all your time for today. But im not torturing the kid, he adores monopoliy city and we've played it. then we played checkers, now were going to play a bit of the classic monopoly and to learn backgammon. And maybe i'll have him teach me chess which he also loves.

What i'm trying to do is remind him that there are other things that he finds fun apart from minecraft. Things that he's forgotten about because he's limited his free time to only minecraft all the time. I'm bringing them back to him. It s not a bad thing, it's a positive thing.

I do appreciate all the opinions because that helps to keep me centered and informed. I do want to say that ever since this child was born, my first, i have done everything in my power to make sure that his life and his younger sister's are free from trauma. That may be a mistake because when teh real world gets them, they may not be prepared. But I just want to express that pain is not something i enjoy inflicting on my kids. Ever since my son was a toddler, this adorable sweet intelligent boy was barely capable of being understood. Actually even i didnt know what he was saying many times til he was 8 or 9, and he had lots to say. He had speech therapy for several years to work mostly on pronunciation and he's still an awkward speaker but good enough to be perfectly understood. Even tho he explains things in circles. Its easy to get lost with his explanations.

So I had no idea he would one day be diagnosed with aspergers but my house was the meeting place for countless play dates and in the last few years - about 4 or 5 years every friday after school between 4 and 6 boys come over for lunch and to play wii, playstation, board games, foosball, etc. I have done this FOR him, because I thought that the reason he was a bit of a "shadow" following his friends around was becuase he was not being undertood and because he was shy. Turns out, there was a different reason. But all these years of heavy socialzing at home for this boy who adored, adored his friends has done so much good that it's heavily paid off. It was going to be over my dead body that this adorable boy was going to be left behind by his classmates. In a year and half they change schools at age 16 and do a 2-year high school (it's teh system they have where i live) before going to college and then we'll have to start all over again, im sure that even though he won't be going out in groups to the mall etc. with his friends that they will still love him, and will come over every now and then (or every friday) and i will have to help him at this new school with his new classmates and i will invite them home as well.

Family time is good, however suggestion is some of the interests and activities be in a small club, or small group.

But this club should not involve anyone from school, or any overlapping social group that he is involved with.

This is something you should discuss with him first though. Don't do unless he feels comfortable with it.

The reason is if you have a social group that you can't get away from, this can stressful. School is a big one at that age. However if you have a life outside of that, gradually it can improve confidence an motivation. It also easier to manage socially.

Bare in mind tha many of us including myself don't need much social contact sustain. Me it si probably 10% of my time with people at the most. I work alone too. That works fine for me. 1 hour a week or a fortnight whatever he feels conformable with.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 24 Jan 2015, 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry I did not want to imply the play date were a bad idea, just mention an alternative.

I think 14 is now a bit old now for parent arranged play dates.

You sound like a good mother.

Thanks. Actually he just dropped out of a boys social group which did all kinds of very cool stuff. warhammer, great games, acted in silly films which were shown once a year around Oscars time, camping, slept in a cave once, etc. From age aprox. 8-14. But he never mentioned any of hte boys -- he was great at the club and had a fabulous time and it was very important to give him varied experiences, etc. but didnt make that connection with individual boys. He was a great team player but never broght home buddies from the club or even mentioned them. Now unfortunately they are doing differnt stuff - friday night dinners and sports afterwards, and he is so tired from the week and he is definitely not up to the "conversations" from the unstructured time. No, I don't do playdates now, not since he was 7 or 8 these friends of his automatically come to my house every friday for late lunch and stay til 6 or 7. They're "my" boys - in that I love how they are, and we've known each other since they were all 2 or 3. They do all the group work in my house as well -it's a place with tons of materials to do school presentations and they've got the run of hte house and they feel very comfortable here. Besides my son is very creative and takes these projects very seriously and the usually get A's. Must be almost once a month that they have projects for school that they work here and sometimes its 2 or 3 meetings to get it done. But when he changes schools at 16 he'll be on his own. This is a small city so I'll end up knowing the new classmates and i have no qualms about setting up pizza nights, etc. Let the old and the new friends meet each other. And all the while my son has fun and bonds and bonds. They love and respect him and have a great time with him. The kid is fun. My only wish is that hey don't forget him when they're all of at college in Madrid and only come home on the weekends. I don't think so, but if he never calls and refuses to use messaging, etc. at some point people have to get tired and call less and less.