Dear everyone,
thank you so much for help me on my previous post. now I got little mental prepair for my son flunk out college & come home. I have to make my home a game free home for him to come back.
there are couple of issues that I don't know how to do,
1, no-internet connection. My husband works from home, he has to have internet to do his work. My son is 18 and he has his laptop. Can I take away his laptop(it is his property)? if not, he has his laptop (even not allowed in his room) and the internet, how we stop he sneak to game?
2, most of his buddie & friends are off to universities. only one still live at his parents home near by. what if my son walk to his friend's house to play game? Can I not allow him to out? can we say your friend is welcome to our home anytime if you want company but you are not allowed to go to his home because you will play game over there. can we do that?
3, after he come home, I plan to let him have 3 weeks to totally quiting game and after that, he has to go find a job. how he can view online "help wanted" without computer? also, without getting online, he is very much isolated. therefore, we need to give him some screen time. he can get online in the common area at home but I know as soon as my eyes away from him, he would sneak on to game. there are lots of lies and unhonesties that we get very frustrated in the past. can't count on him to follow our rule 100%.
so if you tried game free home, please provide some detail on how to implement the rule in daily basis.
thank you so so much!
Welcome back seekinglife! I am glad you are thinking in advance to implement some strategies for gaming free home.
Let me try to answer your questions:
1) When your husband is working from home, it is harder not to have the internet but it can still be managed with some extra spending. Mobile broadband could be a solution for your husband. Or I believe with iBoss router you can have different settings for different computers. Worth while to give them a call.
If he paid for his laptop, trying to take it away from him may start confrontation and retaliation. I suggest not to touch his belongings. But if there is no internet at home, he can't play on-line games at least.
2) There is no way we can fully control our adult children's gaming. If he walks to his friends' house or an internet cafe to play, there is nothing we can do to stop him. If he has enough money, he can play at an internet cafe.Can't do anything about it.
If he walks over to his friend's house to game, you can't do anything about it. Whether his friend would like to have him 24/7 is debatable but he can spent 'some' time gaming at his place and there is nothing can be done about it.
The only control we have over this issue is what goes on in our own home.
3) We allowed 2 hours of internet a day for whatever he needed to do. Other mothers here might have tried other strategies and hopefully they will share their experiences as well.
I am very tight with time right now. So I will have to leave it here but hopefully come back to it to share my experience a bit more. Take care!
"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches." "The first step toward change is acceptance." "Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do." "Change is not something you do, it's something you allow."- Will Garcia
Thank you May light for your suggestion.
the books I have been read about how to quit game they all say need 3 weeks away from computer to have the interruption to their gaming Patten so I was ready to have 3 weeks boot camp for him after he come home. I hope I could talk him into give up his laptop for 3 weeks but I know he will hate me for that. My son's father bought the laptop for him. he and I are 0 contact and he will not listen anything I say. the only way to have him on the same page as mine is have my son lives with him, then he will see my son game 24/7 therefore he may think there is a problem. I am not count on that for now.
My husband and I are know nothing about computer tech. I did googled Iboss router seems that is doable. wel will try.
the past few weeks are tricky. first, I told my son he is not allowed spend any of our money on buying game and he stopped. I know how bad he was spend money on games, he could easily spent few hundred dollars in a week to buy games. so now we didn't see any game transaction on debit card so I am guessing he may find some local job for cash to buy game. he no longer show up on facebook to have me track what time he off facebook/internet/game to go to bed. I have no idea how he is doing until midterm grades show up. he did not respond me via message/email/phone so I told him if he is not responding me I will not continue support his school financially. he respond me then, very short and dry. I did call him once that i can tell, he is not doing great at school work. So, I better prepare my home for his comeback.
sigh
Hugs seekinglife!
3 weeks may be enough to break the cycle but to reverse the damage done to the brain, they reckon months (sometimes up to 6 months) needed. And even after that it is not safe to return to gaming. They can not moderate their game play and if he returns, it may be worse than before apparently. So it is a long battle unless he is willing to participate. But you can still declare your home 'game free'. We parents have the right to have 'conditions of living in our homes'. One of the conditions could be, no gaming regardless of the type of the game. If he plays, then the concsequence is the removal of the device he is playing the games with from him (that is where we made a mistake and not included this in our agreement). It is not have to be an agrement either. It is your house your rules. Whether he likes it or not. The condition of living in your home includes NO GAMING. If he doesn't comply, you have the right to confiscate the device whether it is a PC, laptop, Xbox, play station, telephone, tablet etc.
At least he stopped spending money on the games, which is good news. They are very good to cut us out from their lives if they wanted to, aren't they?
Good luck and stay strong. Don't be hard on yourself even if your first attempts do not provide the desired outcome. We are all learning from our mistakes.
Big Hugs!
"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches." "The first step toward change is acceptance." "Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do." "Change is not something you do, it's something you allow."- Will Garcia
you are right May light, it's going to be long fight. the 3 weeks just an initial boot camp. Hope we can find some really good parental control hardware that works.
that matter fact I just found out that he purchased two game or game book that almost used up his little bank account. those money are his as he worked part-time and fulltime during summer. I was hoping help him buy his first car if he willing to same up some money that we can match him to help, too bad he use all the money on game. so right now he still doesn't own a car. we discipline him how to manage his money but never worked as he can't help buy games.
yeah, if nothing works, I am ready to cut him off too. he has to find a way to support himself.
To stop my son's internet in my house;
We do not have wifi. You eaither need a cable to connect pc to the router or we have the adapters which run through the electrical system of the house. So I have removed that network adapters that allow that to happen after my son has used interenet if I let him and I take the power supply lead to the router away every night and hide them both.
I will now only allow my son to use my laptop to use interenet (no games) and not his super gaming PC and access to his log in is on parental controls for a fixed period only. His log-in cannot download anything or play games (Windows Vista parental controls)
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