AIBU to prohibit DS in Year 7 from online gaming?

I have never really restricted screen time for my sons but their days are interrupted with other stuff so they don't game for 12 hours straight

They are now 16 and 13 and are at a state school. They chat over headsets to their friends either whilst playing the same game together or just chatting whilst playing different games. Plus they discuss homework.

Ds2 has a weekly D&D meet up online with his friends, they play for 2 hours every Saturday because logistically they live miles apart.

Both my children do a sporting activity, both read books, both are in top sets and have an outstanding effort grade in all subjects. We eat as a family, watch tv show together and play co-op board games together along with poker and gamble for chips. So there is a lot of other stuff going on not just gaming.

There computers are in a room downstairs not their bedrooms. They know homework has to be started the day it is given.

It is a huge part of their social lives a lot of the time because they are chatting as they game. There is a TED talk on the benefits of gaming on YouTube. Ds2 watches lots of physics/engineering stuff on YouTube too.

I think it is about balance. I would much rather they were here gaming, chatting to their mates over headsets than out on the local park getting up to goodness knows what. My friend restricts her son from gaming so all he ever wants to do is leave the house and hang out with his mates on the streets because it is boring at home.

Mean to say, they are both in the family areas, no phones allowed upstairs, etc. and we have free access to all chats, phones, accounts.

yep both my yr7 and yr8 boys game. Yr7 is particularly into scooting so will watch for tips and tricks then go out and replicate what he has seen in the game (sometimes not so successfully! ) But half the time he is actually on youtube. He watches things like how to build your own half pipe or grinding thingy and then builds them with DH in the backyard. When a game (Fortnite!!) was messing with his head a little, we explained and told him to come off it. He now hardly plays it as he knows the effect it has on him.

Yr8 multi screens and watches youtube at the same time as gaming, along with all of his friends. They chat, look things up, socialise. (It must be said though that yr8 is autistic so this is how his group of friends interact!!) He also watches documentaries on YT at the same time too - usually things about space, history, cultural trends, and psychology!

Both walk a couple of miles too and from school and so exercise isn't an issue. The yr8 especially needs the time to decompress from real life interactions and to build up his social skills. Homework is always done first and I have strict limits on studying and gaming during exams period. Bog standard comp

Maybot2020 - Yes, his school is a private prep in Knightsbridge. He’s earned an academic scholarship to a top London secondary school, so his school work certainly hasn’t suffered.

He’s on the school cricket team and plays squash competitively. On weekends he also does aerial acrobatics and he’s a member of the school arts club and an arts scholar at his current school.

If he has a lot of homework then he doesn’t play. And as I wrote, during exam periods he only gets to play on weekends. But online gaming is how he relaxes. Whilst I went over to friends houses or hung out at coffee shops as a 13 year old when I had free time, he plays online. Not everything can be for school or teams, and I really belive that teenage boys and girls must do some things just because it’s fun.

If online gaming is so crucial to yr7 social life, what about kids who don't have a console? Are they doomed to be socially exiled?

If they are in a group of friends where everyone else games online (as OP's DS is), this will mean that they miss out on a regular shared activity, and they will miss out both on the chat that happens during the shared activity, and the chat about the shared activity at school the next day. A bit like when everyone else goes to a party that you don't go to, and you feel a bit left out while everyone chats about in advance and afterwards. Except that this is not just one party it's continously every day. Of course a non online gaming y7 will not be socially exiled, but he at find himself feeling that he doesn't really fit inwith the gamers and having to make other friends, which might potentially be tricky if there is a high proportion of gamers! My DS once got into a friendship group where the other boys either played football or talked football for much of the time. As DS has no interest in playing football, and quickly lost interest in watching so he could fit in,he didn't stay friends with them for long! Similar sort of thing with gaming ...

My ds is 11 and in year 7 and has games online for maybe 2 years. He is very sensible and trustworthy for his age. We do have rules etc and his Microsoft account has restrictions. He is only allowed to be 'friends' with people we actually know and knows to not accept requests from people he doesn't know etc.

My husband understands it better than I do and manages the gaming etc but as far as I understand it our ds has an account linked to my husband so that we can track and restrict him etc we can see messages, when and for how long he is online for etc.

Lots you can play on phones - fifa, clash of clans, pokemon etc. Phone games equally popular as they are played on school bus.

One of ds' friends doesn't have a console but he plays fortnite online on his phone!

If online gaming is so crucial to yr7 social life, what about kids who don't have a console? Are they doomed to be socially exiled?

Forgot set up to play in lounge not bedroom!

Yabu. It is a terrifically popular thing to do & you can manage it. When DS started in year 7 the boys at school made a class group on a game so they were all on the same team. To play no games at all would leave you out of a lot of chat in school.

Our rules at that age were no talking to strangers, no using own real name, no games rated 15/18, no screen Mon-Wed. He's now yr10, still plays a lot of sport & on track academically.

When the local policewoman came to give an online safety course for parents part of it she explained that for kids these days online gaming is how some of them socialise and stay in contact. The difficulty lies in monitoring this, and who is trying to interact with them.

Ps. Think of gaming like watching tv, it's normal to let kids watch a bit on school nights as long as homework is done and they do instrument practice or other hobbies.

My DD's played online, it doesn't have to cost anything either, it depends on the game but many are free eg league of legends. Around 11 is completely normal

It isn't a posh school thing it is a year 7 thing. Our DS had access to onlone gaming downstairs where we could hear him and I would always hear/be able to say hi to his friends online.

Imagine being in a situation where you meet friends everyday but they have all.been party to conversations/in jokes etc each evening that you weren't a party to and imagine that being the case for a 12 year old. It really is how they socialise these days. Luckily DS is quite sporty and social so it wasn't constant and by yr 10 he didn't even want to renew the online aspect of his PS4.

In a time where kids do seem to suffer if they are socially excluded don't add to any anxiety by cutting off this form of contact with his friends.

Ds14 games, and has done since 9 (joys of having an older brother sharing a room). His school is 7 miles away, and his friends live anything from 7 to 20 ish miles away. So they are talking each night. Half the time they aren’t gaming- they are watching YouTube videos gather and actually doing homework!

Ds doesn’t have a set bed time and I haven’t ‘sent him’ to bed for a long time. Normally he will switch off at about 8:00ish, have a shower etc, come in for a chat, grab some cereal if hungry, then put a film on low, and will get into bed between 9:15-9:45 and he’s asleep by 10:00pm.

I think because all of his friends do the same there’s no reason to stay up. Thankfully due to the joys of the headset I can hear everything he says if I open the living room door. Occasionally I’ve gone in about his language, but that’s only a handful of times thankfully.

He plays rugby 3 times a week, is out on his bike on the mountain and BMX track twice a week, plays the drums and normally stays at a friends either Friday or Saturday night. He is in top sets for all his subjects, does homework without being asked or reminded, and is never in trouble at school. So until any of the above happens, I’m happy for him to carry on as he is.

My ds, year 6 plays games off-line. He takes his ds and tablet when he meets up with friends but no on-line gaming.
From Sept he’ll be at senior school and homework will be more but I’ll let him play on-line up to 1hr a day at weekends as well, and see how it goes.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48450604

Article just published on the BBC about the dangers of online gaming.

I am a secondary school teacher and a lot of my time gets taken up with dealing with issues that arise from online gaming.

I do not feel it is safe AT ALL and personally I think your DS is better off without gaming. It's not reality and it is sadly turning our children, boys mainly, into anti-social, unfit and Vitamin D lacking zombies.

Year 7 is a great age. Your DS should still be reading, playing in the garden, making dens. Social media is forcing our children to "mature" far too soon!

One positive - I tend to get a feel for what's going on with ds as he talks loudly over the headset to his school friends about what's happened that day - and then often tells his little group of non-school friends what's been happening to him at school. I don't sit outside the door and listen or anything but I definitely get the gist of things! I tend to ask who he's talking to. At times in the past, he's made online friends - one in particular was in Bulgaria and that was quite interesting for him. But nowadays he's usually chatting to real life friends.

Maybot2020 It doesn't matter what school (posh or not), this is what is 'in' now. My DS says the same thing that everyone is online playing games, but after meeting a lot of parents at our last parents evening, it certainly was not the case. My DS was quite busy with sports etc, and we gave him limited console/tablet time. I did not let my DS play online at first until he was able to demonstrate that he knew how to be safe while playing online. DS can only play on set days and set times, and if homework etc is not finished by then, he's eating into his game time. Spent a lot of time prior looking at videos on the thinkuknow website. We slowly introduced it but agreed that we knew which services he signs up for and that he could only join groups which were friends from school
As springgreensunshine mentioned, you can set timers on the console or in the case of my DH, he set up scheduled restriction times on the broadband router, so our DS couldn't sneak downstairs and play while we're asleep.
Make sure you create the master account on PSN and create a sub account for your DS which has restrictions so that the cannot make in-game purchases, or use a pre-paid credit card and keep limited funds on it.
It's not all bad as long as there is a balance, but we spent a lot of time laying down the ground rules first

He really is missing out.
how do you ensure that your DS is only playing with people he knows in real life
He is growing up and you have to learn to trust him. Talk to him about your worries and agree some ground rules. Ask him to show you who he has on his friends list, of course he may know people that you don't. At secondary school it's much harder to know who all their friends and their parents are.

My issue with gaming is that it takes away from other things such as reading or riding a bike Once they reach teens forbidding gaming is not going to make them curl up with a book or go out on their bike.

We started allowing online gaming in Y7. Before he was allowed, ds1 had to research the potential pitfalls/dangers and explain them to me, along with a clear plan for avoiding them (limits on games, limits on gaming time, only communicating w people you know etc). Once I was convinced he'd thought it through carefully we agreed a set of "rules" and off he went. Its working well, so far.

I dislike this online gaming thing, it can have bad effect on children if they play it too long. I don't think it is the same as TV etc, as it has much stronger attraction ,and lots of children can't resist it. However, it is what boys do at the moment. It seems unfair to not let them play if all their friends are playing it.

I think OP can make a plan with your DS, like only play Fri- Sunday, an hour each time. Or other plan, but certainly with a limit.