How does your child react to too much gaming

[runningandfreshair1985]

can anyone share with me how their child reacts to too much gaming? my son returned from his dad's earlier hyperventilating wide eyed, crying, could hardly breathe or speak, writhing about saying he was in pain, pulling at his arms and tops of his legs, he looked totally strung out. Only way I can describe it is like an addict when they can't get hold of their drugs, it was truly terrible. It took him 2 hours to come down, first I gave him a sweet to suck, cold water to drink, bit of his favourite food, ribena, lots of hugs, and then a warm bath with some candles. He was then able to tell me that he had been gaming all day at his dads, in a cafe on his own and in the car.

I'm extremely worried about what just happened and feel like I've been run over by a juggernaut. Does anyone else's child react to too much gaming like this? My son is in year 6 he doesn't really play at home much, maybe a couple of times at the weekend - max hour at the most - and can easily not play at all. I'm separated from his dad and he plays a lot of roblox when he's with him and there's no boundaries or supervision.

I don't know what to do or where to go with this. I don't know if it was some sort of mental health episode, or if it was too much gaming. Or if he's seen something terrible on the internet, he does look at Youtube as well and from what he's described previously there arent any child protection locks on. He has ADHD diagnosis and we're waiting for ADOS assessment to happen. Any ideas, could this just be an extreme reaction to being on an ipad screen all day, he said he was holding it up in the car (so he didn't get car sick) so maybe that's why his arms were hurting? When I asked how long he thought he was gaming for he said his dad had said over 6 hours. Could that have caused this reaction or do you think I should take him to the GPs? It was truly frightening. Any ideas?

It's not the gaming, something else has happened or he is unwell in some way.

At that age I was often on my gameboy for 8h a day in the school holidays... never reacted as you describe.

I hope you get to the bottom of it as I'd be worried too in your place. What does Ex say?

Did you post about your son being left alone in cafes in the past?

Did you talk to your ex about how inappropriate it is for him to take his younger kid to an activity while ds stays in the cafe alone with just an iPad?

I’m assuming that it isn’t your iPad so you can’t lock it down and check what he’s been watching on YouTube and chats on discord (if you’re the poster that I’m thinking of)

Did ds go to bed last night ? He sounds like someone who’s been up all night or repeatedly woke up to play on his iPad. It’s also possible that he fell asleep watching YT but was repeatedly woken up by sound effects from videos.

I'm a gamer, and naturally, my son is a gamer too, since he was very young.
If he is reacting to gaming negatively so much, I think there must be something else.

My son can spend hours gaming. Then he can just get on with doing homework etc, when time is up.

Tbh, it did him good, I mean gaming. He learned to read early, interest in art/music, literacy/ math/ geography/history/ whatever you name it.
I don't think the problem is gaming.

My children, boys, get red faced, can be angry & very reluctant to get off their devices. I think it has much more of an impact than people think or notice. They're much nicer people after a few days off technology every so often & I very much limit their screen time daily.

I very much limit their screen time daily.

I don't. And guess what, as long as they do things, like homework, I really don't care how long they use screen. They actually don't use it mindlessly, start to self regulate. They often choose not to play games, and do something else. Because they know they can, if they want to, so it's not a privelege anymore.