Xbox query - not really an AIBU but posting for traffic

[fairweathercyclist]

The query about the xbox in the shared bedroom made me think about this and I wonder if my ds is having me on.

He is 14 and we bought him an xbox for Christmas, we held out for a long time but finally gave way, having agreed a set of basic rules. He generally adheres to these.

HOWEVER - we have conflicts arising out of the playing of FIFA 2017. He says that he can't just switch off during a match because he will "lose his progress" and this allegedly means that he won't just lose that match, but several matches previous. So I have to give him about 10 minutes' notice if I want him to stop playing (eg if I want to watch something). This is hugely irritating if I only realise that something I want to watch is on in 3 minutes' time. If I simply tell him to switch off he gets mega-stroppy - because of the "progress" issue. Is he fibbing? Is there a way around this? I am quite happy to say "switch off or else" but if he is telling me the truth it does seem utterly ridiculous of the games manufacturer to have done this.

We used to have arguments over his Nintendo DS because you allegedly could not pause a game!

What I love about AIBU is how contradictory it can be!

On this thread you are being seemingly unreasonable to just turn it off but on other threads there is the you're the parent, he's the child, your house your rules.

There are times in our house where I give some slack (but beware that 5 minutes suddenly becomes 15!) and there are times when it is instantly off! Yes it won't "save" but do you know what they can soon get back to where they were next time anyway!

No wonder some parents have problems with their teens if you can't even treat them with some basic respect what is that teaching them?

No wonder some parents have problems with their teens if they can't even enforce discipline over a video game.

I really dont get the problem of giving children 15 or 20 minutes notice. For pretty much anything. They arent serfs.
You'd expect it from your DH if he wanted to watch the football.

I used to give notice and it got ignored, so I reverted to the command decision of switching off the router, or pulling the plug out. I got bored of having to rush in the morning when ds ignored warnings about getting ready for school etc (not that he was permitted to be on anything electronic before school), so when he 'forgot' stuff because he had been dicking about, I refused to take it into school for him. He soon learnt.

My dh thankfully does not watch football, neither does my ds when home, so no issues there whatsoever.

In my house if DD ignores warnings and notices then I just stick to the timetable I already had planned. I don't start changing the consequences as and when it suits me because it then sets her up for failure - she doesn't know when her fun is going to be ended, it could be now or it could be in 10 minutes; and she doesn't know if she'll get warning or if it will be instant; or if 5 minutes means literally 5 minutes or "some point soon" - and so she pushes back even more because there are no clear boundaries

If I say 5 minutes till the TV goes off then in 5 minutes it goes off, even if she has lost track of time and doesn't realise the 5 minutes are up, or if I have told her that she has to tidy up in 5 minutes, when it gets to tidy up time she has to either tidy up or face the consequence of not doing it (in this case, anything she leaves out will be taken away until she can earn it back)

Very occasionally she will make a bit of a fuss about it but I remind her that she had her warning(s) and I know she's just trying to push the boundaries and see if I am going to stay consistent. When I first implemented it she really pushed the boundary but when she realised that 5 minutes meant 5 minutes every single time, and if she didn't do what was asked then there would be a consequence, she stopped pushing back and things are much easier.

Let's say you're watching a movie. You've just started, it's quite enjoyable and your partner comes home and says, "Ooh, I also wanted to watch this, can you catch me up?"

Rather than repeat all the heavy scene setting intro, you rewatch the first 5-10 minutes. It's not the most fun ever but you enjoyed it first time round so it is hardly torture to watch it again.

So why the fuck when you're gaming for fun can't you lose the last 5 fucking minutes and repeat it later???! It's not disarming a bomb it's repeating something for pleasure you would be bloody playing almost exactly the same way regardless as to whether it's your football team vs Liverpool OR Man U!!! More annoying if it's one of those games where you die and respawn earlier in game.

10 years of living with a gamer and it still gets on my tits. TURN THE FUCKING CONSOLE OFF IT'S NOT LIFE SUPPORT.

I think one of the overlooked issues with this is that if you're online, you're participating with another person and if you stop midway through, you're also ruining their enjoyment and wasting their time. In some games (I don't know about FIFA specifically) you can get a negative reputation for disconnecting mid-game, or the loss of your progress/stats which they may have worked hard to gain. To the child, it's pretty much the same in importance as you dragging them off the pitch in the middle of a football match, or them working on a piece of artwork with a friend and you screwing it up and chucking it. Boundaries are fine but I really do think there should be an understanding that gaming is a legitimate hobby and very important to some people!

GloGirl As much as playing a game is fun, having to redo something you've already done is NOT fun and becomes a chore. It's especially annoying when the outcome is different to the first time around. It is absolutely not the same as rewatching a TV programme.

Well if you're doing an online seasons mode you have 10 games to get say 18 points if you disconnect you lose automatically, so switching it off mid game if it's a decider on if you go up a level could ultimately cost the player over 2-3 hours of game time.

And other games whilst it's for fun it's not necessarily just 5 minutes, sometimes it takes hours of game time to get past one thing and it can get frustrating but when you finally do it if someone makes you lose that progress it can be frustrating in a bad way, and make you lose some motivation as just because you enjoy a game it doesn't mean you enjoy the whole game.

The watching a film analogy is not the same, watching a film you are passive requires no input unlike games

No wonder some parents have problems with their teens if they can't even enforce discipline over a video game.  I also don't think some teenagers have behavioural issues due to common decency, if anything I'd say showing them none to do with their interests and in general may result in that outcome

Rather than repeat all the heavy scene setting intro, you rewatch the first 5-10 minutes. It's not the most fun ever but you enjoyed it first time round so it is hardly torture to watch it again.

So why the fuck when you're gaming for fun can't you lose the last 5 fucking minutes and repeat it later?

GloGirl your movie analogy doesn't work because you're comparing missing 5 minutes of the start of a movie with someone cutting off the end of a game (which has possibly had an hour or two of game play preceding it).

An equal analogy would be that you've spent an hour or more watching a complex detective movie, it's a bit hard going at times but you've persevered through to find out whodunnit. There's 10 minutes to go and it's building up to the climax where the murderer and how they did it is about to be revealed ... and someone comes in and turns the TV off without warning and you're supposed to just accept it without any argument, despite your time being wasted.

Unfortunately you don't have it on DVD and you were already watching on a "+1" channel so you can't just watch it a bit later. Fortunately you see it's being repeated in a few days time, but when it comes to that day you've forgotton some of the details so you have to watch from the start again, and hope that this time you can make it to the end credits before someone comes in to turn it off again.

If you can't be respectful enough to give someone five minutes to finish whatever they were doing before you wanted their attention, then why should they be respectful to what you want to do?

Glogirl You'd think it was life support though. I had to remove ds's PS4 to another county when he was in the run up to his A2s, and if he manked about it, it was then going to another country to stay with his Dad, until his exams were over.

Getting him out of the house now is challenging when he's home. I cannot fathom quite how his phone, iPod and Kindle are necessary to his existence when we pop to the local shop for some bread. God help him in the summer - he won't be permitted any electronics whatsoever for his summer job, as security precludes it.

Not being able to play until the end of the match or to the nearest save point is like letting your child go on a slide but instead of letting them go to the bottom, you catch them half way and remove them from the slide. They got some fun from going half way and could have another go but they'd have more satisfaction going to the bottom of the slide.

I agree but the world does not end if that happens once in a while.

How annoying I find it is obviously variable to how often DP is playing games. Once a week one evening - carry on. Try and play a little during the day a couple of times and be unavailable to talk to or help out last minute - not impressed

My dad took this I am an adult you are the child attitude favoured by many here.

He never gave notice if he was going to turn the power off for some electrical work as all I was doing was playing games and its not the end of the world. One day I was doing a long essay on a clapped out Amstrad PCW that I barely knew how to use and hadnt saved my essay. He turned off the power and I lost the work. The lack of respect adults show children when it comes to game playing can extend into other areas.

The problem that the OP highlights has actually been a problem from the 80s. Games arent like books. The just cant be put down. Basically its like a soccer mum running onto the pitch and demanding little Johnny has to come home because Eastenders is on in three minutes.

I get that some families feel the need to have Xboxes in the the living room as a surrogate for good parenting for when the Xbox is in the bedroom. I get that time limits and things need to be respected. I dont get the "I am the adult, you as the child have no say".

Perhaps instead tell the child that you will be watching something at X time. That then prompts the child to make a choice. If they know a game will take too long then they can save the game and quit earlier rather than play right up to X time. If they have a set limit of time each day, perhaps log this and extend play another day. It teaches time management, it teaches reward and it doesn't embrace the parent as TVdictator methodology that some here favour.

Oh honestly just buy another tv, even if you feel the need to keep it in a communal area. I really couldn't be doing with x boxes in my living room as that's my relaxing space but each to their own.

Or get yourself a tv that does split screen, bf has one at his house so he can game while I watch TV, I like to think of it as the modern equivalent of reading different books

As to the parents who just switch stuff off, no warning, I think you're actually encouraging poor behaviour. I don't see the problem with treating children with a little respect, and giving a warning. If warning is entirely ignored, that's a different matter but it's pretty unpleasant not to give any warning at all to kids in their mid teens upwards...where does this stop? Do you do the same to your DH/DP? I suspect not...

If there's anything I've learnt from my DH it's that you can't turn off in the middle of a game or the world ends.
I disagree with PPs that say you should just turn it off but do agree that you should give the warning then at the end of that game he should come off. That's what I do with DS, give him notice that he's due off and then soon as the game has finished he turns it off.
Sadly doesn't work with DH though 😂

Having to the Xbox in the living room is a surrogate for good parenting? What?