Is Fortnite ruining anyone else's family?

[fortnitenightmare]

And devices in general?

We have 1 Xbox, 4 kids.

The older 2 bicker and argue about it constantly. They're like ogres when they can't go on it and ogres when they've been in it. And how very dare I interrupt a game with 'time's up!' Or 'dinner'. They're limited to 45 mins each, they have to take turns. They're addicted to it. Just one more...

It's ruining our family.

We:
Limit time spent on it
They have to earn time on it
Make them share
Warn them before stopping games

I have unpleasant children and it's really getting me down. They live for it. They're not allowed any other form of social media, and I get they they want to play/interact with their peers so I'd rather not ban it completely BUT we're running out of ideas of how to stop it ruining our family. I also hate the fact people can 'listen in' to our family life.

Have you got similar problems? How do you manage this addiction?

Sad 😞

I massively regret allowing DS to get fortnite! If given the chance he would play it all day. To begin with he played for long periods and we really struggled to get him to stop, often we would have to just switch the Xbox off then we would have tantrums and bad attitude. So we went cold turkey, he didn't play at all for about 6 weeks, he also wasn't allowed his tablet in that time because he would use it to watch videos of other people playing it! 🙄

Now we limit it, he has to earn time on it and then we're very strict about how long he uses it for. Generally he'll play once a week, sometimes twice, for an hour. Any messing when it's time to switch off and he gets banned. It's helped a lot. His attitude is much better and he's less 'obsessive' about it.

We relented and allowed DS to download it last weekend. It was on the understanding that he did not have a meltdown, he got off it when we said and he didn't misbehave.
It lasted 24 hours.
He just turned feral. He slapped DD for saying it was her turn on the PC (she's got no interest in fortnite). He got really weepy at bedtime. And the final straw was when I caught him at 6am downstairs on it.
Both mine know I won't allow computers or gaming to get in the way of day to day life. I have all their phone and online passwords and check everything daily (they're 11 and 10).
I don't like the idea of Fortnite anyway.

wow confused
That's very damning

I've had him get annoyed about being asked to log off Minecraft the odd time, but this was something else. He was just so angry!
Never seen the likes of it as he's the quietest thing usually. Even his sister said he had gone off on one and was scaring her.

We just deleted Fortnite this am and all hell broke loose. It's totally addictive and ds has had warning after warning about his attitude and behaviour

I banned it. I am not my children’s friend. I’m their mother and am prepared to be hated if required.

10yo refers to going to his dad's as "going to fortnite"

This would really worry me.

@Lamdalipa you sound really controlling

Sometimes, as a parent, I have to be. That’s my job.

Totally with @Lamdalipa on that one.

Glad I'm not alone. We've banned it as well, as it was turning my 10 year old into a psychopath.
We've spent months trying various restrictions, banning for a week or so but nothing worked.
Agree with Lamdalipa. It's my job to act in my children's best interests and sometimes that makes me the bad guy.

you get Gaming PC's for all your kids

If ds1's behaviour is starting to become affected by it or he doesn't come off when I say then he gets a 24-hr ban. He's currently on day 6 of no PS4 as a consequence for some behaviour. A bit of detox is good. As is strictly time limits and consequences when they don't comply.

As a teacher of a class of boys with behavioural problems, I can confirm that fortnite is toxic!!! They come to school in a wild eyed fortnite haze most days and that's all they talk about. As a teacher I've seen a lot of crazes but nothing quite as bad as this! We've had issues with inappropriate images being shared with children over the game as well, just another thing to be aware of!

Just reading these comments has reinforced my view that I'm not quite ready to open this can of worms yet. Mine are 8 and 10. I feel guilty that my 8 yo is out of the loop in the playground so we set up an old Wii and let them play Mario Kart only 1 hour at the weekend or if they have a friend over to play. I'm not introducing any other games as I don't want to give them the idea that you can play numerous games. I'm strictly enforcing the 1 hour a week only thing. They still love playing Lego and Playmobil and it's nice to see. I don't restrict tv time at all. But this whole gaming thing and the addictive nature of it freaks me out.

@Lamdalipa you sound really controlling

Controlling or caring? As parents, we don't always have to be popular.

Get rid of it OP. You're doing your kids no favours by allowing this stuff.

Am I the only one who thinks you are being completely unreasonable? Of course thy're always gonna want to be on it, you only give them 45 minutes a day. That's a ridiculously low amount of time, especially for their only interaction with friends, as they aren't allowed social media for some reason. You give them enough time to play like 2 good rounds, and you get upset when they ask for 5 more minutes? That's just ridiculous.

big oof

people cant just become psychopath unless he gets a brain injury

my god, only 1 hour per week! no wonder all you people think that games make kids "toxic or whatever" most of the time its the parents fault

So much drama.

15 min warning to finish what they are doing (or tell them before they start that we have to do […] at such a time). When time is up pull the plug. Ignore any drama. Prolonged moaning or tantrums add extra time to not playing. No shouting, threatening, arguing. Just pull the plug and walk away and carry on with what you were doing.

I guarantee you will have to do it 2-3 times at most.

Or don't let them play it in the first place.

Maybe it's your fault for limiting them so much.