To tell my sons he’s grounded

[Juststopit]

15 year old Son has repeatedly been told to turn off his xbox but I woke up at 12.45am to find him still on it! This has been happening every night despite repeated warnings. AIBU to ground him tomorrow when he’s supposed to be going out with his dad to a football match? For context exdh is a pretty usless dad, doesn’t co parent just does fun stuff , never had him to stay etc etc. If I am am bu what else could I do? He’s also not done his revision. I will be removing the Xbox/ internet from a more respectable time from now on.

Back to school mode? It's barely half way through the holidays.

I agree that taking the xbox away is a much more logical reaction than cancelling his time with his dad. I don't think that would ever really be apropriate.

I disagree that contact being stopped as a one off is always the wrong decision. In this instance I agree you’ve done the right thing OP, but I had to stop contact last weekend because DS1s father made a point that he’d undermine me, after a week of spectacularly shit behaviour from DS1, and tell him the exact opposite, which wouldn’t have helped. In fact, it would have made things worse for DS1. He is also a non present Disney dad.

I'd have a discussion about the ground rules - set a compromise that you both think is fair regarding the off time.

Personally, I think even the occasional all-nighter during the school holidays isn't completely unreasonable, especially since he's having to get up to go to the football, and not able to get away with lazing in bed till 4pm.

I certainly did some 3am sessions with mates 20 years ago when I was his age, and my two boys (10 and 7) get a bit of a let on non-school nights till maybe 10-11pm if they want.

The rest of the time there are strict rules - the parental controls are set on the wifi and xbox so that they limit their screen-time.

@WeAreSailing

If you only have one child, it's very, very easy to do you can set screentime limits from your microsoft login - family settings - if you have multiple children, much more difficult as the sneaky shits just log in on somebody else's profile and use their time instead.

I'm going against the grain here but he's 15, it's the school holidays - is it really such a huge deal that he's stayed on late? Don't you ever start watching something late at night and get carried away and stay up later than you really should? I dont play xbox but i can see how you could get sucked into a game quite easily and not realise the time has passed (bit like me when i go on mumsnet or facebook) Honestly, with teenagers you need to choose your battles and in my opinion, this ain't one of them. Definitely don't stop him seeing his dad, that would not be a natural consequence for his "crime". And whatever you think about his dad he has a right to some kind of relationship with him, however crap he is. Personally I wouldn't stop him going on his xbox either but id take the leads off when I went to bed so he couldn't play until all hours.

I don't see the issue? In the schopl holidays my mum never cared what time I never went to bed as long as I wasn't miserable the next day.

I don't think it is fair to give a punishment to impact on contact with his other parent. Taking away the Xbox makes more sense.