10 year old picked on for not playing computer games

[Duckduckgoose78]

My DS in Yr5 came home from school today upset, saying he's being picked on by two boys in his class because he doesn't play computer games like Roblox or Fortnite. He's also feeling left out of the gaming chat in the classroom and in the playground because he can't join in with them.

It's a conscious decision on our part to not let him play games, we don't have a console (apart from the Wii) and he has a busy life with lots of activities after school and at the weekend so there's no time anyway! He would likely not be able to self regulate, and although he is much better now, he did used to get very upset when he lost at mario kart on the Wii.

How do we help him deal with the social exclusion he's feeling at school? He's only been at this school since half way through Yr4, 18 months or so. He's found it hard to integrate into the class, but has a small core group of friends with things in common now, and had a good time on school residential last week with them. We really don't want to introduce games, but are wondering whether we're putting him at a disadvantage by not having them at home. Are we being unreasonable by not letting him game? Help!

DS, age 10 cycles between playing Fifa, Minecraft, Roblox, Rocket League, an F1 game and Fortnite. He is very sporty and is hardly home in the good weather! Some of his friends are only allowed to play certain games and thats fine in his circle, but by year 5 I don't think there were any children who hadn't played any of the list. So yes if he wants to I would let him play a bit.

Screens are like crack to many young lads. Once you start it can be a slippery slope.

Not having a knowledge of gaming won't negatively impact development.

OP mine were late to. The gaming party too as there is so much other cool stuff to do in the world. But they joined in eventually. Minecraft is a benign game so seems like a good "starter" game to test the waters with. Some kids are more prone to over-reliance on games than others, so if go into it with a spirit of enquiry and be clear that you've no quelms about reselling any console you might buy if the experiment is unsuccessful. Be gentle but firm and clear (if that sounds like an oxymoron, tell him your expectations and what will happen if those aren't met, but in a normal voice, not with added shame).

I wasn't aloud to watch certain tv programmes which meant I was not able to join in on certain conversations- they would not have been bad for me in the slightest and I missed out socially. personally I don't see a problem with games and do agree with ds that he is missing out because of your decision.

This sounds so self righteous that every child in front of a screen has an automatic lazy parent. You can engage as a parent with your child gaming; you could game together, you can build gaming PCs (highly technical and great problem solving and design skills), you can also encourage them to see the craft behind the making of the games from the art to the code and they can join clubs on coding and game development.

My child is 5, so before you denounce me as a lazy screen parent I’m not, he’s too young at the moment but I’m not going to sit here and broadly judge all parents if they let their children game without at least getting a bigger picture than “screens are lazy”.

Their world is increasingly and rapidly technological and to simply say “only do sports and music” is wholly doing the industries of art, design and technology a disservice. I imagine the people filming/ sound mixing the matches your child watches, or the ones producing the music they listened to all gamed in their youth. It’s a gateway of recreation to numerous transferable skills in industry.

DD1 is terrible with a screen. Always has been. But she can't learn to self regulate if we don't give her the opportunity.

She's got a phone now (she's at the end of Y6) and I think the first weekend she spent something like 10 hours on it, and she was awful to live with. She's got parental limits on it now, she understands why and she's slowly getting better at not using up every single second of her time limit!

She's also terrible with games and gets really worked up if she can't do them. But again, she's not going to learn to control those reactions if she doesn't have the opportunity. So we play with her, we help her, and if she gets cross we turn it off.

I think banning stuff all together makes it seem 100x more exciting and harder for kids to self regulate once it is available.

Honestly, it is social exclusion and you are enabling it which I can only assume is because you can’t be bothered to parent properly

What sort of BS is this?! To suggest that its somehow child abuse. In the past things like WWE Wrestling and Premier League football were the topics of conversation in the yard but some kids didnt have Sky TV so had no clue what was going on. Did they grow up to be affected by it? Doubtful.

Of course they won’t be able to regulate it at that age - that’s where parenting comes in.

my son is the same age but the time and content is heavily regulated by me and the parents of his friends .

DS is very poor at sports so misses out on the break time football and weekend sports clubs - but this is his way in to socialise with the boys in his class. if we banned him he would be very lonely indeed. In fact the only boy in the whole year who isn’t in any kind of friendship group is the one boy who’s banned from gaming.

Absolutely this. We allow DS10 on these games and are teaching him to self regulate, along with giving him clear boundaries. He has so far never had a tantrum or trashed his room etc etc. He is in fact bored of Fortnite now and plays Rocket League with his friends - which is a racing car /football game.

The only reason your DS kicked off about losing to Mario Kart is because he isnt used to playing games!

Personally I would allow limited gaming . I’m a little wary of sport being pushed for all children, as I have always been useless at any type of sport.

There's nothing balanced about your post so maybe you should take your own advice.

In ten years come back to this conversation.

I think this is the best suggestion so far.

As an adult, presumably you socialise through shared common interests with your friends?

How much effort do YOU personally make with people who you have little in common with? I bet you don't bother with them other than a polite "hello".

Children are no different. If you remove access to ordinary activities that other children are involved with, how can your child join in and socialise?

You might think that denying kids access to TV, gaming etc. is somehow superior parenting, but you're not the one left struggling to navigate the fickle world of childhood friendships.

@Duckduckgoose78

we were the same as you and restricted gaming thinking it was the right thing.
Basically my son lost all his friends in Year6 as he didn’t have Fortnite, then Covid came and ours rules changed anyway.

I feel bad about that and wished we had listens to him and done it differently

I didn't allow fortnite in primary school. Could you compromise and allow minecraft?

We've been very careful about how we introduce gaming in our family...we have it in a communal space, and make sure that we play with the kids on their PS4 as well as letting them have their own time on it. They're used to just getting 30 mins at a time, as regulation was a problem in our house too.

We took the stance that the gaming could be a good thing, if it was monitored and we turned it into fun family time together.

We play things like the Lego games, Gang Beasts & Minecraft. Haven't ventured into Roblox yet...not sure we will.

Will you be less narrow minded by then?

No it bloody isn't if your child has Dyspraxia!!

It's very divisive in that instance.

Where we live, many families are GAA daft and it can be very isolating when you can't catch and throw a ball or ride a bike.

Luckily, we didn't limit access to computers and tech and DS discovered he's extremely bright and is a whizz at coding, languages and music. All completely self taught!

That’s good for your child.

I think it has to be a case by case thing. In the case of my DS, yes there were a lot of kids who did gaming, but there were plenty who were happy to talk about other things and some who weren’t allowed/interested. So although he was out of it at times, he wasn’t a social pariah. If ALL the kids are gaming and the whole culture centres around it that’s different and I’d probably allow it (while making plans to move schools, to somewhere there is more diversity!)

I’ll be worse! Looking forward to hearing your parenting adventures with screens. Yes screens are important but parenting a gamer at 15yrs is not the same time and interaction engagement as for sports. Check out the misery of screen addiction as reported here on many posts. Your kid is 5yrs so you can avoid the problems. I’ve not had screen problems with my kids and I thankful for that.

I think you've done well to hold out till this point - but he's not got much more than a year left until he's at secondary school. Would he still not be allowed to play games then? I definitely wouldn't allow Fortnite or Roblox but Minecraft is pretty creative and safe and could be a good compromise or maybe the lego games. If you decide to give it a go then set a time and stick to it religiously.

And if he starts gaming because the bullies have forced him to, what will be the next thing they find to bully him about?
Running around trying to appease people who dislike you doesn’t work.

Would you feel the same if it was a girl being left out and mocked for not being into makeup/"skin care" and tik tok?