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!

Yes, Minecraft is very fun. My DD made a treehouse world connected by roller coasters on hers.

My DC created their own games in Roblox- they learnt Lua, did the coding and scripting. They had no interest in the mindless games.

That's completely irrelevant. You can't describe a varied gaming platform as "educational " when not all the games on it are like that.

Sorry, but the Roblox platform is for children to create and share games. Yes, some children create shit games, but the purpose of Roblox is to learn basic coding, scripting and game design. Roblox is educational. The games that users create on it, can be any sort of game but that doesn’t take away the fact that Roblox itself is educational.

If children are just going onto Roblox to play the games already created by other children, they aren’t doing Roblox imho.

So why bother doing anything then. This statement makes no sense.

It is not one or the other. 99.99% of the kids who play sport are also playing video games.

cos its a tenuous link to suggest that involving OPs kids in video games might end up in him working in the industry.

I was massively into video games as a kid, it did me no harm whatsoever and I am now in the IT industry in a well paid job.

I remember my siblings walking around Hearst castle in California and taking extensive notes so that they could recreate it in Minecraft 😄. I bet they looked at it better than most kids.

My six year old child is allowed to play video games. It's all about offering suitable ones. Right now she is into Little Kitty in the Big City, which requires reading to fully figure out.

Your choices are excluding him. It is like having no tv and then wondering why he does not pick up on cultural references from whatever they are watching. I am not saying that everyoneeds consoles, or tv even, but most will do and they love it, talk about it, can play online with each other. You are choosing to exclude him from that and, yes, that impacts him.

We have very tight rules around time spent on screens, games available, who can be in groups dc play with. I feel this is the best I can do in terms of protection, while ensuring social inclusion. There has been a marked difference since we changed or position. We have a happier child, who is included in more invites etc.

Why "sadly"? Gaming is great. It's a hobby, just like any other hobby. You wouldn't say "sadly, doing jigsaws is part of their social life now". or "sadly, reading is part of their social life now".

Any hobby which becomes an obsession is unhealthy whether that is tennis or gardening or gaming. Roblox, Fortnite or Minecraft (the sort of games 10 year olds are into) are hardly dangerous. Yes limit time and set boundaries just as you would in any other part of a child's life.

Year 5 DS as well, I caved at Christmas and allowed Fortnite but with a strict tolerance around who he plays with and the length of time, so far it's been ok.

Not true. A friend of mines son is playing for a premiership club in the academy.
He is 10. He's playing football at least three times a week and travelling and not interested in social media or computer games.
Any bit of relaxing he does he might watch a bit of televisión.

This might sound bonkers but an alternative suggestion I know other people in screen-free/lite houses have done -

Have you tried looking on Amazon for the books about Fortnite/Roblox? Not guides but actual story books. That way he can immerse himself in the characters, narrative, language etc without the gaming itself.

As I say, bit alternative, but I know it has worked well for others

cos its a tenuous link to suggest that involving OPs kids in video games might end up in him working in the industry.

This. For every success story you have hundreds more of teens wasting their lives/education away , or growing into shitty parents/partners that neglect their other duties and all they are interested in is gaming. Let's not pretend that they don't exist.

Lots of stuff on Roblox is fine, Fortnite is awful

Playing games isn't "bad for the brain" if you make sure your child has variety of activities in their life. Jeez.

Growing up, me and my brother would play Goldeneye together on the N64. We both have fond memories of that. And F zero x!
Me and my bestie used to have Asteroids competitions and play sonic on the snez. My brother would play Total Anhiliation against my dad! (Dad is totally not a gamer 😁)
Caesar 3 was a game where you had to build a Roman town and make sure the residents were happy, start building farms to grow food, invest in infrastructure etc etc - I bloody loved that game and it taught me how aqueducts were built!

We also played outside, put on shows, cycled everywhere, went exploring, craft stuff.

Playing games can be co-operative/team building etc. It does probably depend on the game but I think it's wrong to just have "games = bad for brain" mentality.

They're like crack of you forbid it.

Games are fine, especially for an active child who has a peer group. it's mostly when other factors like depression, loneliness, anxiety etc. get mixed in, then can people descend.

If a girls friends were doing make up and she wanted to try, I'd personally have no issue.

You can make compromises like no makeup to school, weekends only.

I suppose even since the 80s kids have had access to video games its nothing new. The main difference is the portability of it now, taking over car journeys, dining tables, days out, holidays etc

Thank you everyone for the input. I can see we are being unreasonable and we need to allow him to develop self regulation skills, and that can be with gaming. He'll feel more included at school too as a result. He is well rounded, plays 2 sports, a musical instrument, goes to Cubs and has a little brother he loves playing with at home. Downtime tends to be reading , playing Lego and kicking a ball outside. He has free reign on the TV at weekends but self regulates well and turns it off after an hour or so to go and play.

I agree that now is the time for introducing it to him at 10, but am less certain about his 7 year old brother. They are very close and do everything together, so the little one would be gaming too. It seems a bit too soon for him, but perhaps I'm doing him a disservice too. I think we'll start with Minecraft and go from there. We will jointly agree some ground rules and boundaries as to when and how long he plays so that he feels some control over it too. Thanks everyone!

P.S am a bit baffled by the comment that not allowing screens is lazy parenting!

Aww it's so looked down upon. Well the wheels will turn and future generations will go where the prospects are and gaming is definitely one of them

We had a balance, until we couldn't when they were older. But by then they were making their own decisions for good or bad as would be the way for most teenagers in any era.

However we were brought up and whatever we envisaged ourselves as parents, we do have to have to keep up current interests for our DC. And yes, unfortunately, that is gaming! You can set restrictions hours and games but to be able to talk to peers they do need to know what they involve and being in denial and not allowing will lead to being misunderstood at a young age sadly. I'm not a gamer but I see the importance for my DC to do it as most if not all kids do it. This doesn't mean a lack of other forms of activity, just allow gaming to a part of their world. Xx

Whether you like it or not gaming is a part of children’s social worlds now. You are actively allowing your child to be ostracised because of your own beliefs. No it’s not right to be bullied but if you know you can do something about it then you owe it to your son to do it.

when I was at school in was the equivalent to those kids whose parents didn’t let them watch tv. The ones who weren’t allowed to watch Grange Hill we felt sorry for, but no tv at all was 😲

My DDs have free rein over gaming, if they choose. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. What we don’t have is meltdowns anymore because we aren’t giving them a little then pulling it away.

They are fit healthy children, read, do clubs, activities, sports, love going out and about, doing well at school, great social skills.

Others have mentioned other activities, but those kids will also play games. Swapping user names is like the old version of swapping phone numbers. My DDs make friends talking about gaming, they will say a new kids started gymnastics can I add them to my friends list. They still play against the girls we met on a caravan holiday last year. It’s all done by rules, DH and I check their friends lists, who they talk to etc…

If you do allow it I would absolutely be prepared and understand the effects games can have. Yes they are addictive because they give you a high when you start playing them. It’s no different to the high I get shopping, or people get watching football. When a games taken away it can cause a child to have a meltdown because all of a sudden that highs taken away. Again for me it would be the equivalent to my shopping cart crashing and my new shoes not being available when I get back in, or sky crashing during the euros final. Being able to manage that is key and understanding your child isn’t being naughty because they can’t play, they can’t control the hit being taken away.

We always managed this with countdowns to when games or devices were going off. We don’t need to do it as much now, they know devices go off at dinner, before bed etc so have learnt to self regulate, my DDs are 6, 10 & 12. It’s a no to talking tablets out with us, in restaurants most of the time, sometimes it’s allowed usually if we are on holiday we will let them chill out at dinner if we’ve had a busy day. It’s not a big deal if they don’t have them though.

My DH was a gamer, massive so he’s able to supervise as well as play games with the kids. The boys at school love hanging out here as my DH has a nice set up and they can talk gaming. DH being a gamer hasn’t stopped him doing well, he’s extremely well travelled, social ( although a natural introvert) and has a very successful career.

I do feel sorry for those kids who have parents with a stick up their arses about computers, gaming, tables etc as their children are absolutely missing out because technology isn’t going away. Homework and a lot of learning is done online. My dd will check her homework on her phone the moment we get in the car. If she can do some quizzes on the drive home to reduce her homework time when she gets home she will.

My thoughts as well, past bedtime so I couldn't join in some of the conversations about the 'in' programmes. I thought so many parents were so lenient, which I guess does transgress to gaming now but they can be played anytime so not the same x

Jaysus at this rate you'll be putting Minecraft on the curriculum!