DS escalating consequences given by DH

[ThaQuilomum]

Sorry this will be long.

DS age 15 is smart, kind and funny but too into screens. Does very well at school but needs to be told to study and sat on. His phone is controlled by us by Quostodio app so it is limited to approximately 2 to 3 hours per day. He is allowed to game at the weekend for 3 hours ish although it is often longer. If he was let, he would stay on screens all day long. During the summer, he can game some evenings also. He has a few jobs he does. Usually has to be reminded: feed the dog, walk the dog, empty the dishwasher. In July he was involved in gym project in the garage with the whole family - clearing out the garage, painting it and putting new gym equipment together. His best friend is abroad at the moment on an exchange. He looks forward to gaming with him in the evenings as there is a time difference. He socialises mainly online.

It is hard to get ds off Gaming. He recently started playing Rainbow Six Siege Where once you start playing you get peanlties and rank can be affected. But if given a warning to turn off once game is over he will come off. This can legitimately be in 30 mins though once the game finishes often the first team to reach 5. So in theory could be up to 9 rounds.

Dh and I had both previously agreed to give DS a fair warning to wrap up gaming sessions. But last night DH demanded he turn off the console instantly while ds was in the middle of a live match. Dh said it was in the loading screen. Ds said it was actually started.

The Escalation: Expecting an immediate shutdown within seconds I feel set ds up for instant failure. When he didn't comply instantly, dh stayed in the room giving out til the match was over. I was in bed having spent evening ferrying dd to activity and asked him to get ds off the game following what i know needs to be done in order to get ds off and over the high and dopamine hit of the game.

I woke to it conpletley escalated. Dh saying he was losing 45 minutes of gaming tomorrow. This went to no gaming tomorrow, to uninstalling the game and to taking the pc out of the house altgoether. Dh definitely eacalated things. Did not hold his boundary calmly. Said ds was harrassing and judging him ('what do you do all day' kind of comments from ds). He pointed out that dh spends hours and hours every day on his phone. Dh was shouting and in his face and ds was saying he was a bully and treats the girls differently and does not give the girls such punishments.

i tired to intervene and calm the situation down. There was no calming dh down who was getting bedroom keys to lock ds in and telling me to f off and slamming doors. Eventually dh locked himself in the sittingroom downstairs and went to sleep while I comforted ds and he cried himself to sleep.

I woke up to ds telling me dh had removed all his time from his phone which i feel is vindictive. Dh says he doesn't respect him and answers him back the whole time. Last night ds was cursing at dh which is extremely rare for him and he was so dysregulated I can see why although it is not right and it needs to be addressed in a calm way after the fact.

10 year old dd was awake during it and recognised the overreaction and stepped in to tell dh he was going too far. He shouted at her that she had no scream time tomorrow.

he is now not talking to me and dh I think. Seems to be talking to dds. How he is not ashamed of himself and reflecting on this is beyond me..

This happens about twice a month always with ds and I end up trying to support a reasonable consequence and have tried on calm days to explain to dh that he is 15 with a developing brain and his push back is normal teenage behaviour and he is actually a very sweet lovely boy. What would you do in this scenario. It is a constant source of conflict between us and tbh I make no apologies standing up for ds because I think the behaviour is so unfair. I just want consequences to be porportionate. I actually feel ds did nothing wrong initially and then lost it completely and didnt shower himself in glory. But how does dh align all that with thr fact he lost his shit and behaved really badly. Aibu to expect dh to be able to regulate himself and deal calmly with his son. He is a gamer himself which I think makes it worse he doesn't understand.

Why is there a lock on your bedroom doors and living room door?

Why so strict about gaming, that’s insane…he is 15 and you don’t give him free access to his phone during the day too?

My thoughts too.

DH sounds like a bully. OP sounds scared of her own DH. She is failing her own children here....

Your husband is a bully. Ways and means of regulating teenage behaviour, yes they test you but he's just being extremely mean and controlling.

You thinking with your heart not your head. The most complex relationship in human society is the father/son relationship. Attempting to interfere and influence the outcome will destroy everyone involved. My career has given me a unique insight to family dynamics and I'm telling the OP to not worry about it.

@Humblehun have you read the thread? These rules are extremely strict. OPs husband sounds abusive. He is controlling as well. This is not the way to parent. He even told OP to F off.

Its irrelevant of your job role but since you mentioned it.... Id say you don't have a very good judge of character.

All families argue but it shouldn't me a few times a month over the same things.

Your missing the point entirely. Don't think you are capable of grasping it. Each to their own

Read the updates.

@ThaQuilomum

This sounds awful and very stressful!

I know it’s a controversial subject, but for what it’s worth I think you’re sensible to have such screen time restrictions. For those who think this is mean and OTT, read the book, Anxious Generation, and you then may feel differently.

The bigger issue here though is (D) H. Others have posted with thought provoking questions and perspectives you are perhaps reflecting on, so I’ll not stack on more, but think this is maybe more serious and harmful than you realised. So easy to not see the picture that clearly when we’re in the depths of it.

Good luck.

There is a book called Anxious Generation that you may want to read.

Just because loads of screen time has been normalised, does not mean it’s good for people as a whole, and especially not developing brains.

This is just not true. My father was, and was physically violent. I still intervened many times to protect my younger brothers. I just couldn't stand listening to it and hearing them.

And yet another study is showing that that anxiety is mainly related to economic factors such as the increase of inequality or GPD (ours is shit) p.

We need to be very careful about cinstantky repeating the same thing like ‘it’s the screens’. It’s appealing and a simple reason to explain somethimg uncomfortable. Yet it’s very likely to be a very simplistic approach to something that has many causes, including reasons that are more likely to be brushed off - our economy declining, the richest becoming ever more rich etc etc….

Indeed, inequality is a massive factor too. The book The Spirit Level covers this nicely.

The Anxious Generation book explains about the perfect storm of a few factors that are having such a negative impact on mental health. Screen time, actually more accurately, disembodied life experiences, is just a part of it. A big part though.

Sorry but the red flag part here for me is locking people in rooms?!

Your husband locked himself in downstairs and slept down there after threatening to lock DS in his room?

All this because a 15 year old child games during the school Summer holidays?!

If you don’t all get a grip your relationship with your son will be damaged irrevocably.

My son is 15 and I let him play on the game in the holidays no strict schedule , is it worth this ? As long as he does all his chores and school work whats the problem

I can really relate to your situation, my DS is just like yours: a good kid who likes gaming, and a DH who doesn't know how to encourage him in a positive way. He just explodes and threatens to throw something out.

I am not sure if DH would be open to it, but one thing that has helped is I have sent my DH some links to a teen parenting podcast/facebook page called - Calm Parenting Podcast - I think. The guy says he used to get very angry at his own son but now gives good suggestions on what parents can say that doesn't cause their kids to become reactive and defensive. He talks about how we are often just reacting to our own anxiety.

One time my DS really got upset at DH for doing something unfair and crazy like just turning off the game without warning. I said to him he needed to learn to communicate better or he will completely damage his relationship with his DS. I think it is getting better.

Your husband is overreacting, gets massively angry, and is a controlling bully.

You know one of the reasons he got so mad was your son pointing out husband spends hours on his phone.

Your 10 year old felt she had to intervene, this went so far. Your husband's anger is affecting your kids and it sure isn't in positive ways. Is his anger escalating now that your son's a teenager?

Him trying to lock your son in his bedroom should be the last straw. I'd look at separating with him out of the house until he finished an anger management course and started individual therapy and showed significant change in how he handles stress and conflict with your teen son. Not family therapy, he's abusive and no one should be doing therapy with an abuser.

I mean if the ten year old daughter is taking it upon herself to get involved, he’s clearly not a big, scary abusive man.

@NorthCoast500 That's untrue. Kids will intervene when they feel the need to protect someone or something they love, even when they know they will get hurt themselves.**

This sounds like the advice you should read. You are this close to saying it was super healthy dynamics and the world was a better place when dads could beat their sons into submission with a belt or a bat. This is not a healthy dynamic at all, and the child needs protecting from it. Maybe he does also need clearer boundaries around screen times, but he needs to not be abused.

This is not really about gaming as the OP said the previous blow up was over her DS having more protein bars than her husband thought he should.
His uncontrolled anger is also directed at the OP and to an extent DD. So he shouts in people’s faces, punches the wall, breaks hairbrushes into dressing tables, threatens to lock people up and then doles out the silent treatment. His uncontrolled rage now surfaces every 10 days so I’m shocked people are just offering advice on gaming boundaries.
OP this is serious. Your husband needs help but he has to want to change. Your first priority must be to your children and getting them out of this cycle of abuse. Please act now, you are the adult and you have to stop this happening now before it potentially escalates and moves beyond redemption.

Ok dear.

But because mine had screen time he has been able to develop the skills to learn to code, excels in gaming and has made friends through this, is able to keep up relationships with his peers without being the weird kid who isn’t allowed to game.

It has led to a good university placement where he is studying Computer Sciences…you know one of the most relevant to life degrees you could do.

We can’t pretend that screens don’t exist and protect everyone from them all of the time because they’re a vital part of human development now.

And my comment is mostly in relation to limiting a 15 year olds phone time, you know the way they maintain relationships with their peers is through their phone, cutting them off and limiting them is not helping at that age.

OK dear.

There was no calming dh down who was getting bedroom keys to lock ds in and telling me to f off and slamming doors. Eventually dh locked himself in the sittingroom downstairs and went to sleep while I comforted ds and he cried himself to sleep
Why in earth are bedroom doors being locked. What if there is a fire! Its not unheard of, my nephews house was buried down by a faulty ipad charger 3 years ago.

The start of the problem seems to be that you had agreed to give ds fair warning, which is reasonable but dh changed the goal post. Thats not fair. I would feel frustrated if I was doing something I enjoyed and ws expecting to do it gor a little longer but suddenly it was taken away from me. No respect was shown to your son.