Gaming and keeping up with the Jones's at 10

[offbeatmum]

New to Mumsnet, so Hi to all and a yell for help. Will try and be brief - 10 yr old DD wants a Wii. I'm beginning to think I'm the only household that doesn't have one. I haven't even stopped to think about this in the past, I've always just said no, I can't afford one (husband and bf free, one little income, too many debts, 2 DC). But, very recently, DD becoming upset that all her friends in her class have one (I'm beginning to believe her now) and they talk at break times about connecting online together. DD says she feels left out, they've told her she's uncool and she won't know what they're talking about. Youngest DD is telling me that eldest DD is always on her own at break times.

AIBU to expect her to just get through this and ignore the comments? Am I being a dinosaur mum? Is it unreasonable to expect my kids to grow up without the latest thing in gaming? Don't want to make a martyr of DD or for her to be upset. Your thoughts are very welcome.

Struggling to decide whether to buy one this year too (for our eight year old ds really). Will be interested in comments!

Hmm. My DCs are younger than yours and I'm really against it, think DH wants it more than they do!
Personally I wouldn't - if you have debts there's better things to spend your money on.
So no, YANBU.

My DS has an xbox and he did spend lots of time using it to play online with his classmates after school when he was in primary school; he doesn't so much at secondary.

It is not really keeping up with the Joneses in the way a new dress or a new car would be. It is not a status symbol; it is a communication tool.

Our neighbour's son does not have one, and so he spent a lot of time at our house in the winter so he could go online and play. In the summer they are out on bikes so the xbox gets forgotten about.

If you can't afford one, you can't afford one, but it does mean that the other girls are using it to talk to each other after school and your DD isn't. That is no excuse for them to leave your DD out during school time, and I think you should talk to the school about that as it is really mean.

Hopefully you will be lucky and they will move on to some other interest that your DD will be able to join it with. Could you get her to invite some girls round?

That's an interesting perspective about it being a communication tool - I've always seen them as a bit of a gimmick. An expensive gimmick. But maybe I'm just so behind the times that I've failed to see this is the way kids communicate. I don't want her to be the only kid who starts secondary next year not knowing anything about all this. Aargh!

There are positive and negative aspects to it. DS plays online with his cousin, who lives a long way away, and they chat away to each other over their headsets. They are communicating a lot more than they would if the x box did not exist.

One issue is if you get a Wii now, and then she goes to secondary and her new friends use xbox not Wii, or her friends get bored and stop using it. Then you have spent a whole load of money you can't afford. There is also the games to pay for; she will need the same games as her friends play, and then they might change to a new game.

I would be very stressed if DS came home and said people were using the Wii and he needed one instead of an xbox; it is just all such and expense. Could you talk to the other mums and find out how much their daughters actually play online? It might just be a fad.

At secondary they seem to bother with PC stuff like Facebook instead of gaming, but that might just be at DS's school.

Thanks for those insights - really helpful to know things could change at secondary school and to know more about how others use it to communicate. It was definitely my feeling that a Wii might only be used for a short while. Will have a good think now!

how long til she goes to secondary, and will ALL her friends be moving to the same school as her? could it be something that she gets for her bday just as she moves up?
fwiw, ky niece got a mobile phone just before leaving yr 6, as all her friends were going to a mix of 8 different sec schools, so they all got mobiles & swapped numbers as a kind of leaving 'rite of paasage'.

could that be a compromise, with you having a deadline to save towards?

Convince her PC's are better for gaming and connecting online anyways. Then at least you wont have to worry about when the next new console comes out.