Does your 9 y.o. ever ......?

[clumsymum]

Ask you a question, to which he already knows the answer will be 'No', just to start an argument?

DS does this fairly often. Take this morning for example. We get in the car to go to school, and he says "if I do my homework and guitar practice without fuss this afternoon, can I go on Roblox(a computer game) tonight?"

Now we have banned roblox after several warnings, because whenever he has been playing it he comes off the computer grumpy and un-cooperative. So we have blocked the site completely.

So I said "no, it's been blocked because it makes you irritable, as you know".

Then he whines for 5 mins about us being mean, stopping him doing anything he enjoys .... blah ...blah.

Then after 2 minutes of quiet (after I've yelled "I don't want to hear any more about Roblox") he says ....... "how long is it banned for, can I play it again when I'm 10 ?"

AAAAAAAARGH.

Have you blocked it permanently and does he know that?

yep.

dd's favourite is as soon as she comes out of school asking me if friends can come round for tea that day.

she knows i will always say no, as i like to arrange it with the mum, make sure i have enough food in, etc etc.

don't mind them coming for a play or whatever but staying for tea and the whole taking them back at 6.30-7 ish is a bit of a pita.

Seeker, yes it is banned permanently, and yes he knows.

We had discussions about it 3 weekends in a row. Every time he said it wasn't cos of Roblox, he would sort himself out, and he wouldn't play it so often. Everytime he was warned that we would block it if he continued to have mood probs with it.

So we did what we said.

just you and me then jooseyfruit.

Perhaps to the rest of MN the answer is just so obvious they feel they don't have to respond They all do, surely?

With my ds (8), it's the Lord of the Rings. We found watching it made him more exciteable than he should be, so told him we were giving it a break and that noone is to watch it in our house for a bit.

That's interesting cory.

I remember when "the Incredibles" came out on DVD, ds was about 6 or 7 and was IMPOSSIBLE after he watched it, just terribly over excited.
I sent it to a charity shop in the end.

I do find that the cartoon channels on TV get ds a bit het-up. TBH I'd rather ds watches the endless repeats of Top Gear on Dave than Fergus & whats his name.

Yes but mostly re food!!!

DD is 10 and the first words out of her mouth after school are "can we go and get sweets?" she says this at least 3 times a week! She knows the rules are sweets only at weekends (unless special occ).

Also, she asks nearly every morning if she cna have a chocolate biscuit for breakfast when she knows I will say no.

"Can I have some MatchAttack cards?"

At least twice a day!

Is the computer game the right age for him ? If so, could he earn back teh right to use it - and then only for half an hour at a time?

isn't the Lord of the Rings a 12?

Not the first one, it's PG.

Seeker, yes it is the right age for him, I'm fairly hot on that kind of thing.

I'm not giving him the right to earn it back, simply because the cr*p behaviour occurs AFTER he's played it, so I would get a week's worth of my lovely boy, followed by 1/2 an hour of Roblox, followed by an afternoon of mardyness. We've given him opportunities to prove it isn't the game that sets him off, he can't so the game goes.

FWIW I generally use computer or Wii time as my sanction against poor behaviour, and give him opportunities to earn those back, but this has gone too far.

But I didn't start this thread to discuss that particular issue, it was more about his general appaternt desire to 'stir things up',

He knows the answer to a question will be one he doesn't like, but asks the question anyway, just to give himself the excuse to kick off.
One morning the question was "do I have to go to school today?"

read apparent rather than 'appaternt' in my post above.

Sorry - I only asked about the age thing because my ds gets very mardy (lovely word) if he has a game that's too difficult for him and I was wondering whether this could be part of the problem.

Have you thought about suggesting that he can earn it back - then only let him go on it for half an hour or so? Or is that not a good idea?

But I think the bonkers questions go with the territory - I don't think they really remember they've asked it before - or they hope they'll get a different answer or soemthing!