What to do when they're obsessed with the iPad...

[JamesAndTheGiantBanana]

*For iPad please read Minecraft, Skylanders, xbox, tablet, phone, whatever tech they are crazy about, because my ds is into more than one.

He's nearly 8, asd, and utterly obsessed, it's the only thing he gets excited about, the only thing he wants to do (unless something exciting like a day out somewhere is offered) if he has a friend over, all they want to do is play on it. They won't go outside or play with toys, he doesn't play with toys in general apart from the occasional fumble with a bit of lego. On beautiful sunny days he will throw a fit if I ask him to go outside.

I don't know what to do. Getting rid of the iPad would break his heart. He has MUCH more time on it than other kids get because when he isn't on it he does nothing but mope and beg and cause trouble because he's bored. Any ideas?

We have particular times it's allowed to be used. Anytime outside of that gets a no ALWAYS and repeated whining or nagging about it gets time deducted.

So in our house it's in the morning when they are completely ready for school, bags by the door shoes on etc. and in the evenings after 6.30pm until bed at 8/830 respectively. Mine are 8 and 11.

Yes - take it away. I have an 8 yr old Ds who loves Minecraft and Skylanders too. If he is good and does his chores he gets half an hour screen time a day ( tv or PS4). If he misbehaves or moans he loses screen time.
When he first started playing Minecraft he did get a bit obsessed and would be really moody and throw a strop when he came off.
Now we've set strict limits and we stick to them and he knows we stick to them- he doesn't strop hardly at all.

He's 8 - you're the adult. Remove the iPad.

Get rid of it. Tell him why, wait a few months and reassess the situation. If you decide to bring it out again, do so with strict rules in place.

I did this with our television as it was affecting DD's behaviour. We now only have Netflix and I choose what we watch and when.

I try to reason with my 9.0yo ds (also asd). I think the asd is actually quite a big factor with the iPad problem.

I do not have a similar problem with 7yo dd. So she encourages him to play in garden etc as she wants a playmate. I also explain to him that if a person doesn't do any exercise or schoolwork the possible consequences - bluntly. And ironically the fact that if you spend your life playing iPad you might end up unable to afford an iPad of your own as an adult!

Yes, I know I'm the adult, I'm just floundering with what the hell can I get him to do instead when all he wants, all he's focused on is the iPad?

He will literally roam the house moaning, flopping on me and wailing, and starting trouble with the other kids (who are NT and do play with toys and puzzles etc) it's like he's bored to tears but I don't know how to fix that, he's too old for a lot of things, it's not like I can distract him with playdough or baking or anything. Nothing excites him.

He's not too old for baking! There's hundreds of things he could do, he's not even 8 years old. Does he have chores to do?

Thanks Fleecy, it's so tricky with the asd, I don't know how to approach it (waiting on getting some info from the school's senco) she was of the opinion that "as long as he's doing something educational it's not too bad"

I have no idea if they're learning anything from Minecraft. Very much doubt he is from bloody Skylanders.

Take it away. He will be bored and a pain for a few days, then he'll find other things to do

Not too OLD for baking, poor choice of words there. I mean he lost interest in it a long time ago.

There probably are hundreds of things he could do, I'm just finding it hard to find any that he will agree to do.

No he doesn't really have chores, he finds following instructions very hard and it ends up in frustration and temper.

Teddy I like the idea of certain times, I think he'd accept it more if we had rigid rules rather than "You can have an hour a day" because he'd have his hour first thing in the morning then spend the rest of the day begging for more.

What do your 7-10 year old boys do when they're not on iPads or equivalent? Mine isn't interested in sports by the way. or being outside at all, it seems.

We had this and I used to use removal of screen time as a punishment but it was just becoming horrible and negative and he was obsessed with it when he was allowed it. So I changed it around. Now DS can earn time on screens for consistently meeting behaviour expectations over the course of a day. It's given in the form of "tickets" so he has to divide up what he actually wants to do, rather than just rotating from one screen to another mindlessly and he can't earn any new tickets until bedtime.

He still has a lot more screen time than other children, we are a tech heavy family, I could not imagine limiting him to half an hour. If nothing else you can't even do anything on minecraft in 30 minutes! but the fact that the expectation has been removed helps a lot. I agree setting some kind of limit is key.

We also encourage him to do various different things on it - there was a coding app he loved and there's a maths one (dragonbox) I'd like him to try as well. And games which involve a lot of reading and problem solving I like. We don't let him play violent games.

Thanks Bertie, we are a tech heavy family too, me and his dad are both geeks so I understand and take the blame for where this obsession originated from. It's just sort of fuelled by the asd I think (this is the latest in a series of obsessions: Thomas the Tank gave way to Angry Birds, now this - I'm almost scared to see what it will next, at least this is pretty typical for his age group)

Could you explain how you use the ticket idea in a bit more detail please? Is it actual paper tickets or just a concept? Sorry to be thick

The senco mentioned the coding app, is it the one advertised by Barclays? I'll look into it. That has to be eductional. He's very bright at maths so maybe he'd get the maths one too.

We don't let ds play anything violent either. We adhere to the age limits on games, which apparently is totally unfair as "everyone" is playing Halo and Payday now I don't believe it for a second, and anyway he'd be terrified as he's a complete scaredycat who only ever watches the kids tv channels. No bloody way!

DS is 6 and doesn't really play with toys. When he is prised off the away from screens he draws himself a "tablet" to "play games on" Although he also reads (DH introduced him to Naruto manga, which I since discovered is not exactly age appropriate, but I have relented as at least it's not on a screen!) - the cool factor of the manga pushes him to read it himself whereas actual books he still likes to read with me. I haven't found anything cool enough to get him to read alone apart from manga yet. He used to write storied but hasn't done for a while.

Recently we redid his bedroom and he chose which toys he wanted to keep, which piqued his interest in some so he has been building jigsaws and marble runs, and he has a few science type kits but needs to be supervised for those really. He does have chores and somehow when DH asks him to do them he does it in a really exciting way(??) and he will rush off and do his "challenges".

He likes to play card games, like Uno, and I taught him Go Fish which we play together. He was wanting to play card games with us all the time so in a fit of impatience one day, I taught him Patience (solitaire) and it took a couple of goes but he understands the rules of that now and will happily get on with that for ages.

His favourite thing is to go and play outside and we are lucky to live in Germany where it's perfectly normal for six year olds to go off and play semi-supervised so he does that.

Mine play outside on bikes and scooters, bounce on the trampoline, play lego, chores, draw, read, rough and tumble, play games with little siblings, homework, more chores...

The coding app was Lightbot, but you might also want to look at Scratch, if you have a computer.

I have posted about the ticket thing before so I'll try and find another post because it always takes me about an hour to explain it!

Charge it once a week, full charge, and that's it for the week.

Not sure how that would work with asd though.

I don't have experience of ASD, so if this is unreasonable please ignore: my DS is just 8 and obsessed with Stampy videos. He gets that he's only allowed to actually play on the PS4 at weekends (where we have Minecraft), but would ideally watch Stampy from waking in the morning till going to sleep. We introduced a voucher system: each time he does proper piano practice he earns a 30 minute Stampy voucher -max one per day.
We make an effort to organise other activity to keep his mind off it (walking, swimming etc), plus lots of jobs for him to do - it's more of an effort at the start as he unlearned the habit of Stampy dependency, but really worth it because he's much pleasanter without it. (The screen made him really bad-tempered).

Here. The post is really long (as is the thread so hopefully it goes to the right post) but it's the most detailed one I've written.

Obv some stuff may have to be moderated for ASD but hope it helps.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/a2321246-My-5y-old-DS-bullies-me#52918220

Thanks. We do have a trampoline, he has a bike, scooter, spin trike, huge amounts of lego, marble run, he likes starwars and will read the annual on his own but only at bedtime or when he's sent to his room for being unbearable. I don't think he would do puzzles or card games, I don't think I could get him to understand the instructions.

He won't draw (well, only skylanders or angry birds, on his own terms) isn't interested in doing anything arts and crafts wise, which is all his sister wants to do at the moment.

Chores wise, like I said he doesn't really have any that he has to do every day, if I ask him to vacuum or whatever he ends up sucking up things on purpose or sticking the nozzle into drinks he's a monkey. but I do occasionally give him really simple tasks like "put this washing on my bed" and reward him with 50p for his piggy bank or a few sweets or whatever when the pile of washing is gone. Maybe I should do that every day.

It doesn't help that school give them no homework so there's no routine to the evenings or anything, all he basically has to do is eat his tea and get ready for bed.

If dd2 wants screen time she gets to go on scratch and do some coding unless it's her set tv time.

She's writing games using scratch and is also using her pi to create minecraft add ons.
Her time just consuming screens is limited but the time spent coding and creating on a screen isn't

Cross posted, I would institute some educational tasks. Using sum dog or maths is fun to improve maths skills and other educational programmes for literacy.

I've banned screens Monday-Thursday completely. my ds is like yours, and I thought he'd be devastated, but he's fine.

at weekends there's screen time - (no screens from 9-4pm) and it's ok.

Oh and I take the iPad to work with me so he won't be tempted.

Thanks, really helpful stuff here! I will re-read the tickets thing and see if I can implement it, maybe it's because I'm tired but it sounds complicated tonight!

I will look into the coding/maths/educational games, they sound like a good direction to steer this into, if he must stare at a screen. (She says, staring at a screen)

Henrietta the mon-thurs ban sounds good, I've been tempted to do that myself because somehow the iPad has now crept into school mornings and I have to ask him to brush his teeth many times because he's nearly got to such-a-such level, and then when he does do it he's slamming about and brushing his teeth for all of ten seconds before leaping back on the iPad. It's not on.

My mild ASD boy was tough at that age. Again very tech heavy family. I found it super difficult to limit him, lazy parent no doubt but the tantrums and behaviour were really tough.

Also he found it really useful to centre himself if he became overwhelmed or over stimulated. He loves games, strategy games, you could play chess but if not there are loads of strategy card and board games which are easy to pick up and importantly don't take more than half an hour. Stay away from slow death by monopoly.

He like Lego kits with instructions to follow. He also got into reading about your son's age. Books where there are loads to collect such as beast quest are good.

Judo, kick boxing, karate, tae kwondo could be another outlet. No team play, assuming that might be a problem, lots of clear rules, instructions, belts to collect.

He has grown into himself now, just starting computer science GCSE, he's top of the class as you would imagine. He produces u tube videos, creates his own servers etc..

If I could go back in time I would relax a bit.

Take it away and give him a book. Never done me any harm.