6yr old video game limit his dad ignores

[LilmissCa]

I have an almost 6yr old son, who his dad (my ex) recently gave a Nintendo switch to (without my prior approval after us agreeing he would get one at his bday or Christmas).

The dad wanted him to have it only at his house, I disagreed with this. My son has been looking for a switch for over a year & giving him that present but only for 2days a week was cruel & was I supposed to buy another one for our house or what ?

Switch is now with my son everyday. I have set up parenting app and it is 45mins play mon-fri & 90mins sat& sun. The dad thinks 90mins was too short for a weekend. At 6 I think 90mins is more than enough.

He's spent his first weekend with his dad with the switch. On Friday he was allowed to play it for 1hr 30mins (went to his dads at 6pm) and on Saturday he played for 3hr 40mins. So far today at 10am he's been on it 1hr 15mins.

I'm aware I can set it up to turn off at the time limit but I wanted to give my son the opportunity to finish his level & save. And I'll be made out to be the only parent enforcing rules if I do that.

Clearly his dad is letting him continue to play. The authority should lie with him to say turn it off. But it is not.

Any advice on how to handle this ??

Dad rules at dad's, your rules at yours. Leave this be. Dads view on screen time is equally valid to yours. Neither of you are wrong but you need to let this go as you can't control what happens at dad's unless it is abusive in which case you go to court or social services. This is not abusive.

@negomi90

Dad rules at dad's, your rules at yours. Leave this be. Dads view on screen time is equally valid to yours. Neither of you are wrong but you need to let this go as you can't control what happens at dad's unless it is abusive in which case you go to court or social services. This is not abusive.

Yep this.

It’s hard but you need to let it go.

I’ve had 18 years of this sort of stuff and honestly it’s not worth the stress or the hassle.

He is just as entitled to set rules as you are.
You have to let it go.

It's up to his dad when he is at his dad's house. You aren't in charge there.

Would you set a time limit for how long hi is allowed to play with Lego or be out on his bike? Or read, play football or draw?

As long as he isn't on if for 12 hours a day it's fine.

Ohh wow that is good to know.
Mentally I've always been a joint parenting approach. Which clearing doesn't work, is draining & causes me to be the bad guy.

I'll need to learn to let it go. It's the dads time he's losing for not spending quality time with his son & letting him sit on games all day. I should prob just turn off the alarm the days my son is with him to takeaway any reminders of my rules.

I would go along with your ex's plan for the switch to be at his house now that it's been a while since he has had it. I agree with you that at first it wouldn't have been reasonable for him to not have access to such an exciting and new present when his main residence is at your house.

Then you don't have to talk about it at all. You definitely need to stop looking to see how long he is been on it! Imagine if your ex was doing something like that. Monitoring what you were doing with your own child in your own home.

It's something that he does at the weekends with his dad and during the week he does other things with you.

if your son is there every weekend I would personally leave the switch there with his. Ds is 5.5 and does not play his during the week at all (between getting picked up from the CM after school, dinner, books, spellings and bed he'd not really have time anyway)