Advice! (Kind advice only please!)

[Ccow]

Hi all, please no judgement or unkind words! I had a difficult upbringing, aggressive parents, affairs, alcohol involved etc, I won't bore anyone, it wasn't all bad! I want my son to have a great childhood, my husband works hard, he had a nice upbringing. I work part time with young homeless people.

We only have 1 child, I had problems conceiving him and couldn't give him a sibling, which I feel bad about.

I have fibromyalgia so really struggle day to day with pain and exhaustion (I don't drink alcohol, smoke/takes drugs) and I am doing everything I can to make my life as normal as possible.

Gadgets are the problem atm, our son is addicted, I set boundaries and time limits and my parents don't help as he's their only grandchild so they spoil him and seem to want to spend loads of money on him, buy him expensive gadgets etc, whereas myself and my husband are happy to make do with what we have and want to raise our son how we want to raise him!

My parents try to tell me that I shouldn't be taking my sons gadgets off of him as they spent alot of money on them, but I didnt ask them to and how we raise our son is up to us!

I feel resentment and I have been firm with my parents as I don't feel they really have the right to say how we raise our son in our own home, especially when these gadgets cause so much upset in our house!

I was brought up strict and I feel my parents are still trying to control me!

Its a complicated situation, they do love our son to bits and things have changed a lot over the years so I wouldn't put him in danger if I thought my parents were of any risk to him.

I'm just struggling with my sons behaviour around coming off of gadgets and settling down for bed, he always needs to be stimulated and gets bored quickly. We try to get him out and once out in nature and in the fresh air he is a different child, he likes playing football too, but the park shuts early and because of winter I feel that evenings are difficult to do much due to my condition as I get so exhausted in the winter! We try and play board games, read, watch films etc, but he has that teenage attitude that all he wants to do is play on gadgets and talk to his friends on the phone! (We don't deny him interaction with his friends as it is important!)

Sorry for the long post, I'd just like to know if anyone has similar situations and what they would do?!

How old is he @Ccow? And it’s unclear from your post of your “D”Ps live with you or not?

They can say what they want, you don't have to do it.

Screens are awful for the developing brain. I let my toddler watch too much TV when either of us is ill and the tantrums he throws when it doesn't continue are awful - but I stand my ground.

How old is your son?

What do you and your DP do to limit his access at the moment?

The discipline or consequences you can impose on him are very much dependent on his age as PP say...

I haven’t exactly (I had non addicted girls) but have seen the dangers of this. However, doesn’t he get school homework? What about after school activities? We filled up a lot of time with these.

DN had a gaming addiction. Tantrums and anger when time for bed and when asked to stop gaming. Never wanted to share device with his sisters and often spent 8 hours a day gaming. Got far below his capabilities for GCSE results and A levels were not good enough for university. Not a grandparent issue - a parenting one though.

My honest view is that you should stick to your guns. At primary school, DN was glued to the devices and certainly did no sport or activities and then was a PITA at secondary school. Don’t let your DS slide into this. This behaviour actually caused a rift in the family.

Also don’t let your parents dictate your house rules. You need to explain to them why he cannot have the devices for too long. Show them articles about what happens. Lock the devices away for the night. To prevent extreme use, try and have his friends round, take him out and get him into clubs.

Son is 12 and husband lives with us.

Thank you for your advice, its much appreciated. Our son does football for the school team, but for the last few weeks it has been cancelled with no explanation. His friends come round, but in the summer it was getting to the point where we we were having all of his friends round all of the time, taking them out for days, sleep overs and they were wanting to eat at ours all the time and we were struggling financially and when I had my fibromyalgia flare ups it was difficult to cook for fussy eaters etc!! Plus our son was never being invited to anyone else's houses so we said to him to ask to go to their houses sometimes!

We play badminton on a Sunday and have a gym membership so go swimming plus we have a dog so we all go together different places when we are off to take the dog out.

Our son initially doesn't want to go and will want to stay in his pjs to play on gadgets, but once he is out he has a lovely time!

I don’t think this is an unusual problem, most families have a tussle over screen time with kids this age. My db had a gaming addiction and it caused horrible arguments.

I think you set firm rules - every meal eaten at the table; no screens at the table; no screen time before school. No screens after 9.30pm. No phone in bedroom overnight. Then you give dc chores that must be done each day and make sure he stays on top of homework and walking the dog.

At weekends you restrict number of hours to a sensible number and that’s that.

Who cares what the grandparents say?

Pretty much everyone has the problem with screen time.

it’s always much harder in the winter as well as in the summer it’s much easier to get them out and about.

a possible thought - get him doing more activities? We worked quite hard at keeping our teens so busy there wasn’t much time left for screens. Scouts, cadets, a new sport?

@Ccow I hear you about friends! However - glad he’s got friends! Does he read books? Like art? We did watch tv with our girls but as a family. Maybe draw up a timetable for screen time?