Have I over-reacted? Struggling to forgive my DD

[thepeopleversuswork]

Found out yesterday my DD (11) has downloaded some computer games which I have been paying for without authorisation (the account was foolishly linked to my bank account. I know I have been really stupid on this front so please don't give me a hard time). I've cancelled the account, removed the games she's ordered and confiscated the laptop and her other devices for two weeks. We've had a long talk and I have let her know she has destroyed my trust and she will have to work hard to earn it back and repay the money (about £40).

She was hugely apologetic and has said she will do what it takes to make it up to me etc. We left things on friendly and loving terms last night after a good discussion: I said I loved her and would always forgive her but there needed to be an appropriate punishment and I needed her to demonstrate to me that I can trust her before I will let her download any new games. (Clearly she's not getting access to anything linked to my bank account again).

I'm still feeling really upset and angry this morning that she was able to find it in herself to do this and am struggling to move past it. I know its important to set boundaries and appropriate punishments but forgive and move on but this morning she started trying to bargain to get the game back (if I do this can I get it back in this timeframe etc). I flared up and said I'm sick of hearing about computer games and I never want her to talk to me about them again (I am sick of hearing about them tbh: I find them utterly tedious and I resent the amount of time and energy that she spends talking and thinking about them). She's a good kid, doing well at school and has other interests etc. TBH I loathe computer games, I find them to be a total waste of time and I resent the amount of time that her generation spends on them. If I could, I'd completely ban them but that's another story.

I just want some advice about how to deal with this. I've never in the past found it hard to forgive her, even if she's been really naughty. I've always thought she's a monkey but would not do anything devious like this and the whole thing has frightened and distressed me and I'm still holding quite a bit of anger towards her.

I know I need to hold the line on the punishment but move past the anger but I'm finding it hard and its scared me a bit. Any advice here?

OP both myself and my partner play video games - we always have since we were kids. So I have to say your perception on gaming is very unhealthy. Not all video games are mindless entertainment, some require large amounts of logic, patience and practice - I've even learned stuff I didn't know before from video games. I can play them with my partner as a way to spend time together and we both play online with our friends, which was a much needed social lifeline during lockdown.

Also do you have the same feeling about watching TV or a movie? That's even less of an interactive activity than a computer game. At least a video game requires you to be engaged with it.

People can’t ‘just stop’ being triggered. It’s bringing back a traumatic experience for them. I was a lone parent in lockdown. It was bloody awful.

I’m with the consensus that you massively overreacted. We all do sometimes. It is your kid’s job to push boundaries and fail at things, that’s how we learn, and it’s yours to set boundaries that only allow her to fail in a way you can live with. I think this was your failure, not hers. She’s 11, she doesn’t have adult impulse control and it was unfair to expect her to, or punish her for not having it. She should only lose the devices until you have fixed the tech issues.

If you REALLY want to make this a learning experience for her, you could set better boundaries, and let her fail some more within them. You can show her we all make mistakes and sometimes overreact. Apologise for making it such a big deal, reassure her it’s normal for children, give her back her devices (yes, really. Show her you can come back from a mistake) and set her up with her own linked bank account. Agree part of her pocket money is hers to spend on gaming, and part for tangible things (explain that she is pitted against a team of skilled adults who want her money and you need to protect her from them taking it all). She will learn to save up for things she wants, and what happens when she blows her budget on payday (we’ve all done it) and will form better boundaries herself than she will from being punished, both parentally and emotionally. Holding the resentment and emotionally punishing her (especially when you’ve said you moved on) is much more of a problem, because she can’t trust you to love her even when she makes normal mistakes and also to do what you say you are doing. You’re emotional punishment is much more damaging than anything else here. You made a mistake, it had a consequence. You’ve fixed it and addressed it. It’s ok (she should still earn the money back though. Children don’t really know what money ‘means’ only what it means to them. Doing chores for it will help her learn the real value of exchanging time for money. Most kids don’t even go shopping in these days of home delivery, let alone know how long it takes a parent to earn £40 or that the electric bill is twice that each month. How could they? we don’t include them in discussions about it!)

I suspect you need to forgive yourself. You made a mistake, and now it’s fixed. In the grand scheme of things, there’s no lasting harm, assuming the £40 doesn’t break your food budget this month.

@girlmom21

I suspect she doesn’t know the value of £40

Sorry but if your 10 year old doesn't know the value of £40 you're doing it wrong

Tbf when I was 10 a boy on my table told us all he had £40 in his savings and we were all flabaghasted at how rich he was 🤣

Op, can you explore what it is about video games that you are taking so personally? It sounds like you think they’re so below you that you think your daughter is stupid for playing them - maybe not, but that’s how it comes across to us, and I would guess, to her.
I’d really encourage you to explore the art and innovation that is involved in video games now, it could be really beautiful opportunity for you to show DD that you’re interested in her and what she likes.
You don’t want to be the mom whose daughter shares nothing she enjoys with because she’s she’s scared you’ll be judgy and tarnish it for her.

I stand by what I said about computer games though. If I have to feign interest in then to have a connection with my DD so be it but I can’t pretend I like them. I think they are bad for adults and children and I wish they didn’t exist.

You could say the same about tv, books, magazines, board games, skateboarding. All can be addictive - don't you ever read a great book and find you can't put it down?

Forgive her. She's 11 and dependent on you. Love her more than you love the missing £40.

Disliking video games is a red herring.

Your poor daughter. You had your bank details linked to her account, you are the adult. It's your fault and you should be angry at yourself not her.
Games are perfectly normal for that age group now.

@IsThisAkissingBook

Honestly you need to read your post back and get a bloody grip. Seriously she is 11 a child.

This.

To feel resentful about the amount of time that kids spend on games....not even you're kids. You seem a bit OTT.

Maybe she just acted impulsively without the benefit of an adult brain to put in checks and measures.

Do you want to be the approachable parent that she comes to with problems as she goes through puberty or the dickhead parent that says one thing and then reacts a different way? You'll be heading towards the latter. And trust me, it's MUCH better having an open relationship with teens.

I don't play video games, but I've never forgotten being banned from mentioning an interest of mine to my parents. Yes, I probably went on about it too much before and bored them, but it was that sense of rejection - and of course to my mind half the things that they talked about were boring but I listened politely.

The interest, by the way, was one that on the surface looks like a totally pointless waste of time, but I taught myself HTML to create a website about it, advertised the site, and gained broader knowledge which really helped with a couple of school subjects through learning about the interest.

Parents need to accept that their children have different personalities and interests to them. I don't think video games are nearly as bad as you say, and nobody needs to be productive all the time!

What exactly are these more productive pursuits? And who gets to decide the productiveness of a hobby?

Personally I think computer games are boring, but I know they have positive aspects: problem solving skills, hand to eye coordination, they improve attention to detail, negotiation skills if multi-player, multitasking skills etc etc.

There's an enlightening tedtalk by Daphne Bavelier on the surprising benefits of computer games called Your brain on video games. No idea how to link unfortunately.

While it's a serious issue which deserves consequence, I don't think most parents would find it difficult to forgive a teenager, particularly in the case of a first offence.
Is there a reason you're taking it so personally?

" If I could, I'd completely ban them but that's another story. "

@thepeopleversuswork I am sensing back story here? People usually only feel so strongly about something they have personally been hurt of feel threatened by.

oh and PS kids (and grownups) know the difference between being told they are forgiven and actually being forgiven

I’m also disturbed about how you’ve managed this and treated her, and how you acknowledge your own part in it but tell people not to give you a hard time when doing what yoire doing to your own child.

You owe her an apology. Yes she did something wrong and made a mistake but your reaction and behavuour is totally unacceptable.

I tell you what OP, I was treated like this as a child and guess what? My mother is the one who "destroyed" my trust in her over the years, for overloading me with guilt and responsibility for stuff that looking back, was normal child/teenage behaviour.

Sure, she made a mistake, you've told her as much, she has apologised, there is a sanction. Now you should move on, anger and grudges like this are incredibly corrosive. You're treating her like an adult and yet behaving childishly yourself in that you aren't taking responsibility.

You need to take responsibility for your part in this and move on, with love not anger.

I get it.

I loathe gaming too.

Felt like I was a failure of a parent when DC became so obsessed with them.

DC did manage to diddle another relative of c. £300 for games and I wasn't happy!

But (this was years ago) in the grand scheme of things it's not really important.

DC will remember you being 'mean' about it far longer than you.

Each generation has to accept that the next will have hobbies etc they hate. That's part of us all growing up.

She hasn't really done anything very wrong that isn't age appropriate.

You need to take some responsibility for allowing it to happen.

Let go of the anger and move on asap.

Dont let this fester into a divide so she doesn't tell you in a few years when she makes much bigger mistakes (inevitable)

You do know that she’s not really old enough to separate out not liking how she spends her time and not liking her, right?

OP I see your response - sorry my pages didn't load as usual so I thought I was at the end of the thread.

Apols.

I think computer games have hit this generation of maybe 6-12yr olds harder than any previous because of many families experience of lockdown. Certainly my youngest is far more involved than my eldest ever was.

I think a 2 week total screen break will do her good. I have done similar. And I also added that I would add a futher day to the time each time there was begging/bargaining going on as the point was to break the habit.

On the spending money / downloading games you need to spend the 2 weeks resetting her kit so that it all has parent monitoring on it with limited screen time and blocks on spending / downloading without permission. It is tedious to begin with but soon becomes a habit and stops them going over the top. (The challenge then of course is when tonrelease this control so as it doesn't become another problem later on but at 11 is definitely appropriate).

I think banning her for the 2 weeks and confiscating the devices is enough personally. You’ve already had a long stern chat and you finished it on a loving tone, why keep dragging it out? I think maybe the issue here is you have resentment issue and it maybe goes further than this incident. You need to work on self development and learn how to forgive. If you let silly things like this build up over the years (because there will be many more times she will make mistakes) it will spoil your bond

You go to great lengths to say how you’ve forgiven her but then say you haven’t.

Fwiw, I hate video games, but that’s because they don’t interest me. My dc are interested and that’s okay, my hobbies would bore them too. I don’t ban them but I provide other things to do instead. Video games are a small part of their lives, same as watching a film or tv series.

OP your reaction is massively out of proportion to her 'crime'. She's 11. My youngest DD is 11 and she lives her gaming and her YouTube and making videos. Those things are important to her. It's not a waste of time doing something you enjoy. Your DD is a normal 11 year old girl doing age appropriate things, just like mine.

Should she have downloaded games that cost money? No, obviously not. But she's apologised, you've arranged a punishment, and she's paying you back. Of course she wants the game back, she enjoys gaming, and pretty standard for kids to try and bargain a bit after losing a privilege.

The problem is you, not her. Sorry.

You're 'frightened and distressed' by your 11 year old spending £40 on a computer games?

You need to get a grip - in the nicest possible way. No one died.

Totally your fault it was linked to your bank account. How did you not notice? I check my bank account daily. She's a good kid by your own admission but you loath her hobby of playing games. Try to take an interest in it instead or else you're going to push her away completely.

BTW. My then 6 yr old son downloaded a load of games onto my phone which I didn't realise was downloading data for them all. Cue a £600 bill later. MY FAULT. He hasn't done it since as I explained exactly what had happened. I also took MY responsibility for what happened. Lesson learnt. I wasn't frightened and distressed.

I mean this kindly OP but you've probably got a lot more hurdles ahead as she navigates her teens. You'll look back and think this was small fry really.

She needs to be able to come to you if she's in trouble and the way you're reacting about this will possibly mean she won't in the future. Be careful.

And part of being a parent is listening to their latest obsession, whether that's computer games/football/minecraft/chess .... yes it is tedious but don't just dismiss her interests. Put a fake smile on and nod.