AIBU to prohibit DS in Year 7 from online gaming?

[Maybot2020]

My DS who is 11 joined Year 7 of a posh west London senior school this academic year. We are not posh. I do not know if it is the done thing at better off senior schools. DS says that all the boys are permitted to play games online and he is a social pariah because I won't let him join in. Apart from the cost, I do not have time to supervise him after school because I am at work when DS comes home from school and is left to his own devices for a couple of hours. Do any of you have DS in senior school who do not play online games?

We are in Australia and everyone plays online.
It was hard at first for me to accept things are different, and kids nowadays don't play or hang out the way we used to.

The cost is very low, 90$/year, so doable.

We - however - do not let the kids do gaming during schooldays which would be hard for you to enforce if you are not home.

For the online gaming, just tell him to play with the persons he know in real life.

We don't allow gaming Mon - Thurs

Online gaming is a huge part of my DS's social life ,so I can see why your DS feels left out. We had the rule in year 7 that you could only game with people you know in real life, would that not work for you?

My eldest is in Y8 now and online gaming has played a huge role in his life for a few years now. He's also at a posh school, which is fairly strict and they don't have any free time to just hang out in school. And they have long days and live all across London.

So the time they spend together and actually talk and laugh at silly things and get to know new sides, is when playing online.

It's such a big part of their social life, and it's really helped my son flourish.

During exams and revision before exams we have limited games to only Friday to Sunday. Otherwise he gets to play Mondays, Wednesdays at weekends.

It's not an expensive hobby. He doesn't buy stuff in-game and most games are a one-off purchase. Some games we've bought for him, some games he plays with his dad, and some games he's saved up for himself with pocket money/ birthday money.

Thank you. Good food for thought?
RedSkyLastNight how do you ensure that your DS is only playing with people he knows in real life?
LeFaye does your DS play sport or play music? How does he find the time to fit in gaming on Monday, Wednesday and weekends on top of homework? Is his school in London city?

My issue with gaming is that it takes away from other things such as reading or riding a bike.
Screens have been proven to alter attention in a negative way so during the week gaming with or without friends is a no. Give a kid the option to read a book or go on the PS4, they will pick the screen. So you need to put the balance right. There are so many hours of free time and it is divided into different blocs.
Just have a chat with your son and tell you you thought about him and are going to entrust him when it comes to online gaming. However it is not something you do during the week. Adults go to the pub in the weekend not every night after work ( well some do but no need to disclose that!)

I wouldn’t prohibit it but I would put strict limits in place. An hour a day seems reasonable, or a block of 3-4 hours weekly if he prefers. Any more and it becomes a habit, then an addiction (at least with a lot of the lads I know).

He's Y7. I think it's U to not let him game. You can limit the time he has, the games he plays. But to not let him play at all is a bit unfair. We have an Xbox, it is set up with timers so it turns off at 5pm. Or you can set a time limit if that suits you better.

I have a year 7 boy in state school who does not online game but think most of his friends do. He's not banned as such but I am not keen on it. DD is year 8 and doesn't either, does spend lot of time on her phone though but tends to go out with friends to chat / play football /go to gym etc.

I think you have to assess what's going on instead of treating it as screen time/addictive and therefore bad. For example, my dd spends loads of time on her phone and I've been uncomfortable with it at times, but I've thought a lot about it and realised that most of it is simply social time. She facetimes her friends, or chats on whatsapp/snapchat/instagram messenger etc. She's a very sociable girl and she's made and developed lots of friends this way. Her friendships are real life ones though, so she's not on a screen all the time - chatting online has enabled her to get to know people better and take the friendships forward to meeting up outside school etc. Also, as her friends are scattered across the city, it's not easy to meet up on school nights so they chat online instead.

Ds is now the same (year 8) but the only difference for him is that the online chatting is done via Xbox not phone. There have been occasions where he's got overly obsessed with a game (Fortnite!) but most of the time the gaming is just a forum for socialising. Yes, it can be hard to get him to switch it off and do his homework - but honestly, the same is true of TV/youtube etc. I actually prefer both of them to be socialising rather than just watching stuff obsessively (which also happens!).

Both are always keen to actually meet up with friends in real life, so I don't feel online socialising has taken the place of the real thing. To me it just makes them feel more connected, especially as they both go to schools where kids travel a long way.

Just to add - we're pretty relaxed, no rules around screen time as long as homework and music practice is done (and sometimes this is a challenge with ds - but would be anyway!). They also go out to youth group and church, ds plays football and is just about to start a martial art, they hang out with friends etc. They probably spend too long on screens, but then, I spend all day every day on a screen as part of my job! As long as there's balance, I'm not too worried.

I dislike this online gaming thing, it can have bad effect on children if they play it too long. I don't think it is the same as TV etc, as it has much stronger attraction ,and lots of children can't resist it. However, it is what boys do at the moment. It seems unfair to not let them play if all their friends are playing it.

I think OP can make a plan with your DS, like only play Fri- Sunday, an hour each time. Or other plan, but certainly with a limit.

We started allowing online gaming in Y7. Before he was allowed, ds1 had to research the potential pitfalls/dangers and explain them to me, along with a clear plan for avoiding them (limits on games, limits on gaming time, only communicating w people you know etc). Once I was convinced he'd thought it through carefully we agreed a set of "rules" and off he went. Its working well, so far.

He really is missing out.
how do you ensure that your DS is only playing with people he knows in real life
He is growing up and you have to learn to trust him. Talk to him about your worries and agree some ground rules. Ask him to show you who he has on his friends list, of course he may know people that you don't. At secondary school it's much harder to know who all their friends and their parents are.

My issue with gaming is that it takes away from other things such as reading or riding a bike Once they reach teens forbidding gaming is not going to make them curl up with a book or go out on their bike.

Maybot2020 It doesn't matter what school (posh or not), this is what is 'in' now. My DS says the same thing that everyone is online playing games, but after meeting a lot of parents at our last parents evening, it certainly was not the case. My DS was quite busy with sports etc, and we gave him limited console/tablet time. I did not let my DS play online at first until he was able to demonstrate that he knew how to be safe while playing online. DS can only play on set days and set times, and if homework etc is not finished by then, he's eating into his game time. Spent a lot of time prior looking at videos on the thinkuknow website. We slowly introduced it but agreed that we knew which services he signs up for and that he could only join groups which were friends from school
As springgreensunshine mentioned, you can set timers on the console or in the case of my DH, he set up scheduled restriction times on the broadband router, so our DS couldn't sneak downstairs and play while we're asleep.
Make sure you create the master account on PSN and create a sub account for your DS which has restrictions so that the cannot make in-game purchases, or use a pre-paid credit card and keep limited funds on it.
It's not all bad as long as there is a balance, but we spent a lot of time laying down the ground rules first

One positive - I tend to get a feel for what's going on with ds as he talks loudly over the headset to his school friends about what's happened that day - and then often tells his little group of non-school friends what's been happening to him at school. I don't sit outside the door and listen or anything but I definitely get the gist of things! I tend to ask who he's talking to. At times in the past, he's made online friends - one in particular was in Bulgaria and that was quite interesting for him. But nowadays he's usually chatting to real life friends.

I am a secondary school teacher and a lot of my time gets taken up with dealing with issues that arise from online gaming.

I do not feel it is safe AT ALL and personally I think your DS is better off without gaming. It's not reality and it is sadly turning our children, boys mainly, into anti-social, unfit and Vitamin D lacking zombies.

Year 7 is a great age. Your DS should still be reading, playing in the garden, making dens. Social media is forcing our children to "mature" far too soon!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48450604

Article just published on the BBC about the dangers of online gaming.

My ds, year 6 plays games off-line. He takes his ds and tablet when he meets up with friends but no on-line gaming.
From Sept he’ll be at senior school and homework will be more but I’ll let him play on-line up to 1hr a day at weekends as well, and see how it goes.

Ds14 games, and has done since 9 (joys of having an older brother sharing a room). His school is 7 miles away, and his friends live anything from 7 to 20 ish miles away. So they are talking each night. Half the time they aren’t gaming- they are watching YouTube videos gather and actually doing homework!

Ds doesn’t have a set bed time and I haven’t ‘sent him’ to bed for a long time. Normally he will switch off at about 8:00ish, have a shower etc, come in for a chat, grab some cereal if hungry, then put a film on low, and will get into bed between 9:15-9:45 and he’s asleep by 10:00pm.

I think because all of his friends do the same there’s no reason to stay up. Thankfully due to the joys of the headset I can hear everything he says if I open the living room door. Occasionally I’ve gone in about his language, but that’s only a handful of times thankfully.

He plays rugby 3 times a week, is out on his bike on the mountain and BMX track twice a week, plays the drums and normally stays at a friends either Friday or Saturday night. He is in top sets for all his subjects, does homework without being asked or reminded, and is never in trouble at school. So until any of the above happens, I’m happy for him to carry on as he is.

It isn't a posh school thing it is a year 7 thing. Our DS had access to onlone gaming downstairs where we could hear him and I would always hear/be able to say hi to his friends online.

Imagine being in a situation where you meet friends everyday but they have all.been party to conversations/in jokes etc each evening that you weren't a party to and imagine that being the case for a 12 year old. It really is how they socialise these days. Luckily DS is quite sporty and social so it wasn't constant and by yr 10 he didn't even want to renew the online aspect of his PS4.

In a time where kids do seem to suffer if they are socially excluded don't add to any anxiety by cutting off this form of contact with his friends.

My DD's played online, it doesn't have to cost anything either, it depends on the game but many are free eg league of legends. Around 11 is completely normal

Ps. Think of gaming like watching tv, it's normal to let kids watch a bit on school nights as long as homework is done and they do instrument practice or other hobbies.

When the local policewoman came to give an online safety course for parents part of it she explained that for kids these days online gaming is how some of them socialise and stay in contact. The difficulty lies in monitoring this, and who is trying to interact with them.

Yabu. It is a terrifically popular thing to do & you can manage it. When DS started in year 7 the boys at school made a class group on a game so they were all on the same team. To play no games at all would leave you out of a lot of chat in school.

Our rules at that age were no talking to strangers, no using own real name, no games rated 15/18, no screen Mon-Wed. He's now yr10, still plays a lot of sport & on track academically.