How to help my pc game addicted child?

[AlwaysCheck]

Now I'm at my wits' end. My 11yr old DD is addicted to pc games and spends all her time either on watching others playing on YouTube or playing games herself. After SATs, she is very bored and plays more games! I tried to take her out to do some activities she used to like but 9 times out 10 she refused. She would rather staying at home alone playing games than doing anything else either in house or outside. When we were on holiday, she would watch Youtube on her phones or ipad and got frustrated when the internet was slow.

What should I do? Any fun activity for this age of girls? She doesn't like any sports. She used to like reading, music and going to cinema. Not any more. I'm very worried. What will happen when she starts y7? Any good suggestion?

Give her a limited amount of time on screens each day and don’t let her on them at any other times. She’s 11, you can tell her what is happening, she is old enough to understand the concept of time and if she kicks off about turning screens off then she gets less time the next day.

It sounds like she is addicted. You need to cut it off cold Turkey. That is the best way. Do it a month and reintroduce slowly and see if she can handle it say couple hours Saturday and Sunday.

Can't you just take away the devices? She will be absolutely foul for a few days but then will adjust.

You need to cut her off from the devices. For her own good. Introduce say an hour a day or whatever and then that’s it. If she is bored, she’s bored. She will soon find something.

reading, puzzles, drawing, the garden, Lego, jigsaws, baking, card games all popular with my 10 year old son.

I agree. Cut them off entirely but explain to her why. Not as a punishment to her but because she is showing signs of addiction.

Get her to make alist of stuff she's like to do or try. Anything from going to a new cafe for a milkshake to geocaching, earning money from pet sitting or redesigning her room or some new styling for her clothes or hair. get her to set herself some small, achieveable goals in terms of becoming a bit more grown up - cooking a dinner for the family, baking a cake with a friend, swimming a mile, climbing a peak, walking 20k or 30k steps in a day etc.

Help her tick them off. These will give her dopamine hits like gaming does but without the social isolation.

Yoiu could offer to do the same. Go cold turkey with her. No MN, Facebook, Twitter or Insta or whatever you usually look at, for a week, just to lear yur heads and spend time doing stuff together or developing new skills and interests.

clear your heads not lear yur heads

As others have said, first step is to remove devices. Our DC have very controlled screen time. I think most adults know how bloody addictive these things are!

I used to play video games a lot, but was older than your DD and mostly played single player games so it was a safe environment.

I wouldn't take her devices or impose sudden drastic measures, I think my approach would be to show interest in her games and youtube videos (and assess safety and appropriateness of content whilst doing so), play some of the games with her and then talk about the games, take an interest like you would in any other hobby.
At the same time I'd start offering alternatives to spending her time and try and gradually and naturally reduce the gaming time.

OP: why haven’t you limited this when she was younger? She doesn’t get to dictate what she gets to do. She does need to understand addiction and what it can lead to. You now need to be a strong parent and remind her devices. Stand firm and make sure she does what you say.

Go cold turkey. An hour a day won't work because it won't take care of the addiction and you will just be arguing every day when the hour is over. You could say 2 hours on a Sunday afternoon as long as the whole rest of the week is free.

It might also be that she is struggling socially and using it to compensate. Could it be that either she does not reallly have friends or that they all happen to be playing computer games as well? It might be escapism / coping. I would not be surprised if screen time is used to mask the fact that there isn't really an alternative of playdates and fun awaiting her.

My DD is the same age and she does not have access to her phone - she gets it at very limited times to check on messages / talk to friends but she would never be able to scroll around on it for the whole evening. She has about 30-45min per evening to check on messages / call friends and that's it. I take it away otherwise, she only has it if she goes on a sleepover or we're driving home from sports etc.

Thanks for all the above useful advice. First, I admit that it's my fault not to limit her playing time at the beginning. We now try to do this. The difficulty is, she always wants us to do things with her. For example, we bought her puzzles and she only played it with her father or me. She doesn't like to do things by herself. Both of us are working full time and are struggle to get things done even both of us are working from home. When she is back from school at 4pm, we are still at work. She then would watch TV or play games until 6pm as those are the only things she is happy to do by herself. I also feel guilty that I couldn't give her more attention before I finish work. Sometimes we have to work late and she has to make a sandwich for herself.
It's easier to manage her on the weekend. We try to do something together as a family and take her away from the screen, though she is not always happy to join us. If we force her, she would become very grumpy and argue with us for everything thus ruin the day for all of us. So I have to back down and let her be.

@swgeek OMG! I never thought of that. I always know she is not very social. She has a good friend or two at school and sometimes has playdate at half term. She also has friends-issue a few months ago and the issue is kind of going away as one of them moved home & changed school. I guess the dynamic between girls just shifted to her favor.
TBH, both DH & me are not very social and don't have may friends. We always encourage her to try new activity and make new friends. Most of time she is struggle to fit in. This would be another issue we need to work with her. We are worried that she will go to the high school without knowing anyone.
Any advice for that? I think I probably need a new thread to discuss that 😂

Turn the WiFi off. It’s not for her to decide!

Not exactly helpful if she's playing offline games.

What about programming? Yeah it's still in front of a screen but that might make her a bit more receptive to it, and maybe there's some kind of coding club at school or nearby she could join.

Try and get her into after school clubs so she’s doing homework when you are not around. She’s clearly doing what she wants because she’s not supervised. This is now important. She needs supervision.

Agreed, are there no afterschool clubs? Of course if she comes home from a long day at school and you are both working in front of the computer (presumably) with no time to engage with her, she will turn to screentime as well. It sounds a bit sad to be honest. I would try to organise some playdates or enrol her in lots of afterschool clubs. Otherwise make a routine that she comes home at 4, spends 1hr doing homework / reading, then gets 1hr screentime until you finish work and then all screens off and you try to spend quality time together from 6 onwards.

I think a lot of busy working parents use screentime as their free babysitter, it is what it is and I don't blame you, but it is really not surprising that she is becoming addicted to it, she is lonely.

I had an 11 year old who was headed in this direction, and also incredibly strong willed. I knew that just cutting off the internet would be a disaster and it needed to be collaborative. I spent some time talking to them about the nature of addiction, what is happening in their body when they game all the time, the future etc. I showed them articles and papers (some quite academic) on gaming addiction etc. I also showed them relevant school policies. This also took the pressure off of me being the 'bad guy'.The upshot was they decided themselves to reduce the gaming and agreed that I should put blocks on devices etc. to help with the new boundaries (1 hour a day of any/all devices). This has worked for over a year now.

‘if we force her, she would become very grumpy and argue with us for everything thus ruin the day for all of us. So I have to back down and let her be.’ She’s playing you and totally knows this will get her what she wants. Being a parent sometimes means being very firm and taking no BS. Limit screen time, let her be bored. From boredom often comes creativity, it’s not a bad thing. Ignore the grumpiness, once she knows it’s losing its effect, it will loose its power.

Plus it’s okay to be the ‘bad guy’ sometimes, you are a parent not a friend.

You need to sort this before high school or she'll make zero friends there.
Send her to to afterschool club or stop work when she sets home.
You can't expect a Yr6 to do puzzles alone whilst you work. She's alone & bored.
Sign her up for stuff and make her try it.
You say play dates in holidays. In year 6 it's normal for kids to hang out with mates independently afterschool school most days at local state schools.

She sounds bored and thus addicted to screens to escape boredom and loneliness.
At Yr6 I don't know any kids that want family time alone just with them and parents. They are hanging out with a group of mates / having sleepovers etc.

I don’t think removing all devices is a helpful suggestion. All it’s likely to do Ian make her feel even more miserable and bored.

She’s 11 and not a baby, have a conversation with her. Make it an open dialogue and not a dictatorship.Tell her you’re worried she’s spending way too much time gaming and that’s not good for anyone. Set a time she can use them so she can look forward to that. Maybe a set aside time each day of an hour/two hours.

Then ask her what she’s like to do when she’s not using the computer. Does she feel bored? Is there any project she’d like to try? My son is 11 and we build Lego models together. We always have one on the go. Often when I’m doing bedtime with his little siblings he’ll work on it then I’ll come when they’re asleep and we can both do it. It’s nice because he can do bits alone when he’s bored but its still like our ‘thing’ that we can chat about and do together too.

And also she’s an 11 year old without many friends. Removing her computer and going ‘cold turkey’ because you think she’s playing it too much is just so unnecessarily harsh. No wonder she wants someone to do puzzles with her, she must be feeling all alone. My 11 year old often texts friends and goes out with them every weekend. He also sees his other friends at karate and football several times a week. Kids need friends and peers - if you were 11 and your mum removed your favourite game completely because she’s the boss and the parent would you honestly be happy to sit alone doing puzzles every night?

You need to take it away.