Gaming addicted teen, College work suffering big time!
- Thread starter weltweit
- Start date
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
It may not be the worst thing in the world for him to get kicked out, and have to reapply for year twelve again next autumn. Sixth form is not a one shot deal... It's not unusual to have a second stab at it.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I am willing to consider it but, it won't be me having to implement it because I don't live every day with him. His mum will have to do it. She is capable to do it although it may be difficult at first.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Yes, that is true, it may not be the end of the world, but he considers kids a year below him to be on another planet
I doubt he would be comfortable dropping a year.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
That's kind of the point. A practical lesson in cause and effect wrt delayed gratification, adult responsibility etc might be the best way to learn.Yes, that is true, it may not be the end of the world, but he considers kids a year below him to be on another planet
weltweit
Well-Known Member
fuck seals
Well-Known Member
too fecking right.
i speak from bitter experience.
blizzard - the developers of wow - spent & spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year ensuring that their product has every psychological trick employed & baked into the game design such that the players will never leave easily. community involvement, new 'jam tomorrow' expansions, overlapping mini-goals, the illusion of progression, visible public recognition, dependency on group involvement - with associated peer pressure to continue, escapism, an immersive world, eye candy, dot dot dot. subscribers are like lab rats smashing the button for the next bit of sugar ...
you name it they do it. & they should: it's a subscription model & they need your €30/ month to continue.
it's a seductive and insidious thing
i lost 2-3 years to that crack & arguably two high-salaried jobs, and know many others who can tell that tale. incidentally i made some fabulous friends too: none of us - even ten years later - have a good word to say about that obsessive misery, or how not-very-easy it was to kill off the 40hr/ week habit.
there is a command in wow ("/played") which shows the amount of logged on active time that you've spent on a particular character of yours. when a friend of mine's /played was more than 1 year, i sent him a picture of 80 boxes with one crossed out.
gaming itself isn't a huge issue - god knows my nephews stuff enough time in to FIFA16 - but there is a crucial difference between dip-in/ dip-out games, and the time commitment that wow demands. & that time commitment is especially damaging & appealing to some brains. mine included.
http://www.kirjastot.fi/sites/default/files/content/Seay_Dissertation.pdf <- fascinating read
Wowaholics Anonymous | Quit WoW Addiction, Win at Life
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Gromit
International Man of Misery
I had some great friends in game too. That's part of the trap.
I dread to think what my /played was.
I worked 37 hours per week flexi time for my job.
I think I nearly doubled that in wow playing time. I spent more time online than working.
When I was elsewhere I'd be itching to get home to play. So every other week Sunday lunch with the folks (and gf) got shorter and shorter.
That's why I ditched PC gaming and switched to consoles where games tend to lend themselves more to casual gaming.
I dread to think what my /played was.
I worked 37 hours per week flexi time for my job.
I think I nearly doubled that in wow playing time. I spent more time online than working.
When I was elsewhere I'd be itching to get home to play. So every other week Sunday lunch with the folks (and gf) got shorter and shorter.
That's why I ditched PC gaming and switched to consoles where games tend to lend themselves more to casual gaming.
fuck seals
Well-Known Member
i hear you. i probably can still walk the whole of BRD with my eyes shut ...
Being on minimum wage at 16 doesn't mean he will stay on it, nor does it mean he can't go back to uni later with an access course.
It's an alternative to what others are proposing, but maybe let him get a job or apprenticeship and if he wants to spend his spare time playing video games then that will be less of an issue because his work and leisure time will be more clearly demarcated.
This is a phase and he *will* grow out of it, not that that is much comfort right now.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Yes I suppose I should realise this, it is quite easy to think "he is failing - we are failing - he is doomed!" when that really isn't the case.
In many ways we have been stupid, he did well in his GCSEs but then chose, with our support, 4 A levels 3 of which he had not done at GCSE. I think in hindsight that was a mistake.
He has worked, he did work experience at one point and had a proper holiday job another time. He enjoyed it and got on with his colleagues.
I had a long conversation with him today, mainly about the subject he is struggling in the most, and it was helpful. I made the point that if he doesn't pick up his game, where this subject is concerned, the internet may be switched off which he does not like.
Sure hope so, he has been playing WOW for I think 5 years now.
Do you think WoW specifically is the problem? ie if he stopped playing that he would spend the time on college work- as opposed to other distractions?
I don't know much about WoW, my time wasted gaming was in the 8 bit days!
What he *must* avoid is scraping into uni at 18 and then messing that up- because that is to some extent a "one shot deal". And at uni you or mum won't be there to switch off the internet!
I don't know much about WoW, my time wasted gaming was in the 8 bit days!
Indeed. I wasn't suggesting he *should* leave college and get a minimum wage job, just that it isn't the end of the world if he does- just look at all the unemployed graduates out there. Most 'first jobs' are NMW tbh- it doesn't mean the holders stay in NMW jobs- most get a better job, or get promoted, or he could leave and do an access or foundation course and go to uni later.
What he *must* avoid is scraping into uni at 18 and then messing that up- because that is to some extent a "one shot deal". And at uni you or mum won't be there to switch off the internet!
bimble
floofy
There's a rehab bootcamp in China for this problem, especially for teenaged boys addicted to WOW. I don't mean to make a joke of it (it's not funny at all) but watched this a while ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/chinas-web-junkies.html
I think we'll be hearing more and more about this sort of thing, maybe there already are detox centres here along similar lines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/chinas-web-junkies.html
I think we'll be hearing more and more about this sort of thing, maybe there already are detox centres here along similar lines.
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mauvais
on reddit or something
Whilst this is true, it's somewhat swimming against the tide (what their peers are doing, jobs, relationships, baggage) and when the person concerned already has problems with getting work done, it's probably not a sound fallback, IMO.
These things are also potentially true but the latter is certainly not guaranteed. I know people in their 30s who still behave like this. I also know people who could have easily gone to uni, didn't on this kind of basis, and are only just finding their feet over a decade later. We all have different ideas about what's valuable but I suspect that if you asked them, it'd be a regret that leaves little to show for it.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
If he really is "addicted", then the question probably needs to be - what is the problem that this addiction is the solution to?
I suspect that banning or otherwise preventing him from playing games is likely only to harden his position and make it more difficult to unravel what's going on, not to mention putting you into the role of enforcer/policeman rather than a more caring one.
In your shoes, I'd be trying to open up a discussion between equals, exploring with him what he gets out of the gaming (beyond "I enjoy it"), and what it helps him avoid. He may well not be happy in college, or (and I say this as a therapist who does some work with college students) is feeling like he has made the wrong choices/isn't getting on well with the subjects...in other words, the "addiction" is a compensatory activity aimed at making himself feel good at a time when it all feels fairly crap elsewhere.
Absolutely don't ban him from WOW, until he recognises he has a problem and starts asking you for help to deal with it. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is to set aside your panic about his future - if he's smart, he'll find a future anyway - and work at getting alongside him and achieving some kind of supportive alliance together. When he doesn't feel like you're judging him, policing him, or adopting some or other role that he perceives as hostile to his (present) interests, there's a chance that the pair of you will be able to work constructively together. Lower the boom on him, and you will just be another oppressor, out to make his life hard, and from which WoW is the only escape.
In my work, I often get very interesting results with what we tend to call "paradoxical interventions" - ie, doing the opposite, for good reasons, of what is expected of us. So I might point out that the kid who truants all the time (and is getting nothing but grief from everyone) is actually adopting a creative solution to a problem - "...so, what might that problem be?", and be able to engage in a constructive dialogue which, not unusually, makes the problem "just go away".
It may be that the solution in this case turns out to be him dropping out of college. That may feel enough like a catastrophe to him (not that he's likely to admit that at the moment) that he's ready to work constructively to avoid it, or at least find a decent Plan B, but all of the policing stuff will conveniently prevent him from having to address that - he can just focus on how fucking unfair it is (from his point of view) that as a nearly-adult, he's being babied by his parents, etc.
Sometimes we have to fail hard just to realise what it is we really want.
Just to stress, access/foundation is aimed at 21+. It's not a intended as a fallback for someone who has just failed A levels. But it is a possibilty for someone who got a job at 16/17 and later decides they want to go to uni at eg 22 or 23.
Not that going to uni is the only possible route to success in life of course.
mauvais
on reddit or something
Yeah I know, and I know a few people that are successfully doing that. The point is that whilst going to uni at 18 is a pretty easy path as long as it is available in the first place, doing it later is not. At that point your social group and demographic aren't doing it, you're probably getting paid with a reasonably good disposable income that you'd have to give up, you possibly have more ties than you had at 18, and you'll be an atypical graduate when you do complete it. Not that any of this should be a barrier to someone with the determination to do it, but then that's not where we start from in the OP's scenario.
Indeed not. As before though, it is one of the simpler paths with one of the better risk/reward balances, and not just academically or in career/pay terms afterwards; there's a certain in-built personal development element. I do realise there are other legitimate paths through life that shouldn't be downplayed, but at the same time, if you have the opportunity to follow the conventional path, you should have a very good reason not to take it, and wanting to play games all day is probably not it.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I completely agree with all of this, but there's a much bigger problem to address first.
That problem is that nobody can effectively make someone do something against their will.
You can hope that the other person will see the sense of what you're saying, but as anyone who's had to deal with a teenager will know, that can often be impossible. And, even where it is possible, you end up forcing someone to reluctantly - and often truculently - conform to your wishes, and unhappily going through the motions of something they haven't really bought into.
We have moved into a political climate where coercian and enforcement are the bedrock of much of what we do, whether it's benefits claimants, immigration, anti-social behaviour...or education. There is a general perception, which is now largely true, that unless we jump through the hoops, all bets are off. I think that climate is reflected in the way that we deal with young people who, by their very nature, tend to push back harder the harder they are pushed. Often to their own detriment, and often with unhappy or unfortunate results later on.
It's frequently seen as "soft" not simply - almost on principle - to oppose what someone wants to do, on the basis that if they're not being made to do it, it's not worth doing. The reality is that we end up investing vast amounts of energy (and time, money, etc) forcing people down paths which, even though we might "know" (in reality, think) are best for them, are not perceived by them as being in their interests. Can we change that perception simply by browbeating them into accepting our point of view? With adults, that can work to some degree, though I'd still argue that it's not the best approach; with adolescents, who are already programmed to be rejecting of authoritarian positions, it's a forlorn hope. The best you are likely to get is a grudging acceptance and half-hearted compliance, and you'll probably be policing the situation for a long time to come.
mauvais
on reddit or something
I can see where you're coming from, and I certainly agree with it in an adult context. But, and it's difficult, I think it has to be balanced against the problem of how teenagers cannot - in part, physically cannot - make good judgements about their future. Parts of the brain that deal with risk supposedly aren't fully formed until 25, for instance, and there's almost certainly (inherently) no life experience of long term opportunity cost. So what else can you do but exert authority? Which you pretty much can do as a parent, within some parameters and with varying degrees of success.
It's not ideal but grudging, half hearted compliance might be enough to carry you through to self-realisation, acceptance and personal buy-in. It's not the preferred route by any means, is it, but you have to balance the imperfections of that against the stuff I said earlier, that things get difficult if you miss that boat.
It's not ideal but grudging, half hearted compliance might be enough to carry you through to self-realisation, acceptance and personal buy-in. It's not the preferred route by any means, is it, but you have to balance the imperfections of that against the stuff I said earlier, that things get difficult if you miss that boat.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Well, yes - you can't leave a vacuum. But I'd always think that friendly guidance - even firm friendly guidance - is going to be better than enforcement.
After all, one of the life lessons we are trying to teach young people is that they will, one day, have to make these decisions for themselves. They need to develop the emotional muscles to be able to do that, and if we simply insist (leaving aside for the moment the likely success of that) that they do things a certain way, all we are really teaching them is a kind of binary conform-or-die lesson which may achieve compliance in the short term, but leaves them without the skills to be able to make the judgement calls we might be making on their behalf when we're not availabe to do that any more.
One of the techniques used in working with addictions is motivational interviewing (MI). A key mantra of that approach is to "roll with the resistance" - ie., to let the client (the "addict") explore for themselves, with you, their reasons for not changing (incidentally, the best suicide interventions do exactly the same thing - have the client explore, in depth, all their reasons for killing themselves). The argument behind this is that, if the client is given the space to think about the issue freely, rather than being bombarded with instructions to do this or that, they will be able to come to a solution that they can own, and which is theirs. I think that encapsulates your point about helping adolescents make their decisions: the only difference is that, from my point of view, it is far better being done collaboratively.
There's a risk: they might not. That might be because they're already in the truculent resistance stage where they're happy to cut their nose off to spite their face, so long as it means they're not complying with something they feel is being imposed on them. Or it might be because, at that point, they simply don't want to change. That's when we need to lean back (slightly) and take the pressure off.
To go back to the OP's challenge - it's very likely that the college has some kind of counselling provision. Rather than try to solve this problem by yourselves, it may be better to work on encouraging this chap to consider exploring what's going on with an independent third party, like the college counsellor. If not that, then there may be a tutor or coach whom he trusts, and who he might be encouraged to go and speak to about what's going on for him. The hard bit here, for parents, is letting go and trusting that someone else (including the OP's son) has the ability and resources to be able to solve the problem without the parents' direct involvement.
I have seen this kind of approach pay dividends; on the other side of the equation, I've seen what happens if it's not done: I've just had a message from a client who was in college, but doing what they felt were the wrong subjects, and who succeeded in getting thrown out of college for possession of cannabis - something I suspect was, at least unconsciously, engineered by them to "solve the problem". In the process, their phone and laptop have been confiscated (their call to me to say they couldn't continue to see me was in considerable distress and made secretively from another phone when their parents were out). That client has achieved what they wanted - they're no longer studying subjects they didn't want to do. The cost of that decision is high, as they're unlikely to be able to return to college again, and I firmly believe that the situation was vastly escalated by the parents' decision to take the enforcement route - which has clearly failed - rather than engage with their offspring to address the underlying problems. There would still have been room for firm guidance, but in the absence of this level of coercion (or, ideally, of any), the student might have been looking at a wider range of options.
And we were doing some good work, and making a bit of progress towards more constructive solutions - all now lost.
Would you like syrup or nutella with your waffle?
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Ranbay
The same rules apply
There was a great documentary call WOW stole my life or something like that, cant seem to find it now
There was a great documentary call WOW stole my life or something like that, cant seem to find it now
This one?
Ranbay
The same rules apply
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Try not to be a cunt, there's a good chap.
ETA: alternatively, perhaps you have something constructive to contribute?
weltweit
Well-Known Member
We aren't at the moment going to cut off the internet although I signposted to him that I would be prepared to do this, his mum is not so keen. He is going to try to persuade a friend to go to a catch up class in the subject he is doing badly in, it seems he was embarrassed to go on his own, if it comes off that will be a small but positive outcome. He has also (as he has done before) proposed that he will do more work on this subject, time will tell if that materialises.
As to underlying causes, I don't think there is anything that interesting going on, he simply finds this particular subject harder than he had anticipated, is quite lazy about getting stuck in and finds using revision books, although effective, boring. This is counterbalanced by the fact that he enjoys World of Warcraft a lot, is fully hooked into all the reasons for playing, including social ones, and that makes playing rather than working all the more compelling.
As to underlying causes, I don't think there is anything that interesting going on, he simply finds this particular subject harder than he had anticipated, is quite lazy about getting stuck in and finds using revision books, although effective, boring. This is counterbalanced by the fact that he enjoys World of Warcraft a lot, is fully hooked into all the reasons for playing, including social ones, and that makes playing rather than working all the more compelling.
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