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Wh introduced ds to Call of Duty. I didnt agree but when did wh ever respect my opinion in anything nevermind parenting...

Ds becomes very angry while playing. He yells, screams, calls the other players horrible names (names wh called me!). He totally changes and really becomes his father. It's scary to see.

CAS was here and interviewed each kid. I told him about wh getting this game and that it's causing so many problems for us. His suggestion was to just set limits. If ds can't control himself then the game gets turned off.

Today he was playing. He began screaming and cursing and I piped up to stop. I was loud enough that the other players heard me on the mic. Apparently they began to bad mouth me. This upset ds. I mean he totally lost it. He wouldn't tell me what was going on. So I told him to shut it off and take a break. He was ugly crying, turned it off then stormed outside. I followed. Hugged him while he calmed down enough to tell me what they said.

Weird how they were going on that "no wonder she's now single" and "she deserves it"...makes me wonder who he was playing with. 🤔

I finally convinced ds to come inside but he went to his room. I said nope we are all going to watch a movie. He's calmer.

It's easy to say don't let him play anymore. It's really what I want to do. But I know he will lose it even more. The game seems to be the only thing he's interested in right now.

Thankfully he sees his IC tomorrow so this will be brought to her attention.

Are there any other games that I can let him play that are similar? I don't know what to do. It's like he's getting out all his anger their but at thr same time seems to make him more angry.

Maybe he needs a video detox. Period. These games (many of them) have people playing against each other. They are foul mouthed and trash talking and some of the adults don’t care they are bullying a kid.

It’s awful. Your son just does not need this right now. Get some suggestions from the counselors. This video game addiction is brutal and has ruined more lives, especially kids.

I hope you can find something else for him to do.

He has really changed since he started playing. Every night he would would be disruptive to the rest of us with all the yelling and wh didn't seem to care. It was always me trying to get ds to calm down.

And then of course, I was the nagging one right. Ugh.

I think a detox is needed too.

He's on the sofa with his phone watching funny videos laughing right now. That's the kid I know.

I played Quake online when I was younger. It was a different time though. No vulgar crap when I played. The worst that happened was someone hacking the system and making their player AstroBoy and flying around lol

Hopefully his IC can help figure out a way to do this without him melting down again.

How old is your son? Call of Duty is violent and is rated for ages 18+. That, combined with the possibility that your WH could be using it to listen in on what's going on at your house, is good excuse for not allowing it in your home.

I'm interested in hearing what the IC says.

Ds is 12. Almost 13. And yes I agree it's violent and not appropriate. I had many arguments with wh about that and GTA.

Now that wh is gone I need to get ds off these games without making him meltdown.

I'm worried that just taking them away will make him blow up.

Wh was/is big on his games so we have alot. He was especially big on zombie games but none of the kids like those. We do have lego, Spiderman, sonic and Spyro. The other kids don't play ps4 games. It's just DS.

We will be out tomorrow and I'm going try to to get all the kids outside for the rest of the week. That should help.

Ds is 12. Almost 13. And yes I agree it's violent and not appropriate. I had many arguments with wh about that and GTA.

Now that wh is gone I need to get ds off these games without making him meltdown.

I'm worried that just taking them away will make him blow up.

Wh was/is big on his games so we have alot. He was especially big on zombie games but none of the kids like those. We do have lego, Spiderman, sonic and Spyro. The other kids don't play ps4 games. It's just DS.

We will be out tomorrow and I'm going try to to get all the kids outside for the rest of the week. That should help.

the possibility that your WH could be using it to listen in on what's going on at your house, is good excuse for not allowing it in your home.

This!

[This message edited by hcsv at 11:24 AM, Wednesday, July 12th]

Can you have him play solo and not against anyone but the game? My internet is extremely poor and my college DS can’t play against friends with many of his games.

Knowing that anyone vcan listen to what's going on in the house is not cool.

Usually there's a fight between him playing his game with ear buds/mic and the otjer kids watching a movie. He can't hear his game with thr TV loud, they can't hear the movie because of his yelling.

We did move the game system to his room but that caused even more problems.

I will check to see if he can play solo offline. He's been working towards getting specific outfits, completing campaigns, gaining points. Each time he completes a task he's so happy.

For my ADHD son video games became very addictive, and he too would become very upset frustrated when playing the game. Luckily when he was your sons age the playing w/ other people wasn't happening yet, but when he was in HS and post HS it was, and he often played w/ his friend group so they would trash talk each other but it was all in good humor.

I too had to make him take video game holidays, and if he was getting obsessed w/ the games we limited time on it. But he was very prone to the hyperfocus, and become obsessed with the games. And like an addict when you took it away it was a big ordeal.

Tush, how did you deal with the meltdown from having him take a break?

Have him focus on something else?

Ds will play with a few of his school friends. He's not as agitated when that happens. It's when other players come into the game and interfere that he blows his top.

This might be dated as the last one I played was COD MW2, but there used to be able to limit the chat to friends. It is a bit of a disadvantage in group play, but I used to run that way most of the time. I didn't want to listen to the idiots rambling on about nothing drowning out the footsteps.

[This message edited by grubs at 5:26 PM, Wednesday, July 12th]

Yes we would encourage reading, listening to music, doing some family based activity.

He also learned pretty quickly the bigger the fit/response when taking it away the longer he had to go w/o it.

Given your current situation I would be very apprehensive about allowing him to online game, due to your H and his BS. You don't need him or his buddies spying on you.

So DS talked to his IC and his IC spoke to me. Her suggestion is limited play but also solo play and muting the other players when in group play.

DS felt good after talking to her. It's definitely doing him good.

Now as for wh or his buddies listening in. I'm going to see what I can do remove wh friends (only one) from the account. Maybe I coukd set up my own account thst wh doesn't have access to.

When the kids were little I instituted a rated E for everyone policy. Those were the only games allowed in the house. That applied to me too. When they were away from the house they could play whatever was there without checking in.

Now that they are gone they still ‘mostly’ follow that even though it is not a rule for them anymore. As an unfavorable generalization much of the online gaming culture can be ugly and unhealthy. Ideally the goal was to have their experience with video games be as similar as possible to board games / cards.

That may or not be possible in your situation and ymmv with results.

We're a big gamer house here. I will just say shooters with random players are toxic cesspools to avoid with younger kids. Hell I wouldn't let our 17 year old play them if he wasn't mature about it. I say that from a place of too much time in video games, literally this is how our family relates and hangs out together, multi-player video games. Shooters are just bad news unless the person playing it is emotionally mature, and frankly most of the guys in their 40s playing them are less mature than your 12 year old.

Limiting voice chat to friends only is a good compromise to see if he can handle that. If not then solo play is also a great recommendation.

And yes, 100% set up your own account. Right away. You will have control over what he can see, do and communicate with.

[This message edited by StillGoing at 1:55 AM, Thursday, July 13th]

Ds has played today and is doing rather well. No screaming or meltdowns. He is playing a different part of the game and says he's having fun and not frustrated. Big improvement.

We need to work on how much he plays but just seeing a poaitive change from playing a different part of the game is a great start.

The more I get the kids out of the house the less time he has during the day to play so a day at the park/splash pad is in order lol