Can i please have just five more minutes..

CAN I please have five more minutesssss to play this video game?

How many times we have heared this pleading. If you let them have extra five minutes and then forget to ask them to stop, 5 minutes will turn easily to an hour or even more. Playing video games could very well turn to be an addiction, to lots of kids. It may not be that severe like other addictions. But you can definitely see the withdrawal syndromes if you try to stop them from playing or reduce the time.
I think, there should be strict time limits when kids use these things. If they are hooked on to these games, they don’t have a chance to be creative, or to even think about anything else other than trying to figure out how to beat that level, or how to get cheats from the internet!

I did the mistake of giving my son unlimited times during a summer time, hoping he would stop on his own! Well he didn’t. I was thinking its summer time, what is the problem in letting the poor kid play some silly games. But it started affecting his behavior .The normally calm and cool kid started getting restless and not getting enough sleep. Even on bed, he is thinking about the games he wants to play for the next day. In the morning after breakfast, he would directly go to play. So after about 2 weeks of unlimited games, I thought its time to put a limit and set some rules. According to my husband, I was already getting a bit late for that. Whatever came out of my son’s mouth was only about games. Age of empires, oblivion…

So the rest of the summer, I told him, do an hour of math, read some news. Then he can play 2 hours. But that included TV time too. The rest of the time, he can do anything else. If he feels like sleeping, he can do it. Anything other than games was fine. He has to choose if he wants to watch TV or play games. Or divide the time in between. But I wasn’t going to give any more time for those types of entertainments. Let him go out, do anything else, something, during daytime! He wanted a tree house and my husband built him a tree platform. He could go up and sit there, and read!
But he seemed to have lost interest in everything else. After I set my rules, he suddenly started feeling so sad. Only 2 hours a day? He seemed depressed and was walking around with a sad face, as if he lost everything in life. He was whining all the time. Seeing him like that, I was so tempted to change my mind. But every time I felt like that, I would run to my husband and he will help me stick on to my plan. Others might think, I am being a bit too strict here. But seeing my kid turning in to a robot was no fun. There are kids who play a little and stops on their own. But there are kids who need restrictions.
He started following it and slowly got adjusted to that. He returned to his old cheerful self. Thank god. I just wanted my normal kid back, and i got him back.
Now, sometimes, he would want friends to come over.. Those days I choose to ignore the rules. Because they would, come loaded with games and even their own game console with them! Once they settle on the basement, there is total silence; all would be so engrossed in the games. I would have to call many times to say lunchtime, or snacks etc. I also started giving a break time of one hour after a couple of hours of games. They don’t t like it. After about ten minutes one would come to me and ask, could we, hmm could we hmm please start playing! I would always say, there is only 50 more minutes. Somehow, after about ten minutes or so they would start enjoying talking ,teasing , wrestling with each other and even start going through the old toys searching for something useful. When one hour passes, I won’t remind them .After all, if playing video games was the only thing they wanted to do, why can’t they stay at their own homes and play! What’s the use of coming over to a friends house and play games again in utter silence???

How we ended up buying these new, ‘toys’ for our kid goes like this. In his playschool, the teacher said he is not that good in using scissors. According to her, letting him play video games would help. We thought okay, it would be fun for him too. So we bought him a play station one. Then he wanted a DS.okay I thought, let him have one. Then he said he wants to have an Xbox, this time, I got a used one. Then after sometime, he wanted to have a Wii. I asked him, if he really needs all these games when he can play only for a limited time. He came back to me and said, he would sell his DS and Xbox, as he was getting a bit bored with them. He was so happy doing all the preparations for selling those things. He sold them for a good price through eBay.

So I started looking for Wii. I was surprised to see that none of the stores had Wii. I would go to stores every week and they would tell me sold out. After almost a month of visiting all the stores at different times, I asked the manager, how to get a Wii. He said, they get the Wiii’s on Tuesdays, around 8.30, that too only 6 or 10 pieces! So if I can be there by eight, they could give me a token and I might get it! I went there at 7.30 and got the second token! Well I got the Wii at last!
Now his game schedule goes like this,. During school days he has no game time. If he is done with his home works, he can watch TV, but nothing after 8.30. On weekends and holidays, he gets his 2 hours of game time; sometimes it goes up to half an hour to one hour. Somehow, he doesn’t watch much TV. If he has no TV or games, he loves to read. Now, that’s an addiction I have no intention of stopping! He loves reading, non-fictions, mostly.

After all, it’s so good to see a kid lying down on the floor with a bunch of books around him.
Far far better than seeing him sitting on the edge of a chair with a controller, and his face full of tension and stress!
So now, when I hear this question-

‘can I have five more minutes to read, before coming for lunch’ ?
I always say-yessssssssss.