Ideas to get this kid off video games and on to something else...

[suzziesnowflake]

I am looking for ideas to get my DS 13 off video games and interested in something else. I do limit the time he has on them but he is always focused on them. Even when he isn't playing. It is to the point where this is all he talks about all the time. When I kick him off the video games, I find him with a laptop or my Ipad (I have put number passwords on it but he cracks them). He is not interested in sports at all or anything physical for that matter. What are some ideas that I can give him for things to do outside of video games.He says there is nothing to do and when something is suggested he says it is "boring".He is a good kid and does do his chores but the video game thing is not good for him!  We live in rural area and there are no kids around except DS16. We start youth group this week at church and hs bowling on Friday's. I do not have the time to be his cruise director and plan everything out for him. He used to be into legos but he has moved away from that. HELP!!

[Leav97]

karate

running or cross country skiing 

a pile of wood, drill, and instructions for building a shed

have him pick and plan an extra curricular 

 

Take away all of the electronics and wait for him to get bored enough to find something on his own?

[....]

I have one of these (my 9 yro).  I had to put a one hour limit on all electronics, unless they're using the computer to learn something.  My 9 yro is obsessed with two things: Minecraft and art.  So, it's to the point where her game time is up and she is creating these Minecraft worlds on paper with marker/colored pencil and she's even made some 3-D paper Minecraft things (like those building blocks).  She's created some Minecraft-themed comics.

 

My theory is... that my daughter will probably go into some kind of graphic art+programming field (it's hard, but I'm trying not to be too negative about the video game/computer thing).  

 

Have you tried MIT's Scratch or ALICE (from Carnegie Mellon University)?  They're both free.  Scratch is really basic programming for kids.  My daughter taught herself how to use Scratch and has created several little movies and games.  You can go on other kids' dashboards and see their games, etc.  When she's a little older, I think we might try KidCoder or TeenCoder (computer programming for kids).  Looking ahead to high school, they could probably work on real certifications (like A+ or web design), maybe?  That could lead to a job (? possibly).

 

Another possibility - robotics?  We went to a museum with a robotics exhibit and my daughter seemed to really enjoy that, too.  I'm not sure how to get into that hobby on a tight budget, though.

 

Would he like to build an RC car?  Or build models?  

 

Edited to add: I know you're looking for less computer games (and believe me, so am I).  But, I wonder if the computer games/electronics can't open the door to something else (like robotics or engineering) if we steered them into that direction.  I would love it if my daughter ended up going into engineering.  There's some good jobs out there in that field.   

 

Edited to add again (LOL):  You mentioned that he really liked Legos, but outgrew them.  My son is really into the Metal Earth models and Nanoblocks.  Metal Earth stuff is really hard to put together.  It comes in sheets of metal and they have to remove the parts, manipulate the metal and get the parts to fit together.  It's very difficult (my son has to have help sometimes).  Some of the models are less than 10 bucks.  Also, Nanoblocks...they are really tiny legos.  We bought a big set of them off Amazon and they had to come from Japan.  You need tweezers to work with them.  There are several blogs showing different creations and plans on making stuff.  My son made a model of a castle with them (that was awesome).  We didn't have the heart to take it apart.  It's still sitting on our kitchen counter.

[Mom22ns]

He sounds a lot like my ds 17 at that age. Can I first offer the hope that ds doesn't touch video games any more and I never forced him away from them.

 

Things that replaced them, youth group has been big. He played in a table top RPG group for awhile (D&D, Star Wars, Mutants and Masterminds). He RPG's online in a forum doing virtual RPG's with groups. He did lego mindstorms to move legos into programming. He tried a few types of programming, Mindstorms, Alice, and a few others I don't remember. Writing - NaNoWriMo really got him into writing. One of the first things he ever wrote was a fanfic piece based out of the Legend of Zelda series, so this interest branched naturally from video games. Reading, fantasy and other worlds that were not so unlike the worlds in video games were again a hook in. 

 

Ds now spends as much time at youth activities as possible, hangs out with friends in person and online, games (RPG's not video), reads, writes, spends lots of time studying, and hangs out with the family. He likes listening to music, plays guitar, and has played in a youth worship band at church for the last 18 mos. He was in band at a local private school playing clarinet for several years too. He will never do any of the outdoor things that people are suggesting, none of the sports, handyman skills, 4-H, boy scouts, etc are all horrors to him.  We acknowledge who he is and don't try to change that while gently pushing his interest to branch into healthier direction rather than just staring at a screen. He has grown into a physically and socially healthy young man. 

[JenneinCA]

If you want him to stop playing video games then you probably have to find something very interesting to replace the time and fun that the video games take up. In my case that would mean that I would have to play board games or actively take the kids outside and play with them. It isn't good enough to tell them to go outside and play or tell them to do something else. I would need to be a part of the something else. For weeks if not months.

 

As an extreme introvert I made the choice not to get upset about the amount of screens because I could not afford the time and effort by me to fill the empty places in my kids lives that are taken up by the screens. I need them to be happily occupied with something I don't have to supervise so I can take care of me.

 

Occasionally I think about how nice it would be if they had interests that didn't involve screens, but that would mean more time driving for me and more time around people for me. And the cost to me is too high.

[Stellalarella]

My oldest got into tearing apart computers and then building new ones.  So, yes, he does still do a little gaming, but his real passion is building computers.

 

Do you have some computer junk that you can acquire for your child to take apart?

[....]

We acknowledge who he is and don't try to change that while gently pushing his interest to branch into healthier direction rather than just staring at a screen. 

 

This is what I was trying to say, but you said it so much better than I did!

 

And I think tearing apart old computers is a great idea.  Is he interested in machines at all?  What about taking apart/rebuilding a small engine or something (we're kicking around that idea, too)?   

[LinaJ]

Take away all of the electronics and wait for him to get bored enough to find something on his own?

 

Tha's how we grew up, no? We did not even know there was this whole world of sitting on the couch and frying your brain... :drool:

[Mom22ns]

Tha's how we grew up, no? We did not even know there was this whole world of sitting on the couch and frying your brain... :drool:

 

But sitting in front of a screen doesn't have to be frying your brain at all. I know screen time isn't popular on these boards or among homeschoolers in general, but programming, creating Minecraft levels, graphic arts, the teamwork of multi-player games, there are so many great brain engaging things that can happen in front of a screen. Even the interactions we're having here. Ds found his tribe in an online forum the same way I did. 

 

For my ds growing up a few generations ago in a world without screens would likely have meant being locked up or locked away due to his ASD. Screens are one of his strengths. He has plenty of others, but going outside to play was never really within his skill set, even though we played outside every day when he was growing up. Recognizing that the way we did it wasn't the best way for everyone can be a growing experience.

[suzziesnowflake]

Thank you everyone for your ideas! We are going to start swimming (not swim class per se) for fun. We were at the library yesterday and they had a display of pottery that was done by a group in our town. He said he thought it was cool so it looks like pottery class will be on our list. I am also going to order Pley for him. It is a service that will send you lego sets and the child builds them, then they send them back. He said he still loves the sets but doesn't want anymore legos. He REALLY wants the Death Star to put together. He also does Lego Robotics Camp in the summer so I will be looking into purchasing RDX(?) for his birthday next month. I may try to get him into computer programming. We also put a limit of an hour a day during the week for him, with the understanding that he can play on Friday nights after dinner for as long as he wants. Saturday and Sundays are 2 hour limits. He was upset at first but I think he will survive! Thanks again!!

[SweetMissMagnolia]

great to hear from all the other posters---my 11 yr old is in this stage and I try soooo hard to get him to do something else....he likes editing videos and was into minecraft big time but has since lost most interest in that....I too try to look at the positive but sometimes it's sooooo hard.....I'm hoping it'll turn into a lucrative career for him one day

 

[Luckymama]

My son was like the OP's and many others' kids. He loved to play video games (console and computer) and would spend all of his free time doing so starting around age 12. By free time, I mean the time not spend on school or homework or at Boy Scouts or other extracurriculars like marching band in high school. Dh and I had no problem with this as long as ds kept his grades high, participated in family life, and was active in his extracurriculars.

 

He went through a period of shooting Lego stop-motion animated films.

 

He attended a summer robotics/engineering camp at the university. He became a counselor at the same camp, first unpaid due to his age and then paid. He learned and TAd several intro computer languages.

 

He started messing around with the computer itself and taught himself Linux stuff (which I don't understand).

 

He decided to major in computer science at university, despite never taking a formal computer class in high school. During his second semester, a former co-counselor at that summer camp told him of a job opportunity, working in IT for one of the colleges at the university. He got the job. He continued working at that job part time during the academic year and full time during breaks.

 

This summer he interned for amazing pay for a Major Silicon Valley Company. They offered him a job after graduation in their cyber security division :party:

 

He is on his third round of interviews with one of the Biggest of the Big Computer Companies :D

 

So in this case, ds's computer/video games interests do seem to be leading to the start of a lucrative career!

[stripe]

Tha's how we grew up, no? We did not even know there was this whole world of sitting on the couch and frying your brain... :drool:

Boys older than I was, played pacman on atari attached to the tv screens when I was a kid. ;) My relatives who did this are now in the 45 year old range. So, video games don't strike me as anything new.

 

I don't think computer use or playing video games is necessarily "brain frying." For a range of different populations, it's been shown to be therapeutic in motor skills, mood, vision, and decision making.

http://theweek.com/article/index/241121/7-health-benefits-of-playing-video-games

 

For the elderly, both physically and psychologically

http://www.agingcare.com/Articles/wii-for-elderly-155746.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20469567

There's no denying the physical benefits of motion gaming....

But the benefits may extend beyond just fun and games -- studies are also showing that these exergames -- video games that encourage physical activity -- are also proving to help with depression, sense of place and relevancy. They may even help bridge generational divides between grandparents and younger adults and children by offering them an equal playing ground.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/physical-video-games-may-help-the-elderly-psychologically/71184/

 

and for those with various vision problems such as amblyopia (lazy eye), including for adults, who are often not helped by patching; this is primarily a problem of the brain recognizing input from one eye; in other words, video game use is developing unused pathways

http://www.gizmag.com/sony-nottingham-lazy-eye/27414/

http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/node/18568

 

etc.

 

I bought my child a Wii for both therapeutic and mood-lifting reasons, after reading some research, and I think it helped. It was also quite a bit cheaper than visits to a specialist not covered by insurance, whose activities were pretty dull. More recently it has encouraged my kids to have a greater interest in physical fitness, and it does quantify one's progress in, for example, balance or hula hooping or whatever that they don't get direct feedback on because they don't play on a baseball team or other more structured activity with continuous scoring.

 

Honestly, it also has given one child, who can be at a loss for conversational topics, more to talk about with other kids, such as performance and favorite parts of particular games or playing with them. It also occasionally inspires my kids to work together on something. 

 

I think the problem becomes when someone gets boring because they are only interested in one thing, or loses the ability to relate well to others. Many people play games together, so it is social. Neglect of other parts of one life is not healthy, but it's okay to have interest.

[hornblower]

I'm in the go play the game with them camp.
My ds self limits game time. I actually wish he'd play more & spend less time watching others play. 
I might be the only mom yelling get off of youtube & go play the game already!

Also tabletop games. Watch a bit of Will Wheaton's tabletop show & get some cool board games & play with him or see if you & he can host some tweens/teens to come & play board games? It's quite popular here & ime teens will treck quite a distance to play board games and it's a good multi age thing. Parents can play or sit in another room & have a gossip...

& just more generally, I think there's this expectation that they'll do stuff on their own at that age but if anything, I found my teens needing way MORE interaction with me. Watching favourite shows together, going for a bike ride together, ds & I build lego together etc.  I'd think more along the lines of 'how can I be with you' rather than 'how can I get you to stop doing x'

and this might mean getting an account & getting him to teach you how to play some games  :)

[City Mouse]

Just some thoughts to share

 

My DS just finished reading a book for school call "Geeks: How Two boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho"(or something very similar)

One of the ideas presented in the book was that gaming and internet use are not the cause of a problem but more the result of, or evidence of, certain characteristics of the person.

Technology gives "geeks" a community to belong to where they are respected and have friends when 50 years ago these kinds of people were basically outcasts. it is the people outside this community that don't understand it's value and put restrictions on it.

This really hit home with me, because sometime do think that my Kids spend too much time online and/or gaming, but then I thought of the bulling that my son went though and the isolation my DD went through because they did not meet the very narrow expectations of what is accepted in our new town. Use of the internet and online gaming allowed my kids to make and maintain connections with people that are like them.

 

I am not saying that there is not value in making sure that younger children have plenty of exposure to lots of different activities, but thinking that computer use is inherently "bad" sends a message that there is something "wrong" with this kind of person.

[Mom22ns]

Just some thoughts to share

 

Technology gives "geeks" a community to belong to where they are respected and have friends when 50 years ago these kinds of people were basically outcasts. it is the people outside this community that don't understand it's value and put restrictions on it.

I am not saying that there is not value in making sure that younger children have plenty of exposure to lots of different activities, but thinking that computer use is inherently "bad" sends a message that there is something "wrong" with this kind of person.

 

Like wasn't enough. Very well said.