Terry, I'm sorry you went through this. it used to be the story of our life too, first with difficult child 1 and then with difficult child 3. It rarely happens now, because we found out a number of vital secrets.
1) It LOOKS like "addiction to electronics" but the gaming is in fact a vital coping strategy. In our incident on Saturday night (I posted separately about the reaction to Strattera) difficult child 3 was REALLY out of control, violent, hitting me, grabbing my arm, throwing things (in someone else's home). But on the way home even though he was still barely holding it together, he began to play a game on his Nintendo DS and after about half an hour he said, "Playing games has cooled my rage."
And he was right - it meant he was more able to be led through his routine and get to bed with no further violence.
2) a LOT of raging is about the child's sudden loss of control over his own environment. What REALLY triggers these kids is when we suddenly change the rules (or so it seems to the child) by stepping in and taking over. It really sets them off. We do this because we're the parent, trying to assert parental authority - this is correct, with most kids. But the wrong thing to do, with a lot of difficult children. It's wrong because it achieves nothing, not a sausage. Zip. Nada. If anything, it makes a situation much worse AND has the child fully convinced that WE are in the wrong, not them. As a result, no lesson has been learned and they become even more resistant to our discipline for next time.
What works much better, is working within the limits imposed by your child's obsession. For example, he is desperate for something electronic. In Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) there are often really good therapy reasons for allowing this, even when it seems you are spoiling the child by giving in (as the critics claim). For example, if your child is getting overstimulated by some types of game. The best way to manage is to give the child choice - "we could ban all gaming, or we could control WHICH games you may play."
Familiarise yourself on what the games are and how you play them. Use the gaming as a tool, as a reward. Make sure you reward him with time spent gaming together, you and him (grit your teeth, you can do it - especially if YOU have choice of game. I like Mario Party as a game to play together. Or Wii Sports). But do your utmost to NOT withdraw gaming or DVDs as a punishment, because for a great many Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids, gaming and DVDs are actually a coping tool, they need it to learn social skills (yes, believe it or not!) to learn communication, to learn some good skills to use as a way in to social groups with other kids, to feel good about SOMETHING they can do well and to also calm themselves down. ESPECIALLY to calm themselves down. Stopping them from gaming is as bad as trying to stop them stimming.
It probably seems bizarre that, after difficult child 3 attacked me the other night, I did not make him hand over his Nintendo DS as punishment. I didn't, because not only would it have not taught him any lesson at all, it had no connection to his attack on me and also I knew that playing would help him calm down.
Incidentally, I haven't punished difficult child 3 at all for that outburst. I don't think I needed to - it has brought its own punishment. We talked about it the next day, we discussed my belief that it was a medication reaction, we discussed how his behaviour had become increasingly belligerent, sullen and difficult (hence our correcting him) until he exploded when our frequent correction of him triggered his rage. BY the time we discussed this, difficult child 3 was very quiet, withdrawn, extremely contrite and mostly accepting of the 'diagnosis'. Incidentally, he had read my thread on the incident and I think that made him realise just how bad it had been. He scared himself and I suspect is going to be keeping it all very much in mind.
If I had confiscated his games and banned all gaming, I couldn't teach him more. I probably would teach him less, because his indignation would wipe away all sense of "I was wrong".
However, you still have the real problem of over-stimulation. We dealt with that by controlling WHAT games (and DVDs) he could play, and at what times. We also put together a list of games/DVDs he could play at any time, and conditions he had to fulfil in order to play games.
Our gaming conditions:
1) No gaming during school hours. School work during school hours.
2) Before gaming in the morning, he has to take his medications. He must stop gaming by 8.30 on a school day to get dressed, do his chores and have his breakfast.
3) After school hours, he has chores to do. He may play games, but must get chores done as well. If he is watching a TV show then he may use the ad breaks to do his chores.
4) After 6 pm he MUST be prepared to stop gaming in order to do chores, have dinner, have his bath, get ready for bed.
5) By 8.30 pm, he MUST be ready for bed if he wants to do any more gaming.
6) Games all stop at 9.30 pm.
7) Lights out at 10 pm.
Other rules - it depends on how he is functioning. If he cannot stick to the rules, we discuss with him the need to modify the rules to make sure he gets to bed and gets to sleep OK. For example, if he consistently won't come to eat his dinner when called, we discuss with him the need to switch off all games between 6.30 and 8.30 to make SURE all tasks are done. We don't simply say, "This is now the rule," because he needs time to adjust to this (which is why we never simply step in and take control - he can't cope with it, he loses it). Often the mere suggestion that we need to modify the rules because we're not getting compliance, is enough to get compliance again.
If at this stage we need to say, "You keep breaking the rules, you refuse to stop gaming when we need you to, therefore we are confiscating your game system until further notice," (and we haven't ever had to do this, by the way) then at least THEN it would be a punishment connected to the crime.
Another really important rule - censorship of the games. Our list of acceptable games focussed on games which did not have a clock you had to race, but ones where you had to think hard but could take your time. Games which required quiet brainpower, games which didn't require shooting anything but instead required detective work. Games which had nothing distressing in the topic, nothing with conflict.
Examples of good games - Myst (and the derivatives), Sudoku (and similar), chess, Scrabble. Brain training games.
Banned games - this depended on what he could handle. Sometimes it was surprising, there were games which we knew gave him nightmares for reasons we could never fathom. We had to make the judgement call based on our own observations. But because we had clear reasons, we were able to at least try to explain why and even if he didn't agree with us, he understood that we weren't doing this out of revenge or a desire to be mean to him, but because WE felt we had good reasons. And when he could justify us lifting the ban, he petitioned us, explained his reasons and we brought them back on a trial basis. If the trial was favourable, the games stayed. If not, the ban was back on. Often he was more understanding at this stage.
The thing is, if they need to game as a way of coping with stress, and we take gaming away from them, not only are we removing their way of coping with stress but we are adding to their stress even more.
If instead we allow their gaming but try to control it in other ways or to limit it in ways to improve their availability to function, we are more likely to get cooperation from them.
It's a slow process, we shouldn't try to fix everything about our kids all at once. We need to only deal with a few things at a time, otherwise they will feel as if it's all too difficult, so why try?
We've been down this road with difficult child 1, and now with difficult child 3. What we do now is working for us. We've been through the full-on ban, we've been through the micromanaging. This works for us, brilliantly. Yes, some people criticise, some family members ride us hard about our "undisciplined brat" and his "addiction/obsession with games". But we tell them to back off - we figure we've paid our dues, tried it their way and frankly, he's OUR kid, this works for us.
Think about public attitudes when mobile phones first came in. People who DIDN'T have mobile phones complained about people flaunting their mobile phones in public, talking loudly to someone on the phone while they were on the train, in the restaurant, walking along the street; I read a newspaper column where the writer felt it was stupid for a man to be talking on the mobile phone in the elevator coming down form his hotel room. "Why didn't he make the call from his room before he left?" she said.
These complaints seem so silly now, because NOW everyone has a mobile phone, so we all accept the use because we all understand it. No longer are there so many have-nots complaining about the haves.
Gaming is similar. The people who complain about it the most are the older generation who do not understand/want computer games. THEY never had them, so why are today's kids so obsessed with them? Get the kids out into the fresh air! And while I agree that we do need to get our bodies moving and get some outdoor exercise, computer games are NOT the problem they're made out to be. People who play a lot of computer games have sharper reflexes, better problem-solving skills and often better self-esteem. So I'm told by various studies I keep hearing about on the radio.
Mind you, the notes from difficult child, the "dad said I could have it back" was a cute touch and you handled it beautifully. I LOVE the writing lines thing. VERY effective use of natural consequences. He certainly needs to know that trying to play you off against each other not only is NOT acceptable, but he WILL get caught out and made accountable.
We're never going to be perfect parents. Our kids are never going to be perfect kids. The best we can do (all of us) is try. and when we get it wrong, we say sorry, we pick up and we try again.
It really is all we can do.
Hang in there!
Marg
