16 year old son playing Xbox all night!

System

My 18 year old son pulls 'all nighters' every so often. Never on nights where he has to go to college next day. He's got an impressive social life on there too what with X box live, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other sites.

However, he knows that if his online social life gets in the way with real life we have a way of controlling it. It just involves a small screw driver and taking out a certain fuse.



Up to now we have never had to use the screwdriver but neither his Dad or I would think twice about having to use it. The rule is, warn him once and that's ok. Warn him twice and that's it he loses the lot for however long we think is suitable.

DavidF

He is in that bit between being a child and being an adult......used to be called young adult lol.
I think the approach is to loosen your "control" as he gets older and more mature. Some people mature much slower and some do literally leave school and hit the ground running.
Playing on xbox through the night is not really the actions of an adult so therefore on that side of things you need to parent him some more. What he does on his days off should be a concern. It is so easy to fall into a pattern.
Give him his 2 weeks and then its time for a sit down and a review.
Might be a good idea if you can contact some of his friends parents and see how they are getting on with their kids. Team effort is always better than the solo.
At 16 I was in full time employment the week after leaving school. But I was "lucky". I used to envy my mates who got to stay up all night and sleep all day and yet still had more cash than me.....it all changed of course when I completed my 4 year apprenticeship and they were still doing either the same stuff or working for pennies like I had already went through.
Maybe try to fill up his time more with more physically demanding jobs. Stuff that will tire him out physically and mentally is a good thing. It is always nice to hear your parent (when you are a young lad) tell you how you are surprised that you could lift/move all that in one go....that type of thing is good for morale.
To summarize I think you need to fill his time more with more physically demanding chores. Gardening ect. God I know women and they can ALWAYS find jobs around the house lol.
Anyway good luck with it.

heartbreak_star

LannieDuck wrote: »

I would be more inclined to try to address his lack of physical activity. I suggested this to another Mum with a computer-game obsessed young boy on another thread - has he heard of LARPing (e.g. http://www.labyrinthe.co.uk/)? It would get him outside all day, running around, and is very social.

LARPing is amazing, but unless you find a Nerf-based one, a CoD player might be disappointed

Glad you had a chat to him, OP. Seems like it is a flash-in-the-pan, especially if he's coming to watch films with you and things now

I pulled a few all-nighters of my own when I was younger, and still do occasionally (oh Kingdom Hearts and Fallout 3/NV how I love you). Online gaming has never held any attraction for me however, played WoW for a while....liked the game but the people annoyed me :rotfl:

HBS x

Steve_T.D

I dont understand, the update states exactly what i thought the minute it was stated he had a new laptop and was recording footage, youtube.

Again i side with the 16 year old who whilst i thought was doing something normal to start with is even being more productive and trying to turn video games into a money making experience.

He goes to college, he has a job and he stays up at nights in the hopes of getting a youtube channel off of the ground. The very lucky have youtube videos as their job and plenty of others make a good amount of money from it. Not all do but it can be done and things like being in a top clan and very good at games like COD will help no end.

I dont see the issue. He is 16, let him enjoy himself and try things like trying to get a popular channel on youtube whilst he can, before he is weighed down by bills, family life and responsibility in general.

ibizafan_2

My youngest son turned 29 today. When I think back to when he was 15 to 18, he had me worried to death. Letters home from school complaining about his lack of work, up all night playing on his computer, and not responding to my shouting, bribes and whatever else I thought might work. Fast forward to 2014, and he has a good degree and now in Australia with a lovely girlfriend, and a good job in accountancy. Moreover, the lad that could never get up in the morning now says he always gets up early! Phew....... why did I worry?

ska_lover

Person_one wrote: »

Are parents really supposed to have control over 16 year olds?

Loads of young men (and some young women) go through a phase of staying up half the night playing games, if not now then when they first move out and get a bit of freedom.

He's going to college, he's working part time, yes it sounds like he could learn to be a bit more polite and helpful around the house but I don't think we're looking at a very extreme situation here.

To be honest, I think you are probably one of the few people talking any sense on this thread - from a realistic point of view.

People keep referring to this 16 year old as a child. I would have hated being referred to as a child at 16 years old. He works and goes part time to college so seems pretty responsible/well balanced in most other ways.

There are SO many worse things a 16 year old can get into, than having an allnighter playing computer games. There are an awful lot of people pulling the 'bad parent' card on this thread, just seems a little bit over the top to me in this instance.

I also wonder if some of the folk pulling out the 'bad parent' card, have actually been parents of teenagers to understand what it is like to be a parent of a teenager - rather than to be one. This playing computer games until all hours of the night is probably a lot more common than a lot of people think

Being a parent of a teenager is a different ball game to being the parent of a small child. You can only tell them your opinions, experiences and prespectives so many times, sometimes as a parent you have to let them learn themselves. You cannot live their lives for them. It is part of life and you can't wrap them up in cotton wool forever, its unhealthy. They will make their own mistakes, and as much as you may want to, you cannot exert total control over a teenager.

If it were my teenager, I would count myself lucky that was all he was up to. Working and studying at 16 - that is a real achievement - OP you should be proud of yourself and your son.