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October 25, 2008, 9:06 pm PDT
you're not alone...
Quote From: phlebloriI am so glad you are doing this show Dr. Phil... I am going to make my son watch it with me..
He is 15yrs old and has been addicted to "runescape" for many yrs.. I thought he would outgrow it,but
he hasn't. We have given him chance after chance to have to try to control it himself and he's failed. Talks
after talks trying to explain, we are so exhausted. We finally took it away from him and ofcourse he's angry
so angry at us, he won't talk, he tries to trade one addiction for another and we stop it also. He just thinks
we are terrible parents. He's now only allowed to play on sat. for 3 hrs. Now since he can't play the game he goes on the computer and watches other people play, and he still tries to tell us that he's not addicted, to give him a chance. Please, I will be so anxious to see what advice you can give us on this, and hopefully when my son watches the show he will see what addiction can do. I have an appt with his counselor at school on tues to see if he can help us.. He's depressed.
We share your same concerns and one thing I was disappointed about in this show, was the lack of advice about what to DO if you already know that your child spends too much time playing without having to "put a clock on them". Our son (16) plays many games including Runescape, Halo, Rockband, etc. As a child, we lived on a street where there were never any kids his age to play with and the games were a good "filler". Now he's in high school and has lots of friends, but even when they all get together, the video games are the main attraction and the center of attention. We haven't wanted to make too much of it since he's a straight A student, but now that he's 16 and isn't anywhere close to growing out of it, we've recently decided it's our job to do an intervention. We've given him the choice of finding other things to do...going to the gym, reading, taking up a sport, etc. and if he doesn't take it upon himself to make the changes, then he's going to have to get a part time job to occupy his time. Seriously,we feel like all we do is harp on him all the time but he doesn't get it or see it and it's such a waste. We have seriously considered just pulling the plug on ALL of it. He's a real happy and well adjusted kid and we don't have the depression to deal with...YET. If he falls into depression over it, then that will just confirm what we already know which is that there is a problem and it needs to be dealt with now before he turns into one of those full-grown men on the show who can't experience the joy of a loving relationship with a wife and children because of a g-a-m-e. If we manage to fix it at home, there's always the issue of going to a friends house where the parents aren't on the same page we are. What to do, what to do???
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