Alex’s favorite game is World of Warcraft. He plays that game for at least several hours every day and so far I haven’t been too worried about the time on the game - it does teach him a lot of English. He has learned how to type a lot of English as well since he has to regularly communicate with other players around the world. It does entail a fair amount of reading and while we do assist him, we do try to let him figure it out on his own.
But recently, as our schedule has gotten more busy, I decided to limit the use of the game to morning and evening and leave his school time which is always between the hours of 12 and 6 free of its influence. (Don’t panic and think that I do 6 hours of schoolwork with him everyday! It is more like 2-3 but it is always between the hours of 12-6 usually.)
When I announced this, I was really bracing myself for trouble. This was really the first time that he had had limits put on things he really liked doing. Usually all of our other behavior modifications were very mild and slow and measured. This was kinda out of left field.
But I was so surprised. He looked at me and whined for about 30 seconds, trying to get me to change my mind, but once he realized that I could not be swayed, he said ok and that was that. He even asked me if he needed to stop playing all together, but I told him, no of course not. And that was that - there has been no fussing or complaining since. And several times during those hours when he has not be doing school work with me, instead of asking to use the computer, he has gone and grabbed a book in Russian to read or gone outside to play.
He really is a great kid and has been so easy to handle. I feel so fortunate that he is able to be so flexible and malleable. He doesn’t dwell on things that he can’t change and moves on. I think this is such a valuable habit that will be immensely powerful later on in life. I am thinking of putting some more limits on him, but already the benefits of just that small change are reaping big rewards. We are doing on average two more lessons a day than we were before.
This brings me to a point here about these kids. I know many people vehemently disagree with the way I go about things with Alex. They (including many in my own family) would start from the position that you closely regulate everything (like video games) and as the children do well or progress, you can gradually lighten up and allow more freedom. I am diametrically opposite that, as I allowed all the freedom he wanted in the beginning and then started very late to put limits on and at that, almost negligible limits at that that were very little hardship on him.
My reasoning is that my way shows the child the importance of self-regulation and almost leads them into decisions on their own. This limit on World of Warcraft was only placed after Alex said to me one day during an Algebra lesson that he wished he was less of a lazy cake and more motivated. When he voiced this, I knew that he wanted to change and was looking for help in how to do it and that I needed to be a parent. I then imposed the limit the next day and told him that this would remove a lazy cake temptation and help him do what he wanted. I think that is why he responded so well to it without fussing more.
I think the other way is the more standard method of parenting, but I don’t think that it teaches the child as much responsibility. It takes control away from them in the beginning, making them resentful and already puts you in a bad light and them into a mind frame of rejecting your advice or guidance. Anyway, time will tell I guess. Maybe I will be sitting here in a couple of years wondering what I did wrong! Let’s hope not, but you never know.
But for now, we have some limits, they are working and I am just going to go with what is working now. Summer is approaching, and I have plans to do some fun things over summer and catch up on a lot of stuff that was missed during the year. We will have lazy days, late nights, movie marathons, as well as extra math lessons, expository writing and science experiments.
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