Nine-year-old girl placed into rehab for her Fortnite addiction

[TsVkK]

Take her xbox away? Whip the **** out of her for punching her dad in the face? Take all of her gadgets away and leave a pile of books in her room.

Pretty much what I would do to my 9 year old twins if they pulled this nonsense.

I've had the fight before with my slightly older son when he was playing COD too much and things started to slip... screens off, go outside. Tried aggression with me. Yeah go on big boy, see how far that gets you. And yes I took the cables away too for a while, until the problem passed. 9 year olds cannot be trusted to self regulate or respect authority. That's something we learn as we grow, it's not an intrinsic trait.

Clear lack of parenting authority and skills with the little girl in question.

 

[roberthi]

The parents should put her in timeout...oh wait, that doesn't work.

The parents should talk to her about the consequences of her decisions and importance of making good ones...oh wait, that doesn't work.

The parents should...oh whatever...parent's hands are tied anyway...regardless of what they do.

 

[gamoniac]

I just want folks to know that if you let your kids use Windows and Xbox, Microsoft has the best screen time control, by far. It is in my opinion a missed opportunity that MS does not advertise it at all. They owe it to all their users. All you have to do is sign you kids up with MS account and manage them here -- https://account.microsoft.com/family/settings/screen-time You can control the screen time of PC and Xbox using shared or separate schedule. You can control sites they can visit, apps they can use. They can ask for extra time on the fly, etc. And you even get a weekly report of what sites they visited. It's really the best I have seen. I am attaching a screen shot here: http://tinypic.com/r/2hcnwp1/9


Google requires you to be 13 years old, so they are not even close to being family friendly.

 

[Susan McAuley]

A lot of you are missing the point. Think of it from the 9 year old's perspective.

The parents were limiting her gaming hours to 1 hour on week days, and 2 on weekends. That's no time at all for any hobby. It's because the parent's turned it into a commodity that the 9 year old made the deliberate decision to wet herself so as to not waste her 'playtime'.

For an adult, peeing themselves would be unthinkable. But for a 9 year old girl, it's no big deal, and an effective way of saving time. This isn't addiction, it's just a normal 9 year old being a 9 year old.

If anything, the parents should be increasing her gaming time to something reasonable for any other hobby. Or, teaching her that if she does her homework/ study, she can spend longer playing on the xbox.

 

[captaincranky]

A lot of you are missing the point. Think of it from the 9 year old's perspective.

I think if anybody's missing the point here, it's you.

First off, all addictions are traditionally resolved by total abstinence from the drug or behavior, along with a support community. ("Alcoholics Anonymous", and so forth). Nor does "addiction", have to be a physical dependency. Take for example, gambling, where the person's own body supplies psychotropic substances which stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain

The parents were limiting her gaming hours to 1 hour on week days, and 2 on weekends. That's no time at all for any hobby. It's because the parent's turned it into a commodity that the 9 year old made the deliberate decision to wet herself so as to not waste her 'playtime'.

Adult gamers, (ostensibly gaming addicts"), have been known to partake of the same behaviors, save for the fact they usually have the good sense to wear diapers. But if you're trying to pass that off as "normal" it's not, Let's just say that it's a direct analog of an alcoholic's "bender"..

For an adult, peeing themselves would be unthinkable. But for a 9 year old girl, it's no big deal, and an effective way of saving time. This isn't addiction, it's just a normal 9 year old being a 9 year old.

Now, a nine year old has supposedly reached, "the age of reason". Which also brings with it the capacity for "ulterior motivations".

Childhood tantrums lead to bizarre adulthood analogs of such outbursts.

Take the case of Kim Jong Un. Raised in luxury, told he would run the entire country one day, one must come to the conclusion that being indulged as a child, every time he pitched a tantrum, someone would pander to his every whim, no matter how extravagant those demands might be.

Fast forward to the present, and you have a sociopath, who, when he isn't given enough attention, starts building nuclear bombs, and shooting off ICBMs. If that isn't a childish "look at me...NOW, humor me...NOW", I don't have any idea what would be.,

Adult gamers, (ostensibly gaming addicts"), have been known to partake of the same behaviors, save for the fact they usually have the good sense to wear diapers. But if you're trying tyo pass that off as "normal"

If anything, the parents should be increasing her gaming time to something reasonable for any other hobby. Or, teaching her that if she does her homework/ study, she can spend longer playing on the xbox.

No actually, her parents should be encouraging her to learn programming, so she can earn a solid living writing games.

An no, she's not too young to be tasked with organizing her priorities toward taking her place in the adult word, as a self reliant, wage earning individual.

In any event, the television is very often scornfully referred to as, "the electronic babysitter"

Well, these new fangled "devices", are way more addictive than the TV ever was. In fact, one township at least, has taken to writing warnings on the pavement at street corners, reminding people to look up from their damned cell phones, lest they should walk out in front of a buss.

 

[MaikuTech]

A friend of mine came up with a perfect solution. When they were building a new house he had each several plugs in the kids rooms separately on it's own breaker. He got some kind of programmable unit where it could regulate when those breakers would function. Limiting the kids to 1 hour per day has changed their family dynamic's considerably and the children & his wife are closer and happier. A rather expensive solution but it works for them!

Sorry sounds abit like alcatraz for a moment, either just take the console at night and lock it away or don't buy any video games for a time.

Susan thats not going to work by increasing her playtime for doing homework/schoolwork.
The only way to fix that problem is unhook the console for a month or 2 inside the trunk of the car.
Their daughter needs to learn to get back on track for school studies, she wants a video game ?
Let them buy a normal 2ds 2 games, 1 hour per day after the homework/chores is done.
When I had trouble with my school work in middle school partially highschool.
My mother took my consoles away and I didn't see it for a month, 3 months or until school was out.
With a stipulation that my grades stay above a C or no more game time anything.

 

[EWBR13]

I don't ever recall being so attached to a video game that I would pee or poop myself. In fact, I remember playing Minecraft on my tablet when I was 7 and I was on the toilet. I was playing Pocket Edition BTW.