video games, pokeom, was: Men???

[Guest guest]

>

> I simply hate video games! My son is obsessed w/ them & will beg,

lie, sneak, stay up al night and play them after I go to sleep! I

dunno why they are so important to him? And Pokemon cards-obsessed! I

tried to switch him to baseball cards so he could see them on real tv,

but no luck. He counts them, lines em up, organizes them & gets so

angry if they get disturbed.

>

> Is the obsession a sysmptom of somethin?

>

> O, I love the idea of a man, but the reality of one stayin here &

enduring this is not a gonna happen, so I don't waste my energy on it

anymore. No Jim Carey's round these parts! lol!

I used to hate them but I have been won over. The answer that worked

for us would probably not appeal to you, but this is a bit of our story:

My oldest used to behave like a video game addict. I began buying new

video games only on Friday because he would play so constantly when he

first got one that I couldn't get him to do school work or anything

else. Being able to play non-stop over the weekend meant that by

Monday he was able to tear himself away and focus on something else.

What I now know is that his initial obsession was about wanting to

understand enough or solve a problem, and after he got through most of

the game one time, then it was not such a big deal.

Then at some point, they had a jillion games and we were moving to a

smaller place (the ex is military) and I convinced them to get rid of

a bunch of them. We sold them and they got the money to spend as they

pleased. This was an Aha! moment for them and after that they

discovered the joy of trading in games occasionally for something new

instead of hanging on to old games that didn't really have the same

entertainment value. Then, about 3 years or so ago, they traded in

quite a lot of their games and got a several new games in one whack.

They had gotten more than one new game sometimes at christmas but

somehow this was different for them. With the influx of several new

games at one time like that, they had " enough " of something for the

first time. After that, they stopped acting like addicts. They even

went without video games completely for several months. When they

returned to buying them again, their relationship to them was different.

These days, they habitually trade in games sooner rather than later

but have also found some old computer games online they could download

for free, games they felt were of very high quality and which they

missed. For my sons, this obsession with video games was largely

about an intelligent mind seeking stimulation and having trouble

getting enough of it, in part due to the handicaps they have. Video

games were a means to get that stimulation without the kind of

frustration that can come from being tripped up by a handicap holding

them back. I think of it as " trying to feed an elephant through a

sippy straw " : How do you feed a large intellectual appetite

adequately when the pathways in to connect to that mind are so

impaired? Now that they know how to get sufficient intellectual

nourishment, they don't behave like " addicts " . But my sons will never

give up video games.

My oldest has had a lot to say to me about the appeal of Pokemon and

what's good about it. He once wrote a piece about that but I don't

think I have it anymore. But my guess would be that it is the same

thing: your son is likely intelligent but handicapped, and these two

things (video games and pokemon) are an intellectual lifeline for a

mind trapped behind his handicaps and hungering for adequate stimulation.

Peace.

Michele

http://www.healthgazelle.org

http://www.kidslikemine.org

http://www.solanorail.org