Computer and internet time

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I feel horrible saying this but as I've been incredibly sick, I've allowed my 5yr old, high functioning boy to watch his obsession on you tube a lot. I've been sick with multiple things for 12wks and it's not over yet.. I have another operation on Monday. My son is now showing signs of addiction to watching youtube videos of stampy longnose playing Minecraft and has taught himself how to play it.

What was happening before I let him do this was, he couldn't be alone. Someone had to play with him, listen to him, and even though you were there.. You weren't allowed to play as you messed up his highly organized world, you had to just watch and the talking was him just talking at you and wanting you to agree. If you try to have a conversation, he will stop listening and start talking about something completely different, often repeating himself until he gets the same answer from you several times.

This was exhausting as I was sick and a single Mum.

What do I do now? He's addicted. As soon as he gets in from school he's asking for it and will continue to ask for it every 5min when you are doing after school things, when you are feeding him or telling him that he has to do something else first.

It's his main consequence if he is naughty, it gets taken off him but when this happens, he whinges and follows me around as before, talking constantly.

I don't know how to parent him to be honest. When he was younger, it was just seeming to be normal preschool things but now he's older, it's way more apparent and harder to cope with for some reason. Probably because I've been sick on and off for a year, each time worse. I need all the help and support that I can get from everyone on here.

Thanks

Sars

Taught himself how to play Minecraft at 5?

Congratulations, this is a kid with skills. Foster them, and there is a bright future for him.

Many parents will proclaim that there is something inherently wrong with "too much screentime" but cannot provide a shred of objective evidence that this is so. I wonder if Linus Torvalds or Steve Wozniak would be better off today if they had less screentime?

A good approach to life, particularly for people on the spectrum, is to play to your strengths while minimizing or circumnavigating areas of weakness.

Some background to the solid research behind a the "play to strengths" approach aimed at NTs can be found here:
http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/Abou ... er-20.aspx

More specifically autism focused expressions of these ideas can be found in
"Business for Aspies"
http://www.amazon.com/Business-Aspies-P ... 1849058458
"Living well on the spectrum"
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Well-Spect ... 1606236342

It might seem odd or off the mark that I am showing these adult oriented books in discussing the needs of a five year old, but the reality is that the education and experiences that you provide for him now are all meant to contribute to a trajectory that will ultimately give him the skills and ability to function as an adult and I think it's helpful to look at the goal while planning the route.

Measured by the outcome: a self taught five year old, successfully operating in a complex simulated environment that requires extensive planning, research and problem solving, I would say you are doing a great job as a mother and should be proud of your son's accomplishment .

If his Minecraft or Youtube obsession is interfering with school, then you need to be creative about finding ways to help him focus more on school. One possible approach is to never deny him the things he love as punishment, but instead establish that the general state is that he can't use the computer unless he earns the right by doing certain things, but will always have that right if he has done those things--making his favorite activities a reward.

That way you can encourage a few chores within his capacity, or a required attention to school work, and then let him freely indulge in the thing he is good at and that brings him such pleasure and comfort.

I am sorry life has been so stressful for you and I hope things get better. Maybe in the future both you and your son will be able to play to your strengths and carve out a better life for yourselves. In the meantime, don't waste any energy beating yourself up over imagined failings.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for that answer. I'm really doing the best that I can while sick and on my own. He has watched so many youtube videos of stampy longnose playing Minecraft that he knew how to play as soon as I installed it. He's communicating with me now, showing me things that he's built and his 100 dogs. It's quite cute and he's using his imagination which is what was missing when watching youtube constantly. The only problem is that he's using my computer lol.

We have a couple of techniques to limit my son when he gets obsessed with something. Not sure if any will help you, but I'll tell you our strategies.

First, we tell him what he will do instead. What we've figured out is when he is obsessed, he can't really think about anything else, and so he can't do that one thing, then there's nothing else and life is horrible. But if we give him other options, then even though he'd still rather be doing his favourite thing, there's something else he can be doing instead. Right now, he wants to be on the trampoline constantly, but he can't always be on it (for numerous reasons). So we offer him other activities that he does like to do. We usually give him two options, but you could give more if your kid answers questions. "No trampoline, but you can swing or line up books". I'm thinking this might help if he is following you around. Instead of focussing on no computer, you can focus on telling him what TO do.

We use "FIRST…THEN" cards. We say to him "first [non-preferred activity], then [preferred activity] (or vice versa) and have it written down for him so he can look at it. Looking at it helps my son- I think he reminds himself with it? We use PECS but you could use writing too if your kid can read. These are good if there is something you need him to do, such as homework.

This is then also backed up with the use of a timer. He didn't understand the timer at first but he does now because we've used it for a long time now. We have one like this: http://www.mayer-johnson.ca/media/catal ... 121_01.jpg. So we say "First 15 minutes of homework. Then 1 hour of trampoline/ whatever". We set one timer for that period of time, and then also one during the preferred activity at the 5 minutes-to-end mark. We give a warning at 1 minute, 30 seconds, and 10-1 countdown before the end. This way he can prepare himself mentally for the end.

We have an overall daily schedule, which I set the night before, which has everything the kids do all day on it. There's a big one on the wall and a little one that my son carries with him. Times when he can do whatever he wants (well, almost) are called "free time" and those are the times that he can look forward to doing his favourite activity. Otherwise he knows that we are doing something else and he also knows what it is, in advance. I find that structuring it in a predictable way really helps. He will sometimes cry, but generally if the schedule is followed, he doesn't cry much at transitions from favourite activities.

I think it's important to have lots of time for him to do his favourite activity, but it's certainly not unreasonable to want to limit his computer time. I wish you the best of luck. Don't feel badly about it. It sounds like you've got a lot going on and I think minecraft is a particularly good thing to be obsessed with! It has a lot of good aspects.

Because it is also very popular, you may be able to get him off the computer but still doing minecraft themed activities. I know there are minecraft origami projects and stuff like that. Maybe you can find some off-screen things he can do with it as well.

There is actually a lot of research on this. Here's one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365020/
I haven't read the whole thing, maybe there is some issue with it, I don't know,but it IS peer-reviewed, and there are many, many similar types of papers out there.

That paper I linked is about language acquisition, and my completely non-verbal 16 year old, did not watch TV until he was 5, so I am obviously not suggesting that this is the only factor in language acquisition. I'm just saying, there is some actually some evidence that excessive screen time can pose problems. My other kid watched TV when he was 2 and he says some words, so based on my kids, you could come to the opposite conclusion...but that doesn't mean there's no research that finds that excessive TV causes language delay, because there is.

Irrelevant. TV viewing is the passive activity of a couch potato.

"Screen time" on computer systems is a totally different animal. The old ones from the before time and those who don't like tech cannot tell the difference. But the difference is as great as the difference between riding on a train and riding on a bicycle. Totally different cognitive landscape, as is immediately obvious to anyone who actually does both.

It may be that there are computer users who recreate the semi-vegetative TV experience with nothing but video watching, but a kid who sets up and plays Minecraft is not doing that.

Even within the narrow context of traditional couch-potato TV there are huge differences between watching one kind of show and another, as indicated in the study you reference: "For example, it has been shown that educational programs such as Dora the Explorer and Arthur, which are composed of simple narrative structures and contain pauses for children to respond, are related with higher language skills but general TV programs are not."

This alone puts the lie to the fear of "screen time."

First off, I hope your health is looking up.

Secondly, I second the advice given by Adamentium. I do not know what we would have done, without the Internet and computers. Without the Internet, my son would not have acquired some of his especially awesome special interests, nor would he be able to explore them as fully.

Computers are interactive and I think really helpful for many people, especially autists.

That said, I understand that sometimes the siren call of special interests (whether digital or analog---although you could sell me on the fact that sometimes the digital form is more compelling) can interfere in doing what needs to be done in other areas.

This is a self-control/self-discipline issue that we have in so many areas, that for us, the Internet doesn't make a significant difference. My son will just as easily brain dump on a special interest even when we are not even in a room with a computer in it.

I wish I had more advice in this regard, but hyperfocus is a hard thing to fight. We try to use it as a strength and work around his interests to make other things connect to it.

So, I guess my suggestion is to use MineCraft and computers as teaching tools to make other things more interesting. He can talk to you about his buildings (ask him questions!) while he does his chores or whatever else you want him to learn to do, for example.

It is easier to go with the current than fight it.

I thought it was relevant because I consider television to be "screen" . One of my kids plays minecraft too and I was beyond delighted when he started to play it. I actually fought like a crazy person to get my son to be allowed to play minecraft at school during their computer time this year (they have it installed but were not allowing him because it didn't involve labelling objects which he doesn't do and they want him to- story of his life). My point in telling you this is I am not opposed to computers or minecraft. In fact, I LOVE minecraft. It's the first look I ever got into my son's mind and words can't describe how great that is. (Btw, the reason my kids didn't watch TV until 5 and 2 is that we didn't have a TV due to be super low-income at that time, not because I was so against TV- maybe I should have clarified that, dunno).

But for me, I don't think it matters what the activity is- if it's ALL you are willing to do, it's a problem. It's problem because there are other things that need to be done. In my previous post, I gave the example of my son and the trampoline. Being on the trampoline is really good for you physically. BUT if that's all he is willing to do, it becomes a problem because we need to leave the house, we need to eat, he needs to do homework, we need to sleep, I need to do housework (and he needs to be inside because he always needs supervision), etc..

There are times when he needs to do other things and for those times, it is good to have strategies to make it as painless as possible. I was looking at the TV/computer thing in the same way. Sure do it for a long time, but you have to be able to stop and switch gears. That's how life goes, especially if you're five years old because someone else is responsible for you at that age. The OP has said it's her computer. I'm guessing that sometimes she needs to use it and would like to do so without having to listen to whining the whole time.

I was going through a bunch of health things when my son was little, and there was a LOT more screen time than was really healthy. I don't think it did any long-term harm, other than that it became really, really challenging to get him to do other stuff and set up limits when we needed to - but honestly, that was harder for me than for him.

I'd agree that, while there is a huge benefit to interactive screen time, you do need to watch out for perseveration and the exclusion of social/learning time. At some point (and 5 is still early) your child is going to need to learn to socialize and take steps towards learning to take care of himself, and will need limits.

We have (still) extreme limits on screen time for my 14-year-old, for these reasons: if he doesn't get the same amount of time every day, he will flip out on days when he has to have less. We have therefore set a time limit that allows for other stuff that might happen occasionally (like extra homework.) He is aware that the time limits are due to his inability to manage his temper when we ask him to do something that cuts into his game time.

That said, we have NEVER participated in screen-free week, etc, because I recognize that video games and YouTube are the only way my son is able to relax. He needs the time - and when he was little, it was an important way to keep him safe when I was sick, because he was a challenge.

Can you get respite care? If your son has a formal diagnosis, you should qualify for it, or at least for early intervention services that will provide non-screen social interaction and development. You do need to take care of yourself. Hang in there!

Very happy for your 5-year-old. Great that he is learning and doing things on his own in Minecraft at a young age. I have a now 5-year-old niece who lives in western WA that started working with the game when she was only 3 (with her older sister's help of course). Haven't seen her in a while but I suppose she is a master at it by now. Not all screen time is "BAD".
Obviously, it's summer vacation time right now so the computer time is probably longer than usual.
I wonder if his school is using this version of Minecraft: http://www.minecraftedu.com
It's a special version for K-12 schools. And I know a LOT of elementary schools use them to teach kids computer science, which is great especially for kids on the spectrum.
I volunteer in an elementary school's computer lab 1x/week during the school year. I don't believe they use that program unfortunately, but they do participate in the Hour of Code (Code.org) like most schools nowadays do during December. I agree with other posters, use these programs for LEARNING TOOLS. He's 5, and he'll be learning more and more as he gets older.

It's so nice to read posts that say there is nothing intrinsically wrong with screen time! People used to tell me the same thing (some still do!) about spending too much time watching TV, talking on the phone or even reading. I worried about all of it at different times with my kids, Aspies and NTs, and now they have such a great balance...

What I found helped when one thing was taking up too much time was to find something that would be interesting for them. Something pleasant and different: park, going to the library for a book, going to McDonald's playground, a movie, whatever. It was often trial and error. It's important not to make other activities seem like a punishment for doing too much of what they like. You could say, "I'm sick of being inside... Could you go out for a walk with me?" or something like that.

If it's really hard to get them to stop fixating, do it gradually... Get a book about the game, or get him to bring the tablet to a different room, or tell him to write down his scores in a notebook.

Hope you're feeling better and are gentle with yourself. Parenting is a tough job, and you should feel good rather than guilty about finding something your child likes to do. If it made life more manageable when you were sick, that's great!

Like I said before, not all screen time is BAD. And it's sometimes really good. Obviously use it wisely and use something similar mixed with the screen time.
When it comes to the library, I notice many parents will go in the children's area, the kids will play educational games on the computers, and then after a little while they will look at the books available for check out. Keeps a balance - half game time, half reading time.
Keep it up and your child as an adult will be making lots of money working with computers in real life.

I love that our library has an imposed half-hour limit for children on the computers (they give an hour for adults.) It's a lot easier when somebody else is doing it...