Anyone know what that means? Massive Multiplayer online role playing game. Kurt and David spend all their “*available” time and money on one of these games. We have parental controls on their laptops so that we can control how long they are on the computer. As soon as their time is clear they are hibernating in “**the lair” and playing this game for hours. They are sorely disappointed when their computers are close to shutting down when their time is up.
I wonder sometimes if this obsession is harmful or actually a good thing. Yes they do get outside and interact with live people, but I also see them working together to complete a task. I see them being kind to each other, but most of all I see them bonding with each other. The boys haven’t always gotten along and Kurt would usually lose patience with David pretty quickly when they used to play games together. Now they are laughing and spending a lot of time together.
The boys interests are generally opposite of each other. Kurt is very musical, he has taught himself to play the guitar and he is very good at it. His first week in piano class he was playing the songs at the back of the book, much to the teachers dismay. David is very athletic. He has been playing sports since the 3rd grade.
This one thing they have in common has brought them to each other. I worried that they would never have a relationship, that they wouldn’t be close. As a mom I envisioned them grown with spouses and children getting together and playing in the yard. Now I envision them locking themselves away in the basement and leaving the kids to their wives.
In general I try to be tolerant of this game that they play. The only time I come close to losing it is when they put off my requests because they are in the middle of playing. I asked them to pause it a few times, but was informed that you really can’t do that, and other people are counting on you to complete a task and you can’t let them down. That is when I draw the line and remind them that I live in the real world as do they and that they really don’t want to deal with my anger in the flesh. They usually get the message and get to the chores within 5 minutes or so.
*available time and money is relative here. I work them pretty hard and keep them pretty busy.
**The lair, is new the entertainment room. The boys opted to move in together and one of them give up their bedroom so that they could have a room for all their games and computers as well as the mini fridge.
Filed under: Parenting, Teens | Tagged: Bonding, MMORPG, Parenting, Teens, WOW
Glad to see you … missed your stories
xoxo
It’s cool the boys have a lair. Fun. And how do you do the computer thing?
Which computer thing? Their new Dell laptops came with this great parental control software on it. It allows me to go in and set the allow times for use, so I have it set from 10-12 and then 7-midnight. They have to do chores before they can get on at 10, so that causes them to get up early enough to get them done because they only have a 2 hour window. It also has a rating for the content they can view. I have the boys on older teen for their mmorpg, but Kelly is on preteen. It does a great job of blocking stuff. Kurt even gets ticked that it won’t let him view most of the myspace stuff.