"I've had it!"
"That's it!"
"Turn that off!
"Do I have to come down there?!"
I've had what amounts to a pretty much daily routine since Santa brought the Xbox to my house a few years ago. I gave Kris Kringle permission, and now I want to kick myself.
If I'm not fighting about my three teen boys being glued to it, then they fight with each other over it. Even when they are playing the same game!
Of course, when it's quiet you can expect they are staring, slack-jawed and drooling at the screen where various aliens, robots, bad guys live in virtual reality and must be destroyed at all costs.
"It's not real guys!" I often exclaim when they swear the can't turn it off because they will "lose the campaign."
Another little treat I discovered the hard way, is - those little stinkers on the other end can hear me when I'm doing my crazy dance! How did I find out? When my friend explained the kids' friends were "in the party" while I was dropping F-bombs in a fit of frustration. The boys thought it was hilarious. I realized that's one way for me to learn to watch my mouth.
But the thing is, they love to play and they hang out with their friends on Xbox Live talking the same way we did as teens. We do have limits I consistently try to enforce and there's nothing like getting a kid to clean a room and bring down the laundry by withholding game time.
They also have requirements like homework done first and good grades. They have to walk the mile home from school and participate in a sport/activity once a week also.
But still, unless I make those demands, they would stay in the dungeon slaying their dragons all day long.
Recently, I send out an email to other Xbox-loathing mothers : If we sign all the boys up for basketball after school there will be no one online to play! So I threw out the challenge and wouldn't you know it, the moms banded together and the boys are shooting hoops now!
Like I tell my kids: "The mom's know what's going on around here."
Not only that, we know how to engage in battle too. And win.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
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