Video Game Detox (Pending)

The Boy is thirteen and just starting eighth grade. He’s pretty typical for a teenage boy, more’s the pity. His life’s all about video games and putting off his few chores until ‘later.’ It’s a vague time reference that never seems to arrive unless his video games are threatened.

Now that school is on the horizon, I’m starting to wake him a bit earlier each morning because I’m sadistic. I mean because I’m a caring mother who doesn’t want him to fall asleep in class the way he falls asleep at the kitchen table at breakfast. Then lies down and falls asleep on the way up the stairs afterward. And in the bathroom.

  

So I’m reading parenting teenage boys books. It’s a big to hit my self-esteem. Pass the rum-filled chocolates, please. 

Occasionally something just jumps out at me. In Everything Bad Is Good For You, by Steven Johnson, the author references research done on the brains of young video gamers when he suggests the games stimulate a particular part of the brain in much the same way that crack cocaine affects the same area.

  

Hmm. Then I look at my thirteen-year-old happily driving off an overpass in Grand Theft Auto. Why he wants to drive off an overpass over and over again in different cars to see how each lands is beyond me. I think it serves to prove I’m not a thirteen-year-old boy.

So playing video games stimulates a child’s brain like drugs. It explains The Boy’s behavior. He loves his Methcraft.  I mean Minecrack. I mean Minecraft. I guess that means I need to detox him. This is not going to be pleasant.

  

Actually I think I’ll take a page from The Boy’s pagebook and finish my current reading list first. Maybe they have tips. Besides, I’ll need more rum-filled chocolates. Depending on what it says, and The Boy’s reaction, I might need to upgrade to rum-filled Coke.