Savagezion said:
mike1921 said:
Savagezion said:
Revnak said:
I did not ever fucking say that it was more important, at most I would say it is worth consideration. Don't put words in my mouth. My comment about following the meta was in response to you calling it disrespectful to call someone out for not following it.
OK, well then I can tell you it has been considered and most parents will consider it less important and the answer is still "No". Let me give you something to consider, 16 year old Timmy has been told 3 times now to take out the trash. First time, was in a match and he said "OK", and the parent waited having other stuff to worry about. Well, Timmy forgot to do it as kids with video games tend to do and started another match. The parent tells him again, where he apologizes and says he will after the new match. "No, do it now" and suddenly the parent is a dick and the new match is more important than Timmy's chores. I am not going to wait 3 hours for the trash to be taken out because he keeps forgetting. I am also not going to punish him for abandoning the game when I told him to do it. If his forgetting to do it at a convenient time results in backlash within the game, I trust him to handle that himself. I am not going to intervene and play mediator between him and a bunch of people playing video games. I am gonna let you all work it out. More than likely though the kid isn't as patient, mature, or articulate as he needs to be in that scenario and will get pissed and either quit playing or just ignore anytime someone gives him backlash. I may give him guidance but to be honest, I will tell him how I see it.
You're not going to wait 3 hours for the trash to be taken out? Seriously? Is your trash nuclear waste? Is it some herculean task to take out the trash where if he starts now he'll be done in 6 hours? Pretty much any house chore is something that can wait hours.
no, nothing is more important than chores, but everything is more time sensitive than chores. My house would have bankrupt in months if I don't do my "chores" (my chores being doing invoices for my father's business) yet somehow when I was asked at 5 and said "hey could we do it at 9" the answer was "ok" 99 times out of 100, because: shocker, we get the money at exactly the same time pretty much regardless when I make the invoice.
There is a couple things wrong with this comparison. First:
Me in a different post said:
To you taking out the trash is about taking out the trash. To me it can spawn into helping the kid form structure in his daily life. (Which is clearly absent if he is ignoring doing it to play games.) You focus on what they are doing and not why it is being pressed. It is more about helping the kid form habitual routines than taking out the trash. Hell, I could take out the trash. But that isn't the point.
No, the trash isn't nuclear waste. However, the kid procrastinates things and has a habit of forgetting responsibility as most kids do. Especially, when video games are involved. You may be the type of kid who is so responsible your parents trust you with the the financial responsibility of their of their income, and no doubt use those invoices to prepare you to be able to take the business down the line but I assure you that isn't standard fare in the teenage world. I bet if you forgot to do invoices a couple of times asking to do it at 9 would flip to the answer being "OK" 1 out of 100 times. Because the logic would be make sure you don't forget again and then you can play your game.
You are using the logic that what is true at your house must be true at everyone's house. My whole point is that what is true at any house is NOT true at every house. Which means while it may seem perfectly logical from your perspective to never make a kid get off the computer I assure you there are many times where it is more important. We have only covered taking out the trash. There is a long list of things that could be interrupting. Not all houses and kids are the same as yours.
Sure, kids fuck up. but the fact of the matter is, regardless of how you think it ranks in terms of degree, he also accepted the responsibility of completing the game he started and I don't see a solid reason to make him abandon it, and I do think with the current status of many online communities you should be a little careful about actions that make people behind a screen seem like less than people. There's enough psychology promoting that already.
I'm aware taking out the trash is not solely about taking out the trash, however the message you are trying to teach is not necessarily the only one conveyed. Yes, you will convey that adult tasks are important and at some point need to take priority, but at the same time you're conveying a sense that timing and people online don't matter in your priorities ever. If you're going at this from a symbolic perspective than I see where you're coming from but at the same time, an online game can be more about responsibilities to a group and in context it could be about timing.
Anecdote incoming: I know two people with mothers who feel there is no problem taking their kid out of whatever they're doing no matter what to do something that can wait for hours if not days. They're both always off with their timing and are rude online relative to other people in the same circles (one is much worse with timing and rudeness than the other) and yes, they're both constantly afking in games. Of course two isn't the sample size to prove anything and of course confirmation bias exists but when I see a kid tell me he'll be at my house in 5 minutes but takes 35 because he decided that it's time to take out the trash, and he lives about 10 minutes away from my house, and then when he's with me he informs me he's late to be at the gym with someone else, I sort of get the feeling that he wasn't taught how to be punctual and when everytime he mentions his mother it's about her pulling him away from something for a chore he didn't know he had to do I don't think my hypothesis is too far off..
I'm not perfect, I did forget bills a few times, it was just a case of getting a text asking if I did it and then getting it done, and then we got on a system where I just don't miss them (he emails me now, I check my email very often and don't set it to read until it's done).
It wasn't by choice that my father trusted me with the house's income, my mother left us and my dad is computer illiterate.
I don't have a problem with taking your kids out for unique circumstances, what I care about is there being a good enough reason to ruin my game.
First, age is irrelevant. Wash the car = flunking algebra in this scenario. The scenario paints priorities. Anything I make him quit the game for is something that he knew he had to do long before logging in. It is a prior obligation. Taking out the trash he has known is his 'job' all year. Completely the match is an obligation he has for 10 minutes.
For one, a lot of kids do not have that sort of structure where they do know about these prior obligations. Second, unless the trash has been piling up all year it's pretty easy to not notice if its time for the trash to be taken out. Third: Priorities should take time sensitivity into account, filing my taxes is a much higher priority than today's dinner in the sense that if I needed to ignore one or the other I'd skip dinner, but one is due in months and one is due in hours: by your logic I should skip dinner and file my taxes even though I can get both done with no ill effect because priorities.
1. In an environment where they don't have such structure what makes you think that the letter will apply to that environment? (Considering that the letter's suggestion needs structure to be applied.)
2. It's also easy for the kid to get home and not even bother to look because he can't wait to hop online because he is a kid and is excited. That is easily dismissed. It is easy for him to dismiss and forget even after you tell him.
3. You are comparing eating and financial concerns. Both are actual priorities. Not starving to death and not losing everything you own. NEITHER of these are parallel to losing a GAME. Teaching responsibility and structure is not parallel to a game. No matter how you argue your argument the problem is you are saying that a leisure activity should be given precedent over responsibilities. I will never agree with that. That is actually a symptom of an unhealthy "addiction" to video games. Unless there is a direct correlation between finances and gaming such as making money playing, is it even worth a direct comparison. You are actually ranking LoL with eating and bankruptcy which I think is a tad off.
1: I don't know if I'm just tired but I don't know what that contradicts and I don't think it's core to either of our points
2: Sure, but just remind him, I know plenty of adults who do the same things and are doing fine because forgetting things is just something that humans do.
3: No, I'm not comparing not starving to death to anything. You're looking at this too black and white. If I stopped eating dinner now, forever, just no meals after 4pm I would never starve to death , still have lunch. That's why i specifically said dinner TONIGHT compared to filing my taxes, whether I eat dinner one day out of the year ranks about up there with whether I stub my toe this year in terms of importance.
By your logic no one who has any financial difficulties or possibility of any financial difficulties in the future should ever buy an entertainment product regardless of cost because they're ranking gaming over their financial well being. Do you see what's wrong with seeing "dinner tonight" as at all even related to "STARVING TO DEATH" in a first world country? "dinner tonight" is about as petty a consequence as I can give you unless you're having trouble with anorexia, you'll have an irritating feeling in your stomach and may have trouble going to sleep tonight. But: taxes due in months, if they were due in hours dinner wouldn't even weigh in.
When you mess around with degrees enough I believe you can compare anything with anything. Is money more important than your children? What, no? I'll give you a billion dollars to erase one of the answers on a graded piece of homework and replace it with a false one. Of course you'll do it.
Whenever you say you can't compare two things you get ludicrous results. I've heard people say that honesty is something that can never be compromised and then they say they wouldn't lie nazis looking for jews if they could get away with it and other similarly repugnant things. I say if it is something that exists and has an impact on anyone's life, degree irrelevant, you can not deny it's spot as something you can compare with anything else.
I say the game is on the same scale as food and finance because I say everything is on that scale. Otherwise most people should just never buy an entertainment product, ever. At the base level I say they lack the same degree of importance but "dinner tonight" and "taxes are due in 3 months" are such non-pressing matters that I can't falter anyone for prioritizing pretty much anything they feel like over either of them for the time being.
Do you find it irritating when he disregards you and instead does what I want?
In a vacuum? Sure. In the context of "he started doing something time sensitive, what I told you to do is significantly less time sensitive"? No.
Well, we are in a vacuum here. If I choose to make the kid drop the game for something I see as more important, regardless of time sensitivity, he will either do as I want or do as you want. And I have seen no valid reason to prioritize gaming over real life. Just because it is time sensitive doesn't make it more important. It sucks that other people have to suffer for his irresponsibility but that is real life. Being irresponsible usually tends to hurt those around you more noticeably than yourself.
Yes, it being time sensitive does make it more important because both can be done if he does the game first but not if he does the trash first. You're not comparing taking out the trash to anything, you are only comparing which minute within the hour the trash gets taken out to the game. I don't get how you perceive this as being "taking out the trash versus completing the game" because that is a vast exaggeration, you are comparing the game to what position the minute hand on the clock is on when the trash is taken out.
Here's the way I see it. He has a responsibility to me, a small one, to stay in this game, and he has a responsibility to you, a small-medium responsibility (I'm sure if something genuinely important came up and the situtation was right you'd do it and not care). If he leaves the game right now he nets an abandoned small responsibility, if he plays the game but then doesn't take out the trash anyway than he nets a bigger abandoned responsibility, worst. But if he just finishes the game and takes out the trash: he didn't abandon his responsibility to anyone: seems to me like it's obviously the best outcome. Also it's what an adult would reasonably do in that situation and I do think a major point of parenting is to teach your child what they should be doing as an adult.
I don't even see your concern of whether the trash is out this hour or the next as in the category of "real life", any sense of importance you see in that is just as symbolic as the actions of my magical swordsman in league.