A couple of Mondays ago Ollie absolutely lost it when it was time to leave Cara’s gymnastics class. [Feel free to read about that escapade here. I’ll wait.]
The main trigger of his meltdown was me taking the iPad. The iPad he was playing a game on.
As a chick who plays a hell of a lot of video games–and runs a Sims 3 site–I spend a far greater amount of time with games than most people. Because of that, Cara and Ollie have been exposed to games from a very young age. Games are as much a part of our lives as cartoons are to other families.
Tucker and I don’t have any problem with the kids playing games on the 360 or the PS3. They love Plants vs. Zombies
But Ollie’s love of video games has gone from him having fun to him being obsessed.
For the past week, literally the first thing he says to us is, “Can I play a game on your phone?” When we tell him no, he moves on to asking to play a game on the other phone. When we tell him no about the phones, he moves on to the iPad and when we tell him no about that, he moves to asking about the 360 and the PS3. Mind you, each answer of “no” is punctuated by bouts of screaming and leg kicking and all versions of blech.
Tucker and I have puzzled over this for way more time than I’d like to admit. Do we totally cut him off? Cold turkey and all that? Does that mean that we also get cut off from playing? Can we still play and he can watch but he can’t play? How long do we cut him off? What’s the appropriate way to deal with his fits? What about when he gets violent?
And now I’ve officially made him sound horrible and that’s most definitely not my goal here and he’s not a horrible kid which is why this is such a pain in the ass. He’s gone from being a very sweet kid to this…three year old? Is that all it is? If he wasn’t fixated on playing a game then he’d be fixated on something else?
I just realized he was flipping me off. I'm assuming this is a coincidence. I hope.
Tucker and I both readily admit we DO NOT like the age three. Cara was a pain at this age, too. So is that what it is?
Gymnastics is later today and I’m going to send Cara in and then Ollie and I are going to sit in the SUV. They have WiFi there and so I’m going to get Netflix started on Tucker’s iPad and I’ll read or something. After the way he acted last time and the way he’s acted this past weekend, I have no desire to have anything close to a repeat of a couple of Mondays ago.
Comments