HS Senior with 4.0+ only wants to go to community college and play video games

Parents Forum
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<p>If a senior in college spends the vast majority of his time in his room alone gaming, I see that as a problem. If he is losing interest in those things he was interested in before, that is a problem. If any suggestion that he cut back, look at college, etc, is respionded to with a temper tantrum, that is a problem. So what that he has a 4.0. Some kids jsut know how to play the game and get the grades without really working at it. </p>

<p>I think the OP is concerned that her son has no ambitions. The he doesn’t want to do anything. That CC is jsut something to appease everyone.</p>

<p>If, say , he was out there working on cars, taking them apart, and wanted to be a mechanic, I think the OP wouldn’t be as concerned becasue at least her son would have an interest.</p>

<p>Lots of kids don’t go to college. Lots go to CC. Its just that the OP sees her son doing nothing. I mean, aren’t most seniors out there with frineds, doing sports, working out, looking for a job, volunteering, something? This isn’t “normal” nor healthy behavior for an 18 year old man. </p>

<p>My husband went to a trade school. He makes good money. maybe a 4 year college wasn’t right for him, however, he was involved, had a plan, played soccer on the national level, worked for his parents, etc.</p>

<p>If this was my son, the gaming would be gone. I would call his bluff. At this point the OP has nothing to lose.</p>

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<p>OP --I really feel for you!
My son is younger than yours, but what you are going thru is my worst fears. Bright & unmotivated is a dangerous combination.</p>

<p>I would, as some others have said, lay down the law.</p>

<p>I would give him a list of acceptable scenarios. I understand your fear of losing him (ie him just moving out), so I’d make a short term (thru HS) & long term list (come June & beyond). I’d also let him know if he leaves he is welcome back at any time IF he agrees to the terms. Unfortunately there is much truth in Tough Love.</p>

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<p>I’m a high school senior right now, and I went through that stage as well, but in 8th/9th grade. 9th grade pretty much screwed me of my 4.0 because I would play World of Warcraft all day and not study for tests/do homework. That game is ridiculously addicting, even if you are just a “casual” gamer. I ditched my friends, my social life, and spent my weekends online with my characters. Now that I think back, I think…*** was I thinking?</p>

<p>As for my parents, they kept urging me to stop, yet they were reluctant to use brute force because I was their kid =P duhh, and that’s probably how you feel. You want your kid to be happy, but you also want them to DO something.</p>

<p>As for college right now, I would think pushing him would not be too good of an idea. My cousin went to Michigan State as a pretty hard-core gamer and ended up prolonging his graduation to 6 years- wasting tens of thousands of dollars on tuition and rent which his parents paid reluctantly.</p>

<p>Don’t let him get into that boat. Also, for such a bright kid, I would not let him attend a CC either. I’ve seen CCs ruin many of my friends who were bright if not smarter than your son. Its just a lack of self-motivation. CCs are just “too easy” for the student who has the grades and test scores to make it to the top colleges.</p>

<p>I would definitely start taking action though. Maybe one day when he gets home, he will walk into a room without his computer at all =)</p>

<p>You are the mom.
You have the power.
And you cook the food =P</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>This is such an interesting thread on so many levels, and I think what you are describing is the tip of a large iceberg that affects a lot of people. Internet and gaming addictions are very real problems, and families, colleges and as a culture we need to acknowledge it.</p>

<p>A little self-examination: how much time did you spend on College Confidential, and other boards, websites, facebook and email today? Come on, fess up, parents. Are we like the alcoholic parent that punishes harshly when the kid gets a DWI? If we sit staring at a screen all evening, can we deplore the kid doing the same?</p>

<p>jessie is right, but I know a kid who was kicked out of MIT for video-game addiction, and in my view MIT took the wrong approach. VGA is really a problem in colleges everywhere and they need to acknowledge it and work as a community to deal with addiction issues.</p>

<p>Please don’t promise you’ll send him off to college with all the games and gaming stuff he wants. All that’s available at top colleges anyway, he won’t need to even bring his own. Secondly, it’s like saying “if you just go to Harvard I’ll buy you all the beer you want”. An addiction is an addiction, but VGA is different in some key ways. It’s a lifestyle. In Europe a lot of adults live much of their lives through their Second Life characters. Here, fantasy on-line games and first-person shooter games are more popular.</p>

<p>Here’s how I would cap it:
Sit down with him and watch him play. Bite your tongue and don’t say anything. Do this for 2 days. On the third day ask him if he will help you create a character. WoW players usually like nothing better than creating characters. Get involved. Learn about the game. Crack it open from the inside. Talk about it with him, find out what appeals to him.</p>

<p>Take that information and build a relationship. That’s more important at this stage than haranguing him about college. What is it – does he like the lore, the stories? Does he like the battles, the alliances, the game-play? Does he like inventing characters?</p>

<p>If he is into the deep story lines, that’s a gateway to talking about Tolkein, Norse mythology, the Poetic Edda and runes and codes. If he likes the game-play (really is this any worse than being an avid chess player) talk about battle strategy, and famous battles in history and how they were won. If character-creation appeals to him, wow, talk about how writers and artists develop characters, what makes them work. </p>

<p>You might be surprised to know that a lot of video-game music is from classical sources, like Carmina Burana and Wagner. Orchestras sometimes have concerts featuring video-game music, believe it or not, and they are very popular with young audiences. Find some of that music on iTunes and burn some CDs for your son.</p>

<p>In other words, meet this brilliant young man on his own playing field. Learn how to talk to him. And if nothing else, having his mom interested in WoW is gonna deflate his obsession with the game, at least we can hope! ;)</p>

<p>Full disclosure: I just got an MA in Digital Media. Some of the students in the Game Design module were recovering WoW addicts. They knew a lot about game-play, all right, but their solutions and character creation all looked like WoW. They were boring. The creators of Myst, Civilizations, Age of Empires, WoW, and other rich games had to have a strong education in history and art history. Your son could certainly go into game-creation, but he will be working long hours for almost no money. He needs the college education to head up a studio that employs all the game designers and programmers that weren’t interested in college!</p>

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<p>annika,</p>

<p>While it is true that your son seems to be slipping into a problem, I think you are missing (or at least not directly addressing) the bigger problem here - your feelings of loss.</p>

<p>We as parents all put a lot of effort into our little projects known as children. For a long time, we receive dividends (their accomplishments) on our investment of time and treasure. </p>

<p>However, there always comes a time when they for some reason stop returning the same level or type of dividend we have become accustomed to receiving. </p>

<p>For many of us, it is the separation to spend more time with peers doing things that are generally considered “normal” (going out, talking on the phone until all hours of the night, etc.). And for many of these kids it isn’t a significant change in the return - they still enjoy doing things with us, but less frequently. So we adjust.</p>

<p>What you have here is a more significant change in the dividend return than you expected. I don’t know if this is a sudden change or has been increasing for a while. Regardless, the most important thing here is that YOU learn how to adapt to the dividend decrease reality that has occurred. You may not be at fault here, but need to accept that “stuff” happens. Perhaps it is easier to accept things like medical tragedies that we can attribute to a higher power than it is to accept things like gaming and the accompanying decrease in academic interest that you may feel that you have some degree of control over. </p>

<p>Just remember, while you may have had a lot to do with your son’s success (life scout, excellent achievement in school, etc.), most of it is ultimately due to his choices about how to spend his time. Right now, he is making choices that we all agree are not optimal. You just need to allow for the fact that he will make poor choices and thank goodness that at least it isn’t something that is deadly or dangerous right now.</p>

<p>Yes, I am not addressing your son’s problems, although I will say that it probably goes far beyond gaming. That is going to take more information than you’ve supplied and more time than you think. I am asking you to take the first step in accepting this which will go a long way in your ability to help him when he is ready to move forward with better decisions. Not only that, not focusing on what is next will help you look backwards and see where things started changing to cause the poor decisions. Buying the game was not the decision that was wrong. There are things that set him up to make the subsequent decisions - allocating a disproportionate amount of time, reprioritizing other efforts, etc. You need to understand these and what innate needs these decisions were satisfying before you can go about re-centering his interests on more “normal” ways of satisfying “more normal” human needs and desires. Please note that I used “normal”, which is probably a “poor choice” of terms, but something most of us can identify with. “Typical” may be a better term, because it isn’t as value-laden. Regardless, if you want him to participate in activities that are more akin to what you see as appropriate for his level of achievement, you will first have to understand what is driving him.</p>

<p>And this can be very rewarding and healing to what is ailing you. We as parents to some degree all live vicarously off of the success of our offspring. “Fixing” a problem in that sense can be as rewarding or even more rewarding personally than being along for an easy ride to the top. But the most important key to a satisfying experience as a vicarious parent is to set your expectation of achievement to a level commensurate with what is likely to occur in the near term. And a big part of that is accepting losses that come along the way and externalize the failure so you can move forward.</p>

<p>Enough of the deep think (at least for me). Wishing you well, so you can help your son and see the value in future dividends.</p>

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<p>All that video gaming has given him an excellent background to start his career as a video game writer, artist, or programmer.</p>

<p>Which game is his favorite? What does he like about it? How would he change it to make it better? What kind of game would he like to see that isn’t out there yet?</p>

<p>And finally, what kind of qualifications do gaming companies look for when hiring development talent?</p>

<p>Plant that seed and see if anything grows. But give it time.</p>

<p>I’ve got friends who work or have worked for Electronic Arts, Sony, Bioware, Origin, and others. It’s demanding work, but also satisfying, and when the company sends you to the San Diego Comic Con, you’re a GOD.</p>

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</p>

<p>I don’t know about that. That’s like saying a kid who enjoys watching TV is on his way to becoming a TV show producer or a kid who loves pie will become a cook. People who love to cook usually love food, but not everyone who loves food loves to cook. ;)</p>

<p>Also, becoming a video game designer is hard–it’s the fun job everyone wants to do. Programming is easier to get into, but if you really truly enjoy programming, you might as well program a spreadsheet and get paid well for it rather than programming “Elmo Learns to Count” and getting paid little.</p>

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<p>I saw an earlier post that said “community college is a waste of time for a bright kid”. I might agree if the student is extremely bright, motivated and diligent. Otherwise it could be the perfect place for the student that is short in one or more of those areas. </p>

<p>My d was accepted to and attended a four year private university. Due to issues that we did not compleatly understand at the time she was not able to perform academically to stay in her major. She by no means flunked out but her grades and behavior were eye opening. She took classes over the summer at CC and has enrolled this semester. We are praying to God she will be able to go back to her chosen college. I could tell you that the classes she is taking are not a waste of time.</p>

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<p>“I might agree if the student is extremely bright, motivated and diligent. Otherwise it could be the perfect place for the student that is short in one or more of those areas.”</p>

<p>Well said! I hope things work out for your daughter. She is very lucky to have such a supportive Mom.</p>

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<p>Hi Naturally,</p>

<p>Thanks for the correction, but actually I wasn’t speaking out of ignorance. I really DO know the requirements for getting into video game design, and a strong familiarity with the existing products is a huge plus. Your analogy to writing for TV and baking pies is cute, but doesn’t hold water. The final question in my post, “What kind of qualifications do gaming companies look for when hiring development talent” was supposed to point the kid toward college with a strong internal motivation. I’m sorry if you took this to mean that I was suggesting that sitting on the couch playing games was the only qualification.</p>

<p>You’re right that getting into video game design is hard: Bioware accepted over 800 applications for 8 writing jobs on their current MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. But contrary to what you may have heard from your friends who worked on the Elmo project, my friends at Bioware are not “getting paid little.” And if you were to suggest to an avid gamer that if he works hard he might land himself a lucrative job programming a spreadsheet, I seriously doubt he would consider that an attractive career option.</p>

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<p>Has he been checked for depression???</p>

<p>If he is not depressed, time to have the “vision talk”. You ask the questions, then do a whole lot of reflexive listening. (e.g. Where do you want to be next September? Two years from now? Five years from now? Where will your friends be? Do you see yourself continuing these friendships? Will you be visiting them at their colleges? Where would you like to live? What would you like to do to earn money? What are your strengths? Weaknesses? Do you have a plan for the next few years? Do you prefer just to take it as it comes? Do you think you’ll feel differently in April? …)</p>

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<p>Have son fill out some applications. I suggest even the easy ones where he doesn’t have to write an essay.</p>

<p>He’s going through a phase right now, and he’s enjoying a second childhood, as he sees the responsibility of adulthood looming on the horizon.</p>

<p>Sure, you can do tough love and say, Fine, just go to junior college.</p>

<p>Problem is, if he comes around in March, you will have missed the deadlines for scholarships which he should qualify for if he’s as smart as you say he is. </p>

<p>Back when I was young, I only intended to go to work after high school, even though I was a straight A student. I never prepared for standardized tests or worried about extracurriculars. When I realized, senior year, that I wanted to go to college, I felt so stupid, and still do, that I did not put in the little bit of effort that might have given me a better score on the standardized tests that could have gotten me better scholarships. </p>

<p>Oh, yea, I left high school to go to work, work to pay tuition that I should not have had to pay if I had only had someone pushing me to think ahead. As one of five, I was on my own.</p>

<p>Your son is lucky that he has a parent that is interested in his future, and I hope you will not sit idly by as he lets opportunities slip away.</p>

<p>Sure, wouldn’t we all love to go to junior college and have mom do our laundry and cook our meals forever? </p>

<p>Sad fact is, parents die, and your child will one day have to take care of himself.</p>

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<p>If the gaming is a coping mechanism, it might not be a bad one (better than booze or drugs or sex). So is there other stuff that makes a coping mechanism necessary? Money? Girlfriend or lack of GF problems? School junk?<br>
I think you could be compassionate and firm and say something like “look, the gaming is freaking me out. I don’t know if I’m over reacting or not. So, here, I’ve made an appointment for you to talk to Dr. X, a therapist. I’ll pay for it. You go. You go unload everything on your heart, including your “overly worried momma” problems. If you go talk to a therapist for three visits, then I’ll not say a word about the gaming for three weeks.” This is a good deal for him – and it might help alot. He might put some stuff on the table for the therapist that he won’t bring up with you. He’ll know that you care and that you are willing to do more than yell.
Good luck</p>

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<p>i havn’t read all the replies here but i wonder if any of these comments and suggestions mentioned that this kind of underachievement is just one risk parents take when they split up. this boy is - and was for some time i suppose - a commuter before he was even out of high school: half the time here, half the time there. i find it really revealing that so many people were quick to point out possible good things that come from an obsession with computer games. what difference does it make that he may not hit the ivy league, or have a computer career waiting for him? he’s obviously pretty disturbed about something and i’ll bet it has more than a little to do with divorce. these kinds of problems don’t go away quickly, just because you send a few checks to your local family therapist. good luck to him - his life took a bad turn. but he’s got company.</p>

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<p>Did you see the recent NYT article about a program for this kind of addiction? (about 3 wks ago). The program is developed by and available in Korea.</p>

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<p>This follow-up update post to my original post is so incredibly amazing that I can barely believe it.</p>

<p>Our son <em>did</em> apply to several UCs (with an hour or two to spare at the deadline) last November. </p>

<p>And our son has curbed his online obsessions, primarily by becoming active in several after school theatre productions these past few months. He also finished his Eagle project!</p>

<p>And our son was just accepted today at his first choice, UC Berkeley with a scholarship that covers all his tuition and books!</p>

<p>I’m so grateful and excited and in a pleasant shock that our story has such a flabbergastingly amazing happy ending.</p>

<p>None of this happen by pure miracle - support of friends and strangers helped me to stay calm and keep perspective during this stressful year. Thank you all for just being there listening and offering advice and support when I was at my lowest.</p>

<p>I’m already cruising the Cal bookstore website for Berkeley gear for my son, who amazingly did not turn up his nose at his mum’s enthusiasm. He suggested we wait until he submits his SIR but seemed tickled by my excitement. </p>

<p>And perhaps the nicest moment of all of this excitement besides the return of the smiling-boy I remember from some many many months ago is that he thanked me for all my help during this admissions process. </p>

<p>I think what I have learned is that our son was about 1000% more concerned and stressed about college applications and the outcomes than he EVER let on - and the computers and the non-communications and lowered-self-expectations were his coping mechanisms. Knowing this about him now I hope to be much more empathetic about the next stage of challenges he has as he makes his final decisions about college plans and all the next steps in front of him.</p>

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<p>Wow, what a great turn of events. Many congrats to you and your S on the acceptance and the scholarship.</p>

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<p>To get into UCB is a major feat, especially now with the budget cuts in CA, let alone a scholarship!! This is a HUGE accomplishment and reason to celebrate! Many congratulations to your son and his proud family!</p>

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<p>Wow, what a great turn-around! Congratulations to you and your son! :)</p>

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<p>Congratulations! Thanks for sharing the outcome with us!</p>