When the playtime must stop for children

WHEN I was growing up, the dark winter nights spelt an end to playing out on the street after school.

Looking back, it must have been a relief for my mum who no longer had to endure evening after evening of first trying to track us down, then dragging us home from some other kid’s garden.

But in the era of virtual play, where children meet not outdoors but online, there is no respite from these night-time battles.

I set a rule for my 13-year-old, who links up with his pals online every day, that he switches off at 9.30pm on a school night, with lights off at 10pm.

To me, that seems completely reasonable, and at least gives him a chance of a decent night’s sleep.

But he maintains he is the only one out of a group of seven or eight boys of the same age who has to switch off before 10, with others on there until 11pm or later.

So that means every night there’s an argument. I go into his room at 9.15pm to give him a 15-minute warning, and I get the familiar response. “We’ve just started a game, mum.” This game can last up to 40 minutes and, if he drops out, he apparently lets his team-mates down and gets dog’s abuse for it the next day. There are only two options here – leave him to it, or lay down the law.

I chose the latter and, after a midweek showdown, there’s been less friction in the last few days over switching off by the deadline.

It’s all too easy, and sometimes tempting, to just leave kids sitting for hours on end uninterrupted in their virtual worlds until they eventually conk out. But it takes my kids at least an hour to unwind enough to fall asleep after they’ve been playing video games. And when they’re wound up, they’re tougher to deal with, too. We’re all parenting in completely different times now, when the social norms we followed as kids are no longer relevant. That means there’s no real uniform, tried and tested rules to follow – we’re making them up as we go along and, if you’re anything like me, constantly questioning whether we’re doing the right thing or not. I shout at my son, and hate myself for a week for not staying calm and being a “perfect parent”. I don’t think my mum or grandmother would have ever questioned themselves in that way. But, now the dust after the row has settled, I believe it’s better to stick to your guns and interrupt their virtual worlds, rather than leaving them gawping at a screen for hours, leaving them zombified as a result.