It’s up to us parents to make the rules our kids must follow
A nine-year-old girl is in therapy for her addiction to Fortnite.
A 15-year-old boy is to be the first NHS recognised internet gaming addict.
Primary schools across Britain are warning children are damaging their education by playing the game. Teachers want lessons in online safety included in the curriculum.
And so Fortnite has become the latest Pied Piper terror for parents who fear their kids are being tempted into a world they have no knowledge or understanding about. Well either that or it’s just the latest craze that’ll come and go in the way a million others have done before, from Rubik’s Cubes and Tamagotchis through to Loom Bands and Slime. From what I can make out from my kids’ explanations, it’s a kind of Minecraft meets Call Of Duty – a brightly coloured post apocalyptic cartoon world where survivors battle it out (a bit like Love Island, but with greater emotional depth). My eight-year-old son has played it at friends’ houses and is desperate for it. I’ve told him that is absolutely fine, and I’d be more than happy for him to buy it with his birthday money. When he’s 12. In four years time. Which is, of course, SO UNFAIR. And I’m the MEANEST mum in the WHOLE world. And EVERYONE in his WHOLE class has it apart from him. Fortunately, I like a row. Several times a day. But I totally understand how other parents have crumbled under the pressure of a nagging child and ended up thinking: “What harm can it do?”
According to my friends who have given in already, it’s not so much harm as deep frustration and a lot of rows. It clearly is addictive. And it’s not just kids who need lessons about online gaming - it’s parents too. Because tackling this new threat to family life is tough.
But we need to relax a bit too, trust the age old rules of parenting and keep horror stories of kids needing therapy for it in proportion.
Because I bet in these extreme cases Fortnite isn’t the root of the issue – it’s a symptom of some other problem. Either for the kids OR their parents.
The nine-year-old was apparently sneaking onto the family Xbox during the night and playing Fortnite while her parents slept. But what’s going on that those parents didn’t realise sooner and just unplug the machine or delete the game?
Of course it would have caused a massive row. But it’s a parent’s job now – as it always has been – to make rules and enforce them. And that sometimes (quite often) means a massive row.
Whether we like it or not our kids are growing up in a digital world where computer games are as real to them as hopscotch was once real to us.
So much has changed. And yet the basics stay the same.
Parents must make the rules, and kids must be made to follow them.
Why didn’t girl’s mum and dad just unplug the Xbox?