My 7 year old used to be addicted to Minecraft. However, I found a way to break that addiction and mine as well. What do I mean? My name is Janeth and I am a recovering Minecraft addict. See, when my son first downloaded this game around New Years, I thought it was silly. He could build things out of blocks of grass, dirt, wood, glass, etc and he could make animals show up, like cows, pigs, ducks, sheep. “Big whoop deedo”, I thought, and “BORING!” Until one day I picked up his Ipad to figure out what this Minecraft was all about and boom, 2 hours later I had just made the first floor of my 3 story mansion! I made a farm, I made a house for my neighbors, I made a mini mall… Child, I had issues! In that month span of time, I really had no life! I spent hours on this thing for a few weeks, What da hell was wrong with me?! I knew I had a serious problem when I started to cry because my little girl made a hole so deep that animals fell into this hole and could not get out. I HAVE ISSUES, I KNOW! It’s a freaking game for God’s sake.
Anywho my son would come home and ask to play this game, every day. This was affecting his grades and schoolwork and I was upset about this, things had to change! I wanted to blame my husband for introducing him to games and electronics but here I was, a grown woman, addicted as well. One sad day, my son deleted my Minecraft world, by accident, and that was the day I regained my life back (lol). (You know I’m exaggerating right). We decided to try something drastic! We implemented a harsh punishment on my son, NO GAMES for 30 days! I admit I was afraid we would not be able to keep up our tough act and worried we’d give in to this new rule as we have given in on a few things in the past. But no, for the most part, we stuck to it. It’s day 27 and day 30 is only 3 days away and we are going to make it AND even better his grades have improved! YES in just one month! How do I know, because the school emails us weekly grades believe it or not (which is slightly annoying).
During this month, we’ve only allowed our son to play Minecraft a total of 2 times, both were at family dinners, because his cousin was also playing Minecraft and it would be unfair to say “no, you can only watch him.” Plus if we wanted to have a peaceful meal, this was the price we paid, not too bad in my opinion. He didn’t whine for the game after, he didn’t cry and beg. He is asking when the month is going to be up but not in a tantrum kind of way, just curiosity. And when the month is over, we’ll only allow it on weekends and only for a few hours max. So we broke the spell and this means, you can do it too! Is anyone else addicted or was addicted to this game or another? Do share 🙂
I feel guilty now because i realized that even adults get addicted to these games and we should be conscious of it .