Epic Summer Saga 3: How Can Video Games Lead to Meltdown? Let Me Count the Ways

Any parent to boys, especially boys with Asperger-ish tendencies, knows that video games can be a blessing and a curse. Nothing short cuts sensory overload and anxiety-induced meltdowns quite like a screen full of computer graphics. Then again, nothing can trigger a meltdown quite like my kid's obsession with games like Mine Craft.  Just over a week ago, Sky got an upgrade on Mine Craft. Things have been hellish ever since. Here's a list of meltdown triggers since then:

1. Four words: revert to factory settings

The day after Sky got his upgrade, his Kindle Fire inexplicably uninstalled itself. Apparently Sky had no idea something like this could happen. How could technology fail him so? Oh, the horror! Oh, the injustice! Oh. My. Gosh. I've never seem him meltdown so quickly and so thoroughly as he did when he turned on his Kindle to discover a black screen.  The apps, the books, the everything? Gone. Pfft. Vanished without a trace. And he was inconsolable. In the end, I had to promise him a day of unlimited play time once the Kindle was fixed (thus setting myself up for the next major cause for meltdown...) just to keep him from hyperventilating.

2.  Kindle Free Time

Do you guys know about this app? You pay $3 a month, and then you get access to tons of free kids books, games, apps and movies. More importantly, though, you get the ability to set usage time limits. We love it. Sky, not so much. Sky's Kindle is set to allow unlimited access to books, but his app usage is limited to an hour a day in the summer. Ironically, we thought putting Free Time onto Sky's Kindle would help eliminate the constant negotiations we endured when he played the DS.

Ah, nope. According to Sky, using Kindle Free time = torture. He even polls his friends to see if their parents are as mean as we are. According to Sky NONE of his friends have limits set on their gaming. This may actually be true. I've asked several and only found one other parent who seems to have some means of controlling how much her kid games.  Maybe those kids don't get as obsessed with games as mine. Maybe their parents don't care how much time they spend glued to a screen. I'm not sure, but I do know that Sky thinks we must be the meanest, most strict parents in like ever.

Major meltdown number two came when I told Sky he could only play for three hours the day after Ren fixed the Kindle instead of the initial all day I'd originally promised. See, I figured it would take  Ren a couple of days to get it fixed, but actually, it only took an hour. So, the next morning, when I gave the Kindle back to Sky, I explained that he would get three hours instead of the usual one since he'd missed play time the day before. Silly me thinking he'd adjust to the change, thinking he meant it when he said he understood why the daily limit was (an incredibly generous) three hours. Silly me, when I was shocked by his meltdown.

3. Taking Away the Device

After two consecutive days of meltdown, on the third day, I suggested that he take a break from his Kindle.

Meltdown.

I mean, I didn't even have the chance to talk him through the pros of giving it up for a day or two. Ren and I were headed out of town, and I knew I couldn't leave a highly meltdown-prone Sky with my parents. But, I also couldn't give in and give him his Kindle after such bad behavior the days before. So, I told him he could play his DS a little.

And, he played non-stop pretty much the entire time we were gone.  I don't know about you, but when I leave my kids with someone else, I don't expect them to strictly enforce all of our rules, especially the ones about how the kids spend their free time. So, by the time we got back, Sky had played DS for hours and hours.  I suppose this wouldn't have been a big deal, except that it was Father's Day.

4. Father's Day Cards

Ren and I spent Father's Day weekend driving to our new city to close on our new house. Six hours each way, with a house closing, house cleaning, and construction preparation sandwiched in between. When we finally got home, it was 8:30 and time for the kids to go to bed. Sky didn't even realize we'd returned because he was so obsessed by his DS. But, as soon as I was able to get him away from his game, he realized that he hadn't finished the Father's Day card he'd started making hours before.

Meltdown.

How could we have gotten home so soon? Why didn't Big Sissy make him stop playing his game? Why didn't someone remind him to color it? Why, oh why, was Father's Day ruined by this ill-fated turn of events?

The cover of the Father's Day card Sky didn't finish. It's a super hero with a vacuum, and really, I can't think of a better homage to Ren than this.

By the time we got him through the Great Father's Day Meltdown of 2013, I was convinced that everything had the potential to cause video-game-related meltdowns. This made me more determined than ever to get him away from his games for awhile.

Thankfully, finally, on day five, Sky agreed he needed put his devices away** for the day. And, we had a great day, a great one!


**TODAY'S PSA: Apparently, one must say "put them away" and NOT "put them into time out." Even though these are the exact same thing in practice, one phrase causes meltdowns and the other does not.

Epic Summer Saga, Part 2 - It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

"Sky hit Emma in the face." 

I didn't expect to be confronted outside the door of performing arts camp by the rather large and not terribly friendly father of one of the girls in Sky's group. We know Emma from school, and church, and swim class, and just about everywhere else kids their age  hang out. So I knew there had to be more to the story.

"Did you hit her?" I asked Sky.

"Yeah because she hit me," he replied morosely. In the background Emma whined a "nuh-uuuuuh."

"Can you tell me what happened?" I continued, ignoring her protestations, trying to keep my focus on him. 

One thing I've learned about Sky is that after years of having people not understand his language processing issues, he's used to not being heard. So, it's important to give him the space and time he needs to tell his side of the story.

"I had my elbows on the back of her chair doing this (mimics bouncing up and down) and she slapped my arms, so I did this  (mimics returning a slap/pushing her hand away) and accidentally hit her in the face." 

He obviously felt bad about it and was worried I wouldn't believe him (he gets that from people a lot, even though he's one of the most honest people you will ever meet).

Since I know Sky never hits people on purpose (except  his sister--that's another story), and since I know Emma has a history of trying to get her classmates into trouble, I was pretty sure Sky was telling the truth. I also knew that neither Emma or her father was likely to believe this to be the case. So, I loudly reminded Sky to be careful and told both kids to work on keeping their hands to themselves. 

Then we walked away.

I'm not sure what Emma's dad hoped to gain from his fairly aggressive "communication" style. And, really, I don't care. All I can ever do in a case like that is listen to my kid and help him make the best behavioral choices possible. But, to tell you the truth, the whole incident thrilled me because, you guys, Sky stood up for himself and explained what had happened in a timely and appropriate manner.

It was freaking amazing!

Giddy from such clear progress, my bubble quickly burst a few minutes later when Sky announced, "I don't like theater camp. They're mean there." 

My experience with Sky tells me that when he doesn't like something, it's indicative of one of two things: 1) someone is being mean to him, or 2) he doesn't understand what's going on. Problem is, a lot of times, he can't quite identify and articulate the problem. 

Still, I had to try, so I asked, "Why, what happened?"

"They're mean."

"All of them?"

"No."

"Who?"

"The staff. She keeps pulling me by the arm even though I don't understand what she said. It hurts." (Now, I could've freaked out right here. Believe me, it crossed my mind. It's bad enough people tend to assume Sky is being a pain in the a**, but I hate it when they treat him meanly. Still, I knew if I freaked out here, I wouldn't get to the bottom of what was going on, so I kept asking questions.)

"So, just one person,  right?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know her name?"

"No, but she's one of the younger ones." (Ugh, does anyone else have this problem? He's terrible with names!)

"Did you tell her you don't like it when she does that?"

"No."

"You have to tell her you don't like it. And also that you don't understand what she's saying. Then if she still does it, you have to tell the person in charge."

Here's the thing. I can't always be there. I wish I could. I wish I could tell people to stop being idiots and to embrace difference and to teach their kids not to be jerks. But, I can't. What I can do is teach Sky how to find his voice and the words he can use to advocate for himself.

So, we went over it a few times. He was nervous, but the next day, when he signed in a camp, he told the woman in charge: "There's a staff. I don't know her name. But she doesn't know I can't understand her, and she gets mad and pulls me by the arm. It hurts, and I don't like it. Can you tell her not to do it?"

And, by gosh, they did. 

And fast.

*****

By now, you're probably thinking we've got this all figured out. You may even be worried I'm going to run out of blog topics. Have no fear, because four days after these two amazing communication feats, I had to take Sky out of tennis lessons. He was so overwhelmed by all the new people and the various types of sensory input that he spent the entire hour walking around the court fiddling with tennis balls. He rolled them. He kicked them. He bounced them. He tried to stand on them. In fact, he did everything but hit them with a tennis racket. There are times to persist, and there are times to cut your losses, and when he almost gotten hit in the head by someone else's racket (which he never saw) for the third time, I knew it was time to walk away.

Maybe next year.