My patience is waning...

[swampangel]

I have a 5yo ds and 8yo ds.  Big changes happened this year - my 5yo started kinder at his brother's school and I have gone back to work part-time.  So I know some of what I'm seeing is adjustment issues, but I'm curious what strategies you wise mamas have used for 8yo snarkiness.  

My 8yo is sometimes very difficult to be around.  He's always been very verbal and is now a master negotiator.  Every answer he gets is followed up by a doesn sub-questions that challenge my original answer.  He instigates conflict with his younger brother frequently and there are constant sibling issues going on.  He is *obsessed* with video games.  I have struggled with this since he was first introduced at a friend's house.  We don't have a game system but they use the computer to play some onlines games.  My sense is that the screen time (video games in particular) are contributing significantly to the deteriorating behavior.  I'm on the fence about how to handle screen time.

I am trying to be matter-of-fact with him as much as possible when dealing with his unpleasant attitude.  I do get triggered and I have yelled and regretted it.  So I'm trying very hard to not react.  But it's hard when an 8yo is throwing around major attitude.  And it makes me a little nervous about the tween/teen years.

Any suggsetions?

[Imakcerka]

Our 8 yr old DD is the same when she has a lot of screen time.  We've started limiting screen time to when you have nothing else to do.  And the weather is bad.  Otherwise I say no to it now.  She of course got mad and threw around her bad attitude... I just unplug the router and block everything in case she figures out the routers unplugged and she has.  Also I've taken out the graphics card.  Makes everything run slower than dirt and usually takes everything down.  She doesn't want to play games like that so she'll give up and do something else. 

[Emmeline II]

I have a 5yodd and an 7.5yo ds. They are allowed up to 1hr (timed) of media on school days, though since dd started school we haven't had to restrict screen time because they rarely have time to spend on it during the week with activities and homework; I don't normally allow screens to go on if they have less than an hour because that leads problems.

We tend to slack on off-days/vacation and end up paying for it in bad attitudes. So if we are not wise enough to limit media time on off-days we turn it off when the bad attitudes appear.

When we first addressed this issue we turned off the media for two weeks then instituted the 1hr timed rule.

[swampangel]

Thanks for the replies.  I am really struggling with the screen time issue.  My youngest (5) is really focused on it.  He often doesn't know what to do with himself otherwise.  We were thinking about getting a Wii for Xmas this year because they are already doing games on my dh's ipad and the house computer.  At least the Wii has some active games.  And they can play together rather than take turns and watch each other.  It somehow seems better than sitting in front of a computer screen.  I'm just now sure.

It's a work in progress.  Living in a world with video games is a big struggle as a parent.  Thanks sharing how you've handled it.

[pianojazzgirl]

Originally Posted by Emmeline II 

When we first addressed this issue we turned off the media for two weeks then instituted the 1hr timed rule.

This was what we were going for when we went screen-free a couple of years ago.  We were going to take a break to de-tox and then re-introduce with new limits.  Life got so much better without the screens that we never ended up bringing it back!  Well... I say "never" but we do actually do a movie night a couple of times a month.  Before we had tv and computer game time daily. 

Good luck OP!  No matter what you end up deciding about limits I do think a little de-tox break can be very helpful.  I've heard that advice from enough mamas that I believe it works.