Thankfully? Why don't you just forbid him to play Fortnite? Sounds like your son doesn't listen to you, and that's a problem.

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coryrc a day ago | parent | next [-]

Schools are the problem. Hear me out.

Schools group together only one age of kid for socialization and only 20-30 of them. If your kid is not into the same thing as enough of the other kids in that group, they will likely be ostracized, even unintentionally. So you must let your kid do the things their friends do.

Broader society does not restrict the age of who you can socialize with. My friends vary in age quite a bit. My friend's kid can play with my kid despite being a different age, but that's much less than the 30 hours a week spent in school.

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worldsavior a day ago | parent | next [-]

If the all class plays Fortnite and that is the only way they get socialized, his parents should consider moving him to another school. Many kids don't play this kind of stuff and actually prefer hanging out.

This kind of approach is also invalid. So what everyone plays Fortnite? There are many places to get socialized with other kids. The kid likes basketball? Sign him up to a basketball team; he likes to play music? Sign him to some band; etc. Kids shouldn't surrender to peer pressure.

I agree schools are also a problem, but not the main problem.

	▲	coryrc a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, it's quite easy to change to the school with the "correctly"-behaved children in the USA. It won't solve any of the other structural issues that grade-separation causes, but at least this one has an easy answer!

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B-Con a day ago | parent | prev [-]

See last week's thread on why more parents homeschool.

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uniq7 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Has an authority ever forbid you to do something and you still did it?

If so, was it a problem that you didn't listen?

I'm not a parent, but fortnite is not like smoking or drugs, common. If you don't let kids grow over this kind of bad content, they will never become good discriminators.

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worldsavior a day ago | parent [-]

If they grow on it they will normalize this bad content. If someone didn't grow on Fortnite and then hear somebody wastes 6h a day on Fortnite, they will think "this guy is nuts".

	▲	uniq7 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Everybody consumes bad content when they are a child, and everybody grows over it, becoming bored of it, and then looking for something better to do. What show did you like when you were a kid? Do you still like it? Are you eager to consume it in the same amount as you did? If not, it means you grew over it. When I was a child I loved the Monkey Island series, completing them several times a year. Solving the puzzles made feel smart, and the jokes made me chuckle. But now? I could hardly complete the high-res remakes or even the latest title. The puzzles are either too simple or just nonsensical try-and-error, I find the story boring and shallow (compared to other content I consume now), and none of the jokes really hit the spot anymore. South Park even has an episode about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRFQ_333_Y I think forbidding kids to access content they crave is wrong and cruel, as you are basically forbidding them from exploring their tastes, forbidding them from becoming interesting adults with refined and deep tastes. Even in the case of alcohol, I think people should explore it and their limits (getting wasted) when they are young. I have an aunt who never tried alcohol until she was in her 40s, and she went through the same phases as teenagers; however, at that age getting too drunk too often has serious social consequences. She spiraled out of control, becoming alcoholic, and then later addicted to other drugs. I am not a psychology expert, but I always thought that her problem was that she was too old to explore this path. In my country we have an idiom I like: "potro que no galopa, de caballo se desboca", which means "colts that don't gallop become wild horses".

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dave_sid a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Victorian Dad is on HN

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recursive a day ago | parent [-]

My money's on non-dad.

	▲	bmurphy1976 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Same. I read his other replies, he definitely comes off as somebody who does not have experience with the complexities of raising children in today's world.

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thinkingtoilet a day ago | parent | prev [-]

People are downvoting this but it's the correct response. I will never worry about Roblox because my child will never be able to play it at home. Problem solved. I understand that maybe non-technical people might not know to think about these things, but in this crowd this response should be the most upvoted. These things are poinsons. Don't feed your children poison. It's pretty simple. "They'll be left out!" Good! While other children consume poison my child will be left out from consuming poison.

	▲	mghackerlady a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm happy parents like you exist. I was growing up in the time it started being acceptable to give 10 year olds smartphones, and I desperately wanted one. My parents didn't get me one (mostly because we were broke). I eventually got one and while I will sing the praises of letting kids access the internet with less guardrails, the instant always connected access to the internet did a number to my mental health and I eventually switched to a dumbphone.
	▲	pixl97 a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		They'll still play it with their friends at school.
	▲	skeezyjefferson 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]