Because of mouthing off and other reasons, my son lost extended use of gameboy and video games through April. However, because his behavior was excellent the last three days of spring break, my husband and I decided to let him have use of his gameboy for the trip to/from his grandfathers (which is an hour long trip?, so he played 2 hours in total yesterday. Today I have been noticing an increase in not being able to control his behavior and mouthing off this afternoon. The Gamecube and PS2 are going away tonight as neither of my kids play with the systems. He still has to have his room clean, play room clean, homework done, and chores completed in order to play. I would love to be able to pull gameboy from him forever, but without a doctors backing I know I'm just going to get extreme mouthing off, etc. from him. Can anyone give me ideas or a website where there is a doctors (or professionals) backing about children with ADHD?

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I'm wondering what kinds of games are your children playing?

The increase in oppositional behaviour/mouthiness could possibly have to do with the type of game... them getting "into it" and the brain is "excited".

It could be that getting them to STOP playing is hard for them to accept, and thus the increase in mouthiness is due to the reaction to the battle that follows when time is up. They could be staying in the foul mood - which consists of being defiant and mouthing off - because they had to stop doing something that they really liked.

Try to pinpoint exactly what is causing the incrase in the undesireable behaviour. it might not be the video game playing itself, it could be the stopping that's hard for them to accept.

Just out of curiosity, have your children tried those games that help with memory attention etc, like Brain Age, Big Brain Academy? I had one for my Nintendo DS, and lost the whole system (someone who found it is VERY happy... oh well.) but I found that Brain Age is really fun, makes me think and helped with attention and processing information.

For the parents trying to deal with the lying about homework...one of the things with ADHD is being prone to addiction - or another way to put it persevering at something. You just zone out and do something for hours. For me it's being on the internet (ironically) or crocheting/knitting... I lose track of time. It's not healthy when it interferes with having a productive life, and if the homework's not getting done, then it's definitely not productive.

Keep sticking to your guns and don't give in! Emphasize that school is first priority, and it might come down to keeping in touch with the teachers about assignments. I work in a high school and parents e-mail the classroom teachers all the time to make sure their kids have the assignments done.

Take away the game system, with the explanation that the school work has to get done. If there's temper about it, then maybe leave it to the weekends. See if they can suck it up and deal with the frustration of having conditions being put on their access to games. Part of living with ADHD (speaking from experience) is learning to "suck it up". Part of being a teenager is learning to "suck it up". Yes, it does suck. But in life you have to deal with things that you're not happy with, schoolwork is priority.

:) Awesome parents who are on here asking for help though! shows you care!

WOrking with kids in high school, I find myself thinking how much high school did suck... I agree with them a lot when they complain about things, ironically, it seems to help them feel better.

Good luck :)

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My husband and I have noticed that the mouthiness of our son increases every time he plays Pokemon. We are going to try taking Pokemon away to see if that has anything to do with the amount of mouth we usually get. Also, we have really stuck to our guns about him completing the chores and homework being done before he can play. However, we have now added the stipulation that he needs to do these things without any fights. I'll let you know how it goes.

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We had a real problem with video games about a year ago. My four boys would play the x-box games like star wars, lord of the rings, ect. They would always end up fighting and arguing with each other. "You just killed me!" "You're making me lose!" They also became addicted to the games and lost their zest for life. Everything else in life seemed dull in comparison to the video games. I became fed up with the games one day and said that's it! I sold back all the violent games to Gamestop and told them we have too much contention in our home. They were left with two sports games and one race car game. They are no longer fighting and they play very little (maybe an hour or two a week). They are outside every day for hours and there is so much less contention. It was a hard decision but worth it to me. Our new rule is no violent games whatsoever. We explained why and gave them examples of what can happen when people play these kind of games. How are they going to learn to interact with people and have good social skills if they're plugged into violence half the day! They need to be with real people, solving real problems in a positive way. I'm still very glad about the decision!

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I have a 15 year old and he plays Xbox live it seems all hours of the day. I am not always home so it is difficult to control his play t ime. I think 2 hour a day is the maximum amount of time he should be allowed to play. One of my sons friends parents bought a locker where he stores the controllers and games with a padlock and it solved the problem. Remove the controllers and they can't play. I just bought one (Xbox 360 Security Locker) and I am going to give it a try. If he trys to break into it I told him he would lose his Xbox all together.

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I agree with these posts for the most part, but I also agree with abcjhd in that video games, at least for my son, allow downtime. He is calm, focused. We set limits of course, we trade game time for reading time, hour for hour. I've tried to force our son (8 yrs old) to play outside, but that only leads to him getting angry with the other kids, which leads to yelling, name calling, etc. This then leads to him raging about how nobody likes him, nobody wants to play with him, he hates himself, etc. I don't know what to do. The other problem I have is my husband is also addictied to video games and will play for hours on end! I would love to get rid of the gaming but honestly it makes it a little easier to handle him. I realize that they game system offers a "babysitter" but I can't take 24 hours of raging! We're seeing a new doctor in a few weeks, I hope she can offer so alternatives!

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