It's been a long time since I've written, and there are many reasons for this. I am definitely living in interesting times.
On the home schooling front, the little ones have been thriving on an unschooling atmosphere that doesn't involve neglect and abuse. :-/ They have made huge improvements on all fronts, and are even dabbling in more "formal" learning activities, such as work-book type activities. They've been doing some lapbooks with their mom. Actually, that should be past tense. Lately, they've been caught up on the Rainbow Loom trend. I admit that I'm not a fan of the things made with rubber bands. I find the texture unpleasant. While I can appreciate the intricacy and skill in using the looms - enough that I've actually been tempted to try it, until I stop and wonder what I would do with things I don't actually like all that much - I find the appearance of the bands rather unattractive. Each to their own. What does appeal to me about these is that they require a level of fine motor control that has been really good for Beetle Child in particular. A lot of people with mobility challenges, such as their mom and another resident at the care centre, are finding these looms really excellent in maintaining motor control. An unexpected benefit to the craft, though one that makes a lot of sense, when you stop and think about it.
Looking at previous posts, I am realizing I haven't written much since the move. Unfortunately, there's a lot that, even writing anonymously as I am, isn't anything I should write about here.
Among the big issues we've been dealing with is my husband's health. He's looked at going on short term disability, but it's not an option for us right now, mostly because the insurance is 75% of his pay. We can't afford that, so he is forcing himself to work through the pain. Eldest has got herself a PT job to help pay the bills, putting her own online art business plans on hold. Youngest has taken a lot of stuff over on the home front, freeing me to drive DH to physio, doctor's appointments and, on the days he can make it in, the office. Because of the frigid weather, I've been driving Eldest to work (the company that hired her put her into a branch that has no bus service!), still driving the little ones to visit their mom as often as possible and, of course, doing all the usual errands. I've even been teaching a fair number of crochet classes, which is interesting because this time of year is usually dead for classes.
With all the stuff going on, and after a few incidents, we had to make a hard decision and asked the mom to find another family to take the children in. We simply are not in a position to give them the care they need, and what they need is a whole lot of one-on-one time, patience and therapy, among other things. It took a lot of effort on her part, but she has made progress. The problem is that the social worker involved was required, by law, to track down the dad.
Unfortunately, she succeeded.
I first found that out when I found a voice mail from him. It was very brief, but he did manage to threaten me before announcing that he would be back in the country within 2 weeks.
That means he should be back by the middle of March.
When the girls found out about this, they both became incredibly distressed. The Watcher started to cry.
Whether or not he actually shows up, we shall see, but we now have a time frame. We should now be able to get their mother an Emergency Protection Order, while we can finish the process of getting a Restraining Order. With all the various charges he faces once back, I'm kinda hoping he'll be persuaded not to return. It would be a lot better for the girls, that's for sure. The poor things are so torn. They do want to have a relationship with their father - that's right and normal. The problem is, he's not capable of giving them a healthy relationship.
More alarming is that, from the few communications their mother has had from him since he stopped trying to control us, he has become increasingly fanatically Islamic. He wasn't a particularly devout Muslim while in Canada, yet it was still the focal point of some of the more severe abuse they suffered under him. It would be so much worse now.
(I had to pause part way through the above paragraph. I was hearing some strange noises from the girls' bedroom. It sounded like one of them was crying in alarm in her sleep. When I came in to check, neither of them recalled making the noises I heard, and neither remembers any sort of dreams.)
So instead of the girls being prepared to move in with whichever family their mother chooses for them - something they are actually rather excited about, even as they voice questions about how much they'd be able to see their mother, or the friends they've made - they are having to deal with the trauma and fear that their dad will come back, and they'll be forced to live with him again. The situation would be far more abusive than it was before, and any progress and healing they've had over the past months would be crushed.
It's remarkable, how much damage one person can do to so many lives.
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Ups and Downs
Things have really been all over the place lately.
On the up side, we've transferred to a larger unit in our co-op.
Which is also a down side.
Moving sucks.
We've gone from a 3 bedroom townhouse to a 5 bedroom townhouse. We were able to use the last 9 days or so of the month to move, which we did slowly. Very slowly. We all got sick. First, The Watcher got a mild cold. She recovered quickly, though she did try to milk it for all she was worth at first. I had a talk with her and she stopped the behaviour, which was a help. Unfortunately, she passed the cold on to the rest of us.
Except her sister, Beetle Child, who got a UTI. We'd been working with her on the bedwetting, with little success and a whole lot of stress on me. Unfortunately, we couldn't get past the fact that she 1) didn't care and 2) had been convinced by her father that she was incapable of controlling her bladder. We got rid of the pull ups, stopped putting a soaker directly under her, instead putting it under a plastic sheet, and otherwise threw in the towel and let her deal with the consequences. That turned out to be a painful UTI (she'd had others before, without knowing it). Though painful, she acted as if it were the end of the world. At least she tried to. She didn't get much of a rise out of us, so she tried it with her mother, which cut a visit short. I have no doubt she was experiencing some pain, but the exaggerated performance ended before we even got home, and stopped entirely after that. We weren't impressed, considering the stress we were going through with the move at the time, on top of myself, Eldest and Youngest being thoroughly ill. Dh, thankfully, didn't catch it until *after* we got to the point that he could start sleeping in the new unit (he had to wait until our Internet got transferred, so he could work from home).
This is move number 18 for me, and it was the most difficult and stressful of all of them. You'd think it would have been less stressful, considering we were moving such a short distance. Except we were moving from a 2 floor unit, with an outside set of stairs that are equal to 1 1/4 floors, to a 3 floor unit with 2 indoor sets of stairs. Plus, the old unit had the balcony stairs, which are split into 3 sections and equal about 1 1/2 floors.
I stopped and tried to calculate it when we were finally done. In one 4 day stretch, I figure I walked the equivalent of 300 floors. Or, should I say, 150 floors up, then 150 floors down. There was the up and downing within the old unit, my frequent runs outside to and from various things, plus the stairs in the new unit, over and over again. My last morning of moving, I did the equivalent of 30 floors of stairs in 2 hours, plus the walk between units, before I finally crashed and burned, scaring the heck out of Dh. Dh was banned from helping because of his back problems, which have gotten worse lately, and Eldest and Youngest were both so sick that, at one point, I was the only one left who could continue packing and moving things, and even that was only because I medicated to the gills. Eldest and Youngest, sick as they were, were amazing in getting things done. I could never have managed without them.
But it's done now, and we're slowly unpacking. The unit is so completely different from the previous one, it's difficult to figure out where and how to unpack. Odd differences. For example, we now have 3 bathrooms. The first floor bathroom is a half-bath, just like the main floor bathroom in the old place. The difference? No medicine cabinet. Plus, it's slightly narrower. So we can't just move the stuff from one bathroom to the other; it doesn't fit.
Then there's this odd thing about the second floor bathroom, which is a 4 piece bathroom. The sink is mounted off centre in the counter. There is actually more counter space than our previous full bath, yet there is less storage space. For some reason, instead of installing drawers under the part of the counter that doesn't have a sink in it, the drawers are on the opposite side. The top drawer is only about 6-8 inches long, and the bottom one is maybe 10 inches long. Barely anything fits in either of them. Meanwhile, the cupboard doors beside them still have some of the piping running through part of the space, so even that section doesn't have as much room as our previous bath.
As if that weren't strange enough, the toilet is so close to the counter, my arm rubs against it when I use it, but there's plenty of space between the toilet and the tub. I'm thinking the counter got extended at some point. Whatever the reason, the lack of space means there's no way we could put in our over the toilet shelf, even if we still had it. It didn't survive the move. There's also no place to put the cart we were using for towels nd washclothes. We'd kept it below the towel rack before, but now there's a toilet roll holder in that space. It does at least have a medicine cabinet but, again, there's no way we can simply transfer one bathroom to another.
Then there's things like getting rid of our desk. It was a great desk, but huge and heavy. It couldn't go upstairs, where we have the computers and Internet hooked up (Dh now has a workstation in the master bedroom, where we have also been finally able to assemble the weight machine we got for him as part of his physio). As our new unit has a ground floor front door, the girls' mom will be able to visit us, so we want to keep it as open as possible for her to be able to maneuver her wheelchair (we even have little ramps we can put down to make it easier for her to get in and out!). So, no more desk, which means all the stuff that was in and on the desk is now homeless.
On the up side, Eldest and Youngest have the entire 3rd floor to themselves, including a bathroom that is bigger than the bedroom I've converted into my office/crafting room. Three of the 5 bedrooms are huge, and Eldest even has a balcony, where Youngest will be doing gardening in the spring. Eldest tried to put a priority on setting up her art desk and supplies, so she could get back to work as quickly as possible, but it still took a while. She almost used up her entire buffer of pages before I was able to get the computer and scanner set up for her to get new ones up and ready. Youngest, meanwhile, finally has her own private space, with room enough to practise her guitar (though we still can't afford to start her lessons up again). She plans to get herself a rocking chair, so she can sit in a corner and rock while working on her crochet.
Then we had an upside that turned into a downside. There was actually a possibility that The Watcher and Beetle Child's mother could move into our co-op, as several accessible units came available at the same time. Unusual enough on its own, but even more unusual because nobody died, which is how accessible units usually come available. The units are all 2 or 3 bedrooms. The accessible units typically have a multi-year waiting list, and their mom has been on it for at least 2 years. In fact, the only reason she lost the girls to their dad was because there were no accessible units with care staff like we have, anywhere in the city. Her membership was approved in general, and a 2 bedroom unit had been set aside for her, but the care staff and provincial home care had to approve it, too. Everything was looking good, and we were actually looking forward to helping her move in the next few weeks. That would have allowed the girls to see their mom every day, if she were up to it, and we were even planning on transitioning them to her on a permanent basis over the next year or so. Then home care determined her needs were too much for our care staff and didn't approve the move. How utterly disappointing, and extremely frustrating. There's a lot behind it I won't mention here, but I'm pretty pissed off over some of the reasons she got turned down. There's another major down side to this happening, too, but I am not going to write about it here. At least not yet.
Aside from all that, the new girls have been doing really well. One of the huge changes is that, in the last while, they have been doing a lot of truly creative play, and without having to have someone walk them through things. At home, they've actually started playing with their Lego creatively, which they hadn't been before (how does a child not figure out things to do with Lego??), they've both started reading for pleasure, and their imaginative play has become more... well, imaginative! With their mom, they have been doing lots of arts and crafts type things and playing games and discovering that math doesn't have to be boring and painful, but can actually be fun and useful.
There are still issues, of course. A lot of them are the sorts of issues one would normally expect for a 9 and almost 8 year old, but made more complicated by the damage done to them by their dad. Their speech problems are still an issue, but it will take time and a lot of effort for those to be helped. Their vocabulary is increasing, yet sometimes they both suddenly play dumb and don't know the meanings of words they know and have heard and used themselves, many times. Beetle Child had stopped bedwetting for a while, what with the UTI and all, only to start up again for no conceivable reason; she went from being pleased with herself for being able to hold it all night, to not even bothering to use the toilet before bed, then wetting herself in less than an hour after lying down.
A much more dramatic improvement is in their learning how to communicate in a more direct manner. They had picked up on their dad's habit of talking in circles around what they actually wanted to say, rather than say it directly. That resulted in utter and complete incoherency at times. Now they are learning to stop and think through what they want to say, and to say it concisely, rather than the verbal diarrhea they were doing before.
All in all, the improvements are huge, which sometimes makes the difficulties which remain that much more incomprehensible. Every now and then, they just seem to regress.
On the up side, we've transferred to a larger unit in our co-op.
Which is also a down side.
Moving sucks.
We've gone from a 3 bedroom townhouse to a 5 bedroom townhouse. We were able to use the last 9 days or so of the month to move, which we did slowly. Very slowly. We all got sick. First, The Watcher got a mild cold. She recovered quickly, though she did try to milk it for all she was worth at first. I had a talk with her and she stopped the behaviour, which was a help. Unfortunately, she passed the cold on to the rest of us.
Except her sister, Beetle Child, who got a UTI. We'd been working with her on the bedwetting, with little success and a whole lot of stress on me. Unfortunately, we couldn't get past the fact that she 1) didn't care and 2) had been convinced by her father that she was incapable of controlling her bladder. We got rid of the pull ups, stopped putting a soaker directly under her, instead putting it under a plastic sheet, and otherwise threw in the towel and let her deal with the consequences. That turned out to be a painful UTI (she'd had others before, without knowing it). Though painful, she acted as if it were the end of the world. At least she tried to. She didn't get much of a rise out of us, so she tried it with her mother, which cut a visit short. I have no doubt she was experiencing some pain, but the exaggerated performance ended before we even got home, and stopped entirely after that. We weren't impressed, considering the stress we were going through with the move at the time, on top of myself, Eldest and Youngest being thoroughly ill. Dh, thankfully, didn't catch it until *after* we got to the point that he could start sleeping in the new unit (he had to wait until our Internet got transferred, so he could work from home).
This is move number 18 for me, and it was the most difficult and stressful of all of them. You'd think it would have been less stressful, considering we were moving such a short distance. Except we were moving from a 2 floor unit, with an outside set of stairs that are equal to 1 1/4 floors, to a 3 floor unit with 2 indoor sets of stairs. Plus, the old unit had the balcony stairs, which are split into 3 sections and equal about 1 1/2 floors.
I stopped and tried to calculate it when we were finally done. In one 4 day stretch, I figure I walked the equivalent of 300 floors. Or, should I say, 150 floors up, then 150 floors down. There was the up and downing within the old unit, my frequent runs outside to and from various things, plus the stairs in the new unit, over and over again. My last morning of moving, I did the equivalent of 30 floors of stairs in 2 hours, plus the walk between units, before I finally crashed and burned, scaring the heck out of Dh. Dh was banned from helping because of his back problems, which have gotten worse lately, and Eldest and Youngest were both so sick that, at one point, I was the only one left who could continue packing and moving things, and even that was only because I medicated to the gills. Eldest and Youngest, sick as they were, were amazing in getting things done. I could never have managed without them.
But it's done now, and we're slowly unpacking. The unit is so completely different from the previous one, it's difficult to figure out where and how to unpack. Odd differences. For example, we now have 3 bathrooms. The first floor bathroom is a half-bath, just like the main floor bathroom in the old place. The difference? No medicine cabinet. Plus, it's slightly narrower. So we can't just move the stuff from one bathroom to the other; it doesn't fit.
Then there's this odd thing about the second floor bathroom, which is a 4 piece bathroom. The sink is mounted off centre in the counter. There is actually more counter space than our previous full bath, yet there is less storage space. For some reason, instead of installing drawers under the part of the counter that doesn't have a sink in it, the drawers are on the opposite side. The top drawer is only about 6-8 inches long, and the bottom one is maybe 10 inches long. Barely anything fits in either of them. Meanwhile, the cupboard doors beside them still have some of the piping running through part of the space, so even that section doesn't have as much room as our previous bath.
As if that weren't strange enough, the toilet is so close to the counter, my arm rubs against it when I use it, but there's plenty of space between the toilet and the tub. I'm thinking the counter got extended at some point. Whatever the reason, the lack of space means there's no way we could put in our over the toilet shelf, even if we still had it. It didn't survive the move. There's also no place to put the cart we were using for towels nd washclothes. We'd kept it below the towel rack before, but now there's a toilet roll holder in that space. It does at least have a medicine cabinet but, again, there's no way we can simply transfer one bathroom to another.
Then there's things like getting rid of our desk. It was a great desk, but huge and heavy. It couldn't go upstairs, where we have the computers and Internet hooked up (Dh now has a workstation in the master bedroom, where we have also been finally able to assemble the weight machine we got for him as part of his physio). As our new unit has a ground floor front door, the girls' mom will be able to visit us, so we want to keep it as open as possible for her to be able to maneuver her wheelchair (we even have little ramps we can put down to make it easier for her to get in and out!). So, no more desk, which means all the stuff that was in and on the desk is now homeless.
On the up side, Eldest and Youngest have the entire 3rd floor to themselves, including a bathroom that is bigger than the bedroom I've converted into my office/crafting room. Three of the 5 bedrooms are huge, and Eldest even has a balcony, where Youngest will be doing gardening in the spring. Eldest tried to put a priority on setting up her art desk and supplies, so she could get back to work as quickly as possible, but it still took a while. She almost used up her entire buffer of pages before I was able to get the computer and scanner set up for her to get new ones up and ready. Youngest, meanwhile, finally has her own private space, with room enough to practise her guitar (though we still can't afford to start her lessons up again). She plans to get herself a rocking chair, so she can sit in a corner and rock while working on her crochet.
Then we had an upside that turned into a downside. There was actually a possibility that The Watcher and Beetle Child's mother could move into our co-op, as several accessible units came available at the same time. Unusual enough on its own, but even more unusual because nobody died, which is how accessible units usually come available. The units are all 2 or 3 bedrooms. The accessible units typically have a multi-year waiting list, and their mom has been on it for at least 2 years. In fact, the only reason she lost the girls to their dad was because there were no accessible units with care staff like we have, anywhere in the city. Her membership was approved in general, and a 2 bedroom unit had been set aside for her, but the care staff and provincial home care had to approve it, too. Everything was looking good, and we were actually looking forward to helping her move in the next few weeks. That would have allowed the girls to see their mom every day, if she were up to it, and we were even planning on transitioning them to her on a permanent basis over the next year or so. Then home care determined her needs were too much for our care staff and didn't approve the move. How utterly disappointing, and extremely frustrating. There's a lot behind it I won't mention here, but I'm pretty pissed off over some of the reasons she got turned down. There's another major down side to this happening, too, but I am not going to write about it here. At least not yet.
Aside from all that, the new girls have been doing really well. One of the huge changes is that, in the last while, they have been doing a lot of truly creative play, and without having to have someone walk them through things. At home, they've actually started playing with their Lego creatively, which they hadn't been before (how does a child not figure out things to do with Lego??), they've both started reading for pleasure, and their imaginative play has become more... well, imaginative! With their mom, they have been doing lots of arts and crafts type things and playing games and discovering that math doesn't have to be boring and painful, but can actually be fun and useful.
There are still issues, of course. A lot of them are the sorts of issues one would normally expect for a 9 and almost 8 year old, but made more complicated by the damage done to them by their dad. Their speech problems are still an issue, but it will take time and a lot of effort for those to be helped. Their vocabulary is increasing, yet sometimes they both suddenly play dumb and don't know the meanings of words they know and have heard and used themselves, many times. Beetle Child had stopped bedwetting for a while, what with the UTI and all, only to start up again for no conceivable reason; she went from being pleased with herself for being able to hold it all night, to not even bothering to use the toilet before bed, then wetting herself in less than an hour after lying down.
A much more dramatic improvement is in their learning how to communicate in a more direct manner. They had picked up on their dad's habit of talking in circles around what they actually wanted to say, rather than say it directly. That resulted in utter and complete incoherency at times. Now they are learning to stop and think through what they want to say, and to say it concisely, rather than the verbal diarrhea they were doing before.
All in all, the improvements are huge, which sometimes makes the difficulties which remain that much more incomprehensible. Every now and then, they just seem to regress.
Friday, June 07, 2013
Oh, man...
... these poor kids.
Today, Youngest and I went out for tea and what was supposed to be a driving lesson (which got skipped, because she is having troubles with her eyes. We're going to have to take her back for another eye test). This was the first chance I've had to talk to Youngest about some of the things she's had to deal with since our two new charges have joined us.
I've also decided on handles for them. The 7 yr old is the Beetle Child, because when she goes to bed she curls up like an adorable little beetle. I have to fight the urge to squee every time I see her do it. *L* The 8 1/2 yr old is The Watcher. We're not sure what's going on yet, but she has a tendency to come up and just... watch. She doesn't say anything, though she looks like she's about to. When asked, she says she doesn't want anything. She just... watches.
Which is disconcerting when I discover her behind me while I'm on the computer checking my email, and I find she's trying to read it over my shoulder. I've had to explain to her that reading over some one's shoulder uninvited isn't a good thing, but it's especially not a good thing to be reading other people's email. Her response? "That's your email?"
Hmmm.
So. Back to today's chat with Youngest.
The other day, while I was out with Eldest for a couple of hours, Youngest was home with Dh and the girls. The girls had been promised that we would use their Blizzard machine to make some blizzards before the packets it came with expired. Since Eldest and I were out and Dh's back has gone downhill again, that left Youngest to take care of it.
The machine had never been used before, so Youngest first had to wash it, then assemble it, use a hammer to crush ice cubes in a bag, and finally set it up so they could take turns working the machine. When finished, she doled out the resulting treat, which they ate with gusto. Then she cleaned it all up afterwards.
The entire time this went on, they managed to be in the way at every step of preparation, from blocking the path between kitchen sink and table to hammering to assembly, etc. They completely ignored her requests for space. They were also dismissive, displayed a demeanor Youngest described as extremely entitled and not once did they thank her for what she did, nor show any sort of appreciation for all the work she did to prepare everything and do everything.
Youngest told me that, for the first time in her life, she was angry enough to cry! Rather than take it out on the girls, she want for a very long walk. At least a couple of miles.
When I found out a bit about it, I had a chat with the girls and let them know that Youngest was very hurt and angry about what happened, and that she deserved both thanks and an apology. When she got back, they did thank her for her help (though I don't recall hearing either apologize) and one of them had whipped up a bracelet for her as a gift.
I don't know that they actually got anything out of it, though.
So that was one thing Youngest filled me in on. The other was about a conversation of sorts she'd had with the girls one night.
I don't recall at the moment if I mentioned that their father is a Muslim ... of sorts. He doesn't seem to be much of a practicing Muslim, other than in some of the things he tells the girls and that he expects them to do. Some of these things are not really part of Islam, and some are actually haram - forbidden by Islamic law.
Then I heard about this conversation.
Apparently, The Watcher started the conversation by telling Youngest (paraphrasing slightly), "just to let you know, so don't freak out or anything, but we're Muslims." Youngest told them she already knew that. Then The Watcher began telling her about Islam - at least the version she has been taught!
First, there was the story of Adam and Eve, except she skipped the Eve part. When Youngest mentioned Eve, The Watcher threw in a dismissive comment about Allah having given Adam a wife.
Then, without actually naming them (it took a while for Youngest to figure out who she was talking about), she started talking about Cain and Abel. Allah apparently liked Abel because he was a good boy, but didn't like Cain because he was a bad boy. Then, when Cain killed Abel, Allah came down in the shape of a bird to teach Cain how to bury the body, and that's why we bury bodies now, and isn't that a good thing, because if we didn't the world would smell really bad.
Youngest did not know how to properly respond to this.
At some point, The Watcher asked Youngest if she knew who Jesus was. She answered yes, and was then told that Jesus was a prophet. Youngest mentioned that she was a Christian and pointed out her Bible in her bookshelf. Beetle Child then piped up to ask what a Bible was, to which The Watcher answered, "it's a book that Jesus wrote."
Youngest did not know how to properly respond to this.
The conversation then got around to dreams, with The Watcher asking if Youngest ever had bad dreams. Youngest answered that she didn't usually have dreams, but when she did, they tended to be weird. She was then informed that:
Bad dreams are caused by Shaitan.
Weird dreams are also caused by Shaitan.
No dreams at all are a good thing.
Youngest did not know how to properly respond to this.
This from the child that was telling me in another conversation (while this was happening, in fact) that sometimes, when she eats and still feels hungry afterwards, her father taught her to say a word, which she repeated to me, telling her that it would make her not be hungry anymore, and it really works! So if she still feels hungry after eating, or if her stomach hurts, she should say this word and she feels better. She had been given another word to say if she was in bed and couldn't sleep, and it really worked, too! I asked her if she knew what the words meant, but she didn't. I couldn't even repeat either word, as they were in Arabic (a language she does not actually know how to speak) and all I could hear clearly was that they ended with -allah. Basically, she was taught to use these words like some sort of magical incantations, without any explanation as to what they actually meant.
Their dad also believes in the djinn, thinks people get sick because they are possessed by evil spirits and had their mother, who has MS, exorcised.
The more I find out about the environment they were raised in with their father, the more concerned I am about their psychological well being.
Meanwhile, they had an appointment to Skype with their dad this morning, which I only found out about last night. They neglected to mention it to us until it happened to come up in conversation with Dh. So we got them set up on the laptop their mom provided for them (which has been a major point of contention between their parents, for the most ridiculous reasons, yet bad enough to be brought to the court level). At first, we were going to set them up in the living room, where they had more space and could sit comfortably on the couch while both being visible to the web cam on the laptop. We were told, however, that this would not be good, as they would be talking about "family matters."
Okay, I can respect the desire for privacy, but their father also taught them that not to talk about "family matters" with their own mother, too. Considering some of the things we've heard them saying afterwards, I have concerns as to just what is discussed as "family matters."
So...
They got all dressed up in pretty dresses and sat together in their little chairs in front of the laptop, which we've had to set up on the top of a storage bin we gave them for their toys, waiting. We did warn them that they might not be able to talk to their dad, as Dh told me he couldn't get into the account their dad had set up for them (turns out they just couldn't remember the password), so I'd made a new one. I sent the information to their dad by email, but had not received a response. In fact, we'd heard nothing from him yet, but figured there's a lot going on right now at his end. If he hadn't checked his email, he wouldn't know how to connect with them. Since they couldn't remember what his Skype name was, I couldn't sent an invite. After a while, I did try something and logged them out. When going to log back in again, I checked the drop down list and found his Skype name on the list, so I was able to send an invite to him.
Anyhow, they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
After a while of sitting quietly, staring at the computer, waiting for some sort of pop up or call notice or... anything, they finally started to get chatty.
That's when The Watcher started telling me about the wallpaper on their laptop. It's the cover artwork for a children's movie called Muhammad: The Last Prophet.
Now, I'd never heard of the movie before, but Eldest noticed it and she *had* heard of it before. It's notorious for being an incredibly terrible movie, made only because of the popularity of The Prince of Egypt. We are all also aware that, in Islam, portraying living things is haram, and portraying an image of Muhommad is especially haram (though apparently Muhammad himself is never depicted in the movie). Even their mom, on seeing the wallpaper, mentioned to me that the image was actually forbidden by Islam.
I didn't mention this to them. I don't think they're ready to hear it yet. There's just too much else they need to deal with.
The Watcher then went on and on about how this was her favourite movie and how great it was; that they watched a download of it and tried to find it at the library, but the library didn't know what they were talking about, so they borrowed another movie about the prophet instead, but it wasn't the same one... Then Beetle Child piped up to say that, now she had "that song" stuck in her head, a song from the movie, which was also her favourite movie and it had her favourite song in it...
Hmmm... Depending on the sect, isn't music also haram in Islam? :-/
After almost half an hour, we gave up waiting. Understandably, they were quite upset. About an hour later, however, we got a call from an international number. It was their dad. It turns out that he has not been able to find a reliable internet connection yet.
Almost as soon as they started talking, with each of the girls on a different handset, they started bickering, with Beetle Child tattling on The Watcher for a laundry list of minor irritants and complaints, and The Watcher throwing in her own accusation right back.
Then the call got dropped.
When it became clear the call was completely cut off, Dh had a conversation with them. He pointed out that they were going to be able to talk to their dad only once a week, and did they really think he'd want to hear them bickering and complaining right away? They both started to make excuses ("that's what I'm used to" is their most common justification for their behaviour), but he shut that down and told them again why it wasn't a good idea to do this, that it would make their father worry at a time when he's far away and can't do anything about it, etc.
Then the phone rang again. It was their dad, trying again. We got both girls back on the handsets again and...
They immediately started complaining about each other, at the same time, even worse than before.
*sigh*
Thankfully, today was their day to visit with their mom, and she was able to talk to them about a few things - including the fact that the reason they hadn't been able to see her for so long was NOT because she didn't want to see them.
These poor kids.
I just hope we will be able to help them.
Today, Youngest and I went out for tea and what was supposed to be a driving lesson (which got skipped, because she is having troubles with her eyes. We're going to have to take her back for another eye test). This was the first chance I've had to talk to Youngest about some of the things she's had to deal with since our two new charges have joined us.
I've also decided on handles for them. The 7 yr old is the Beetle Child, because when she goes to bed she curls up like an adorable little beetle. I have to fight the urge to squee every time I see her do it. *L* The 8 1/2 yr old is The Watcher. We're not sure what's going on yet, but she has a tendency to come up and just... watch. She doesn't say anything, though she looks like she's about to. When asked, she says she doesn't want anything. She just... watches.
Which is disconcerting when I discover her behind me while I'm on the computer checking my email, and I find she's trying to read it over my shoulder. I've had to explain to her that reading over some one's shoulder uninvited isn't a good thing, but it's especially not a good thing to be reading other people's email. Her response? "That's your email?"
Hmmm.
So. Back to today's chat with Youngest.
The other day, while I was out with Eldest for a couple of hours, Youngest was home with Dh and the girls. The girls had been promised that we would use their Blizzard machine to make some blizzards before the packets it came with expired. Since Eldest and I were out and Dh's back has gone downhill again, that left Youngest to take care of it.
The machine had never been used before, so Youngest first had to wash it, then assemble it, use a hammer to crush ice cubes in a bag, and finally set it up so they could take turns working the machine. When finished, she doled out the resulting treat, which they ate with gusto. Then she cleaned it all up afterwards.
The entire time this went on, they managed to be in the way at every step of preparation, from blocking the path between kitchen sink and table to hammering to assembly, etc. They completely ignored her requests for space. They were also dismissive, displayed a demeanor Youngest described as extremely entitled and not once did they thank her for what she did, nor show any sort of appreciation for all the work she did to prepare everything and do everything.
Youngest told me that, for the first time in her life, she was angry enough to cry! Rather than take it out on the girls, she want for a very long walk. At least a couple of miles.
When I found out a bit about it, I had a chat with the girls and let them know that Youngest was very hurt and angry about what happened, and that she deserved both thanks and an apology. When she got back, they did thank her for her help (though I don't recall hearing either apologize) and one of them had whipped up a bracelet for her as a gift.
I don't know that they actually got anything out of it, though.
So that was one thing Youngest filled me in on. The other was about a conversation of sorts she'd had with the girls one night.
I don't recall at the moment if I mentioned that their father is a Muslim ... of sorts. He doesn't seem to be much of a practicing Muslim, other than in some of the things he tells the girls and that he expects them to do. Some of these things are not really part of Islam, and some are actually haram - forbidden by Islamic law.
Then I heard about this conversation.
Apparently, The Watcher started the conversation by telling Youngest (paraphrasing slightly), "just to let you know, so don't freak out or anything, but we're Muslims." Youngest told them she already knew that. Then The Watcher began telling her about Islam - at least the version she has been taught!
First, there was the story of Adam and Eve, except she skipped the Eve part. When Youngest mentioned Eve, The Watcher threw in a dismissive comment about Allah having given Adam a wife.
Then, without actually naming them (it took a while for Youngest to figure out who she was talking about), she started talking about Cain and Abel. Allah apparently liked Abel because he was a good boy, but didn't like Cain because he was a bad boy. Then, when Cain killed Abel, Allah came down in the shape of a bird to teach Cain how to bury the body, and that's why we bury bodies now, and isn't that a good thing, because if we didn't the world would smell really bad.
Youngest did not know how to properly respond to this.
At some point, The Watcher asked Youngest if she knew who Jesus was. She answered yes, and was then told that Jesus was a prophet. Youngest mentioned that she was a Christian and pointed out her Bible in her bookshelf. Beetle Child then piped up to ask what a Bible was, to which The Watcher answered, "it's a book that Jesus wrote."
Youngest did not know how to properly respond to this.
The conversation then got around to dreams, with The Watcher asking if Youngest ever had bad dreams. Youngest answered that she didn't usually have dreams, but when she did, they tended to be weird. She was then informed that:
Bad dreams are caused by Shaitan.
Weird dreams are also caused by Shaitan.
No dreams at all are a good thing.
Youngest did not know how to properly respond to this.
This from the child that was telling me in another conversation (while this was happening, in fact) that sometimes, when she eats and still feels hungry afterwards, her father taught her to say a word, which she repeated to me, telling her that it would make her not be hungry anymore, and it really works! So if she still feels hungry after eating, or if her stomach hurts, she should say this word and she feels better. She had been given another word to say if she was in bed and couldn't sleep, and it really worked, too! I asked her if she knew what the words meant, but she didn't. I couldn't even repeat either word, as they were in Arabic (a language she does not actually know how to speak) and all I could hear clearly was that they ended with -allah. Basically, she was taught to use these words like some sort of magical incantations, without any explanation as to what they actually meant.
Their dad also believes in the djinn, thinks people get sick because they are possessed by evil spirits and had their mother, who has MS, exorcised.
The more I find out about the environment they were raised in with their father, the more concerned I am about their psychological well being.
Meanwhile, they had an appointment to Skype with their dad this morning, which I only found out about last night. They neglected to mention it to us until it happened to come up in conversation with Dh. So we got them set up on the laptop their mom provided for them (which has been a major point of contention between their parents, for the most ridiculous reasons, yet bad enough to be brought to the court level). At first, we were going to set them up in the living room, where they had more space and could sit comfortably on the couch while both being visible to the web cam on the laptop. We were told, however, that this would not be good, as they would be talking about "family matters."
Okay, I can respect the desire for privacy, but their father also taught them that not to talk about "family matters" with their own mother, too. Considering some of the things we've heard them saying afterwards, I have concerns as to just what is discussed as "family matters."
So...
They got all dressed up in pretty dresses and sat together in their little chairs in front of the laptop, which we've had to set up on the top of a storage bin we gave them for their toys, waiting. We did warn them that they might not be able to talk to their dad, as Dh told me he couldn't get into the account their dad had set up for them (turns out they just couldn't remember the password), so I'd made a new one. I sent the information to their dad by email, but had not received a response. In fact, we'd heard nothing from him yet, but figured there's a lot going on right now at his end. If he hadn't checked his email, he wouldn't know how to connect with them. Since they couldn't remember what his Skype name was, I couldn't sent an invite. After a while, I did try something and logged them out. When going to log back in again, I checked the drop down list and found his Skype name on the list, so I was able to send an invite to him.
Anyhow, they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
After a while of sitting quietly, staring at the computer, waiting for some sort of pop up or call notice or... anything, they finally started to get chatty.
That's when The Watcher started telling me about the wallpaper on their laptop. It's the cover artwork for a children's movie called Muhammad: The Last Prophet.
Now, I'd never heard of the movie before, but Eldest noticed it and she *had* heard of it before. It's notorious for being an incredibly terrible movie, made only because of the popularity of The Prince of Egypt. We are all also aware that, in Islam, portraying living things is haram, and portraying an image of Muhommad is especially haram (though apparently Muhammad himself is never depicted in the movie). Even their mom, on seeing the wallpaper, mentioned to me that the image was actually forbidden by Islam.
I didn't mention this to them. I don't think they're ready to hear it yet. There's just too much else they need to deal with.
The Watcher then went on and on about how this was her favourite movie and how great it was; that they watched a download of it and tried to find it at the library, but the library didn't know what they were talking about, so they borrowed another movie about the prophet instead, but it wasn't the same one... Then Beetle Child piped up to say that, now she had "that song" stuck in her head, a song from the movie, which was also her favourite movie and it had her favourite song in it...
Hmmm... Depending on the sect, isn't music also haram in Islam? :-/
After almost half an hour, we gave up waiting. Understandably, they were quite upset. About an hour later, however, we got a call from an international number. It was their dad. It turns out that he has not been able to find a reliable internet connection yet.
Almost as soon as they started talking, with each of the girls on a different handset, they started bickering, with Beetle Child tattling on The Watcher for a laundry list of minor irritants and complaints, and The Watcher throwing in her own accusation right back.
Then the call got dropped.
When it became clear the call was completely cut off, Dh had a conversation with them. He pointed out that they were going to be able to talk to their dad only once a week, and did they really think he'd want to hear them bickering and complaining right away? They both started to make excuses ("that's what I'm used to" is their most common justification for their behaviour), but he shut that down and told them again why it wasn't a good idea to do this, that it would make their father worry at a time when he's far away and can't do anything about it, etc.
Then the phone rang again. It was their dad, trying again. We got both girls back on the handsets again and...
They immediately started complaining about each other, at the same time, even worse than before.
*sigh*
Thankfully, today was their day to visit with their mom, and she was able to talk to them about a few things - including the fact that the reason they hadn't been able to see her for so long was NOT because she didn't want to see them.
These poor kids.
I just hope we will be able to help them.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Confessions of a Filthy Addict
The following post is an exploration of a theme about gaming and its affects on people. Particularly the evil affects of gaming on boys.
This is the sort of thing that gets discussed in our household a fair bit, and since I, according to Eldest, I am a filthy, filthy addict, I figured it'd be something to explore here.
We are a gaming family. At the moment, Dh plays hour upon hour of WoW. Youngest has switched allegiances to the new Star Wars MMO. Eldest used to play a lot of WoW, but she's stopped playing it altogether. These days, she mostly plays with doll building games.
I don't usually think of myself as a gamer. Certainly not these days, as I no longer play PC games or Xbox, and I never got into the online RPGs. Yet when I stopped and thought about it I realized that, yes indeed, I most definitely fall into the gamer category. I just don't fit the usual stereotype.
I think the first game I became thoroughly obsessed with was Civ II. The game was already old when I bought it. I had taken the Greyhound to Edmonton for a weekend seminar. I checked out of my hotel on the Monday morning and walked over to the Greyhound station, but had over an hour to kill. Looking around, I saw a Staples nearby, so I headed over. It was a place to fill time, looking at stuff. In my wanderings about the store I found a bargain bin. In it was a Civ II CD pack that I decided looked interesting. It was cheap, so why not?
It turns out that this is the sort of game I really, really love. I like empire building games, and soon I was building roads and cities, farms, mines and so on. At the end of the game, I would deliberately leave one opposing faction barely alive, just so I could finish building the space ship to Alpha Centauri. So many hours were spent on that game!
Then I discovered the Age of Empire games and their expansions. Then Alpha Centauri, which I enjoyed even more. Why that game never went on into new versions, I don't know, but I wish they had. Empire Earth came out, then its expansion. I think at some point, I even picked up Civ III. I spent so many late night playing these various games, it would be easy to label me an addict.
Dh, meanwhile, had no interest in such games. He preferred Diablo and Starcraft. As the girls got older, they preferred the games he played over mine.
Then we got an Xbox.
I didn't get into the Xbox at first, much preferring my empire building PC games. I had no interest in shoot-em-ups or snowboarding or car racing. I left those to Dh and the kids. Until...
Until...
KotOR.
Knights of the Old Republic.
When we first got that game, Dh played it obsessively. Every spare moment he had, he was in the game, pushing through the levels to the end, with the occasional hunt online to figure out how to accomplish certain goals. He reached the end, then immediately started over, playing a different character. Then he did it again. I'm pretty sure he finished the game 3 times before I finally gave in and gave it a try.
What sucked me in was the storyline. As Dh played the game (and the girls played while he was at work), different aspects of the characters stories emerged. The choices made in the game also affected things. My curiosity piqued, I picked up controller one evening, shortly before everyone else went to bed. Dh helped me figure out the controller, but I play very differently then he does, so it wasn't long before I had to tell him to stop back seat gaming while I played. *L*
Once I got into the game, I got into the habit of starting it after everyone else had gone to bed, and often played all night. I play very methodically, not leaving an area until I've explored every inch of it. I also questioned all the characters I could, and sought out the back stories of the NPCs that made up my character's team. By the time I finished the game, I had a character developed to a level Dh had no idea was available, simply because he had been more interested in pushing through to the end then exploring and digging. I discovered nuances to the storyline and game place that hadn't been explored.
The action and fighting in the game were tertiary to me. I played for the story. After finishing it, I played it again making different choices, which brought about different responses from the NPCs. Then I did it again. And again. And again. Eventually, I had figured out just about every possible variant of the game.
But only for half of it.
You see, there was one thing about the game I simply could not do. I could not be a Dark Side character.
KotOR allows the player to make a number of moral choices. These choices place the player's character on a scale between Light and Dark Side. Dh played it as a Dark Side character to get the alternate story lines, and see how it changed the way the NPCs interacted with the player's character, but for some of these choices, he actually felt bad making them. When I played and was faced with choices that would push the character towards the Dark Side, even when I *wanted* to explore that part of the game, I found I simply couldn't choose them. It was curious to find myself responding this way, since making such choices affect only the game play and have no real world consequences. Yet I still couldn't do it.
When KotOR II came out, we bought it immediately. More obsessive playing.
It was glorious!
There's only so many times you can play a game, however, and by the time I'd explored all the avenues that interested me, I promptly got bored with it and stopped playing. Instead, I went back to my empire building PC games. Eventually, however, we upgraded computers and the old games no longer worked on them, and we weren't willing to spend the money to buy the newest versions.
I still like playing Civ II, but it's too obsolete to play on our current desktop, though I'm sure there are online versions available I can get. I miss Alpha Centauri, too. That was a good game.
I haven't touched the Xbox in ages, and while I can play Empire Earth on our current computer, I can't install the expansion version (lost the registration key), and I now find it very boring.
Instead, I play Facebook games.
When I first got on Facebook, I had no interest in getting any apps or games, but somewhere along the line, I discovered Hatchlings and started playing it. Before long, I was trading game tips and tricks with other people to get as many eggs as possible, feed all the hatchlings with only one egg, and get the rarest of eggs. When I was playing it the most, I would sometimes have two or three browsers up, each with 20-30 tabs open, using keyboard shortcuts to go through all the tabs as quickly as possible to get the eggs before someone else did. I never reached number one on the local leader boards, but I was able to get into the top 10. It was not unusual to find me up in the wee hours of the morning, hunting eggs on Facebook.
After a while, though, it got to be just too much. Too many new eggs, too many levels, too many hatchlings to feed. My play time dropped to just enough to keep my hatchlings fed, to allowing the hungry hatchlings to run away, to not playing at all anymore and blocking it from my feed.
There were a couple of other games I started playing as well, but only two others really caught my attention. Frontierville and Farmandia.
I had not intended to get into any of the "ville" games, but I'd accidentally clicked on "accept" on an invite instead of "cancel." Once I was in, I figured I may as well give it a try.
Before I knew it, I was playing it for hours at a time. As I increased in levels, new goals required more "neighbours," which required adding people to my friends list. I ended up adding about a hundred people I didn't know to get enough neighbours (though I vetted them somewhat). Hour after hour was spent tending my own Frontier, then visiting my neighbours - all of them - to tend their crops and help them reach their quest goals, too.
As the game play increased, with larger and larger Frontiers, I found myself spending more time waiting for things to load then actual playing. Ah, well. That's what tabs are for. While the game was loading, I'd be catching up on my email or reading the news or something in other tabs. Then they added the Pioneer Trails. Never really liked that one as much, and especially didn't like how long the game took to switch from one area to another. At Halloween, they added a whole other town.
By the time Halloween arrived, I'd stopped playing it altogether, and blocked the game from my feed. I also unfriended most of the people I'd added to my list because they were there only for gaming. I kept some of them, though. I've actually met some really great people through Facebook games!
Now, I'm down to just the one Facebook game, Farmandia. I like this one because I can set it to do things, then open other tabs and do something productive while the game plays itself in the background. I have only one "neighbour" that actively plays it. I've levelled up ridiculously high, but without more neighbours, there are certain areas I can't advance in. I also limit myself to visiting the game only once or twice a day.
So you'd think I am done with gaming, right?
Nope.
We picked up a tablet not long ago, and I upgraded my phone to something with a wi-fi hotspot so we can go online with it even when in areas without free wi-fi. As long as I can get a cell signal, I can go online. Tablets and phones, of course, come with apps. I ended up downloading a Solitaire app.
And discovered Forty Thieves.
How did I never encounter this game before?
Which means that I now sometimes find myself lying in bed with either my phone or the tablet, playing Forty Thieves in the wee hours of the morning!
Now, for all the gaming that I and my family do, none of us are "addicted" to games. We are obsessed with them, sure, and spend way too much time playing them. Time that, arguably, be much better spent elsewhere.
Game detractors dismiss these not only as time wasters (which I would have a hard time arguing against) but as harmful. Especially for children. Video games were being portrayed as being the cause of violence, ADD/ADHD, obesity, laziness, and general dysfunctional behaviour. "Experts" write books and articles about the evils of gaming (making a pretty penny to do it, too), just as they did for DnD, heavy metal music and TV in years past.
Can gaming become a problem? Absolutely. When gaming takes over a person's life completely, it can definitely be a problem. The mistake being made, however, is blaming the game for this. If the games themselves were the problem, all people who played them would show these signs. Of all the misconceptions and myths about gaming, this idea that the games themselves are addictive and causing harm is dishonest and misleading. They may be part of the problem, but the are not THE problem.
There is no doubt that people, adults and children, develop an unhealthy obsession with gaming. But who defines what that limit is in any individual? How much is too much? Dh, in his WoW gaming, has got to know some other players outside of the game, too. One has become a pretty good friend. She's a nurse, with husband and family, who plays the game obsessively. Is she playing too much? I have no idea. Another gamer friend also played obsessively, but he also recognised him himself an addictive personality. He ended up turning his account, with everything in it, over to Dh and stepped away from game playing completely and almost all computer activity as well. They still keep in contact, and this guy is really turning his life around and getting ahead.
Did WoW cause all the problems he was having? No. He had the problems first, and obsessive game playing was simply a symptom that helped reveal the problem to him.
The more we learn about addictions, the more it become clear that there are people who, for some reason (which seems to have a strong hereditary component) become easily addicted. Where one person can go out and get drunk every weekend and never become an alcoholic, the addictive personality is endangered by a single drink. Some people can smoke for years, then quit cold turkey without any side effects. Others are never able to quit, no matter how hard they try.
People don't just get addicted to "bad" things. Anything can become a source of addiction. Here's just a list of things, off the top of my head, that people become addicted to.
TV
Video games
musical genres
shopping
yarn
arts and crafts
gossip
eating "healthy" (orthorexia)
sleep
tidiness
overeating
exercise/fitness
movies
books
dieting
illness
work
play
sex
surgery
keeping up with the Joneses
travel
social causes
shoes
fandoms
That's just a short list. The point is that people can become addicted to just about anything. Some of these things, however, are considered "good" and others "bad." I contend that, whether someone is so addicted with being "healthy" they starve themselves to death, or someone buy so much yarn their houses are jammed and their bills aren't being paid, they are not really any different than someone addicted to alcohol or cigarettes.
So for parents, what about when it comes to our own children?
My personal philosophy is that, in the end, even kids who are absolutely obsessed with games and gaming are going to be fine. They're going to get bored of them and move on eventually. Or, they might end up becoming game designers and start their own companies. Who knows?
A concern that had been brought up is that gaming affects developing brains. Well of course they do! So does everything else. But gaming doesn't *cause* the addiction. It reveals it.
So when does a parent know it's time to intervene? At what point does an obsession with an activity cross over to being harmful? That is up to the individual. You, as a parent, know your child best. What is a problem for one child may not be for another.
Our personal philosophy has been to give our kids a lot of autonomy. We made sure they knew what certain things were expected of them (we expected them to do their chores, eat regular meals, and get out and about for fresh air and sunshine, for some examples). Beyond that, we left them free to make their own decisions. We didn't always like the choices they made, but they were theirs to make. Only rarely did we have to put our foot down and tell the kids it was time to stop, get off the game, put down the book, or whatever, and move on to something else. I honestly can't remember the last time we had to do that.
This would not have worked for a friend of mine. She recognised an addictive personality in herself. Her sister is addicted to TV, and she knew she herself could easily fall into that trap, so she didn't watch it at all. She had a computer, but it was almost never used. She recognised the same response in her daughter, so she allowed only rare times of TV watching (movies, actually, as they did not have access to any channels where they lived). As her daughter got older, she was able to cautiously allow more screen time.
She knew her own limits, and she knew her daughter's limits. It wasn't TV that caused the problem. The risk was there, with or without TV or computers. By using controlled exposure, she was able to teach her daughter how to control her addictive tendencies towards anything with a screen, something I never had to do.
That's the call we parents have to make.
Now excuse me. I have some crops to harvest.
This is the sort of thing that gets discussed in our household a fair bit, and since I, according to Eldest, I am a filthy, filthy addict, I figured it'd be something to explore here.
We are a gaming family. At the moment, Dh plays hour upon hour of WoW. Youngest has switched allegiances to the new Star Wars MMO. Eldest used to play a lot of WoW, but she's stopped playing it altogether. These days, she mostly plays with doll building games.
I don't usually think of myself as a gamer. Certainly not these days, as I no longer play PC games or Xbox, and I never got into the online RPGs. Yet when I stopped and thought about it I realized that, yes indeed, I most definitely fall into the gamer category. I just don't fit the usual stereotype.
I think the first game I became thoroughly obsessed with was Civ II. The game was already old when I bought it. I had taken the Greyhound to Edmonton for a weekend seminar. I checked out of my hotel on the Monday morning and walked over to the Greyhound station, but had over an hour to kill. Looking around, I saw a Staples nearby, so I headed over. It was a place to fill time, looking at stuff. In my wanderings about the store I found a bargain bin. In it was a Civ II CD pack that I decided looked interesting. It was cheap, so why not?
It turns out that this is the sort of game I really, really love. I like empire building games, and soon I was building roads and cities, farms, mines and so on. At the end of the game, I would deliberately leave one opposing faction barely alive, just so I could finish building the space ship to Alpha Centauri. So many hours were spent on that game!
Then I discovered the Age of Empire games and their expansions. Then Alpha Centauri, which I enjoyed even more. Why that game never went on into new versions, I don't know, but I wish they had. Empire Earth came out, then its expansion. I think at some point, I even picked up Civ III. I spent so many late night playing these various games, it would be easy to label me an addict.
Dh, meanwhile, had no interest in such games. He preferred Diablo and Starcraft. As the girls got older, they preferred the games he played over mine.
Then we got an Xbox.
I didn't get into the Xbox at first, much preferring my empire building PC games. I had no interest in shoot-em-ups or snowboarding or car racing. I left those to Dh and the kids. Until...
Until...
KotOR.
Knights of the Old Republic.
When we first got that game, Dh played it obsessively. Every spare moment he had, he was in the game, pushing through the levels to the end, with the occasional hunt online to figure out how to accomplish certain goals. He reached the end, then immediately started over, playing a different character. Then he did it again. I'm pretty sure he finished the game 3 times before I finally gave in and gave it a try.
What sucked me in was the storyline. As Dh played the game (and the girls played while he was at work), different aspects of the characters stories emerged. The choices made in the game also affected things. My curiosity piqued, I picked up controller one evening, shortly before everyone else went to bed. Dh helped me figure out the controller, but I play very differently then he does, so it wasn't long before I had to tell him to stop back seat gaming while I played. *L*
Once I got into the game, I got into the habit of starting it after everyone else had gone to bed, and often played all night. I play very methodically, not leaving an area until I've explored every inch of it. I also questioned all the characters I could, and sought out the back stories of the NPCs that made up my character's team. By the time I finished the game, I had a character developed to a level Dh had no idea was available, simply because he had been more interested in pushing through to the end then exploring and digging. I discovered nuances to the storyline and game place that hadn't been explored.
The action and fighting in the game were tertiary to me. I played for the story. After finishing it, I played it again making different choices, which brought about different responses from the NPCs. Then I did it again. And again. And again. Eventually, I had figured out just about every possible variant of the game.
But only for half of it.
You see, there was one thing about the game I simply could not do. I could not be a Dark Side character.
KotOR allows the player to make a number of moral choices. These choices place the player's character on a scale between Light and Dark Side. Dh played it as a Dark Side character to get the alternate story lines, and see how it changed the way the NPCs interacted with the player's character, but for some of these choices, he actually felt bad making them. When I played and was faced with choices that would push the character towards the Dark Side, even when I *wanted* to explore that part of the game, I found I simply couldn't choose them. It was curious to find myself responding this way, since making such choices affect only the game play and have no real world consequences. Yet I still couldn't do it.
When KotOR II came out, we bought it immediately. More obsessive playing.
It was glorious!
There's only so many times you can play a game, however, and by the time I'd explored all the avenues that interested me, I promptly got bored with it and stopped playing. Instead, I went back to my empire building PC games. Eventually, however, we upgraded computers and the old games no longer worked on them, and we weren't willing to spend the money to buy the newest versions.
I still like playing Civ II, but it's too obsolete to play on our current desktop, though I'm sure there are online versions available I can get. I miss Alpha Centauri, too. That was a good game.
I haven't touched the Xbox in ages, and while I can play Empire Earth on our current computer, I can't install the expansion version (lost the registration key), and I now find it very boring.
Instead, I play Facebook games.
When I first got on Facebook, I had no interest in getting any apps or games, but somewhere along the line, I discovered Hatchlings and started playing it. Before long, I was trading game tips and tricks with other people to get as many eggs as possible, feed all the hatchlings with only one egg, and get the rarest of eggs. When I was playing it the most, I would sometimes have two or three browsers up, each with 20-30 tabs open, using keyboard shortcuts to go through all the tabs as quickly as possible to get the eggs before someone else did. I never reached number one on the local leader boards, but I was able to get into the top 10. It was not unusual to find me up in the wee hours of the morning, hunting eggs on Facebook.
After a while, though, it got to be just too much. Too many new eggs, too many levels, too many hatchlings to feed. My play time dropped to just enough to keep my hatchlings fed, to allowing the hungry hatchlings to run away, to not playing at all anymore and blocking it from my feed.
There were a couple of other games I started playing as well, but only two others really caught my attention. Frontierville and Farmandia.
I had not intended to get into any of the "ville" games, but I'd accidentally clicked on "accept" on an invite instead of "cancel." Once I was in, I figured I may as well give it a try.
Before I knew it, I was playing it for hours at a time. As I increased in levels, new goals required more "neighbours," which required adding people to my friends list. I ended up adding about a hundred people I didn't know to get enough neighbours (though I vetted them somewhat). Hour after hour was spent tending my own Frontier, then visiting my neighbours - all of them - to tend their crops and help them reach their quest goals, too.
As the game play increased, with larger and larger Frontiers, I found myself spending more time waiting for things to load then actual playing. Ah, well. That's what tabs are for. While the game was loading, I'd be catching up on my email or reading the news or something in other tabs. Then they added the Pioneer Trails. Never really liked that one as much, and especially didn't like how long the game took to switch from one area to another. At Halloween, they added a whole other town.
By the time Halloween arrived, I'd stopped playing it altogether, and blocked the game from my feed. I also unfriended most of the people I'd added to my list because they were there only for gaming. I kept some of them, though. I've actually met some really great people through Facebook games!
Now, I'm down to just the one Facebook game, Farmandia. I like this one because I can set it to do things, then open other tabs and do something productive while the game plays itself in the background. I have only one "neighbour" that actively plays it. I've levelled up ridiculously high, but without more neighbours, there are certain areas I can't advance in. I also limit myself to visiting the game only once or twice a day.
So you'd think I am done with gaming, right?
Nope.
We picked up a tablet not long ago, and I upgraded my phone to something with a wi-fi hotspot so we can go online with it even when in areas without free wi-fi. As long as I can get a cell signal, I can go online. Tablets and phones, of course, come with apps. I ended up downloading a Solitaire app.
And discovered Forty Thieves.
How did I never encounter this game before?
Which means that I now sometimes find myself lying in bed with either my phone or the tablet, playing Forty Thieves in the wee hours of the morning!
Now, for all the gaming that I and my family do, none of us are "addicted" to games. We are obsessed with them, sure, and spend way too much time playing them. Time that, arguably, be much better spent elsewhere.
Game detractors dismiss these not only as time wasters (which I would have a hard time arguing against) but as harmful. Especially for children. Video games were being portrayed as being the cause of violence, ADD/ADHD, obesity, laziness, and general dysfunctional behaviour. "Experts" write books and articles about the evils of gaming (making a pretty penny to do it, too), just as they did for DnD, heavy metal music and TV in years past.
Can gaming become a problem? Absolutely. When gaming takes over a person's life completely, it can definitely be a problem. The mistake being made, however, is blaming the game for this. If the games themselves were the problem, all people who played them would show these signs. Of all the misconceptions and myths about gaming, this idea that the games themselves are addictive and causing harm is dishonest and misleading. They may be part of the problem, but the are not THE problem.
There is no doubt that people, adults and children, develop an unhealthy obsession with gaming. But who defines what that limit is in any individual? How much is too much? Dh, in his WoW gaming, has got to know some other players outside of the game, too. One has become a pretty good friend. She's a nurse, with husband and family, who plays the game obsessively. Is she playing too much? I have no idea. Another gamer friend also played obsessively, but he also recognised him himself an addictive personality. He ended up turning his account, with everything in it, over to Dh and stepped away from game playing completely and almost all computer activity as well. They still keep in contact, and this guy is really turning his life around and getting ahead.
Did WoW cause all the problems he was having? No. He had the problems first, and obsessive game playing was simply a symptom that helped reveal the problem to him.
The more we learn about addictions, the more it become clear that there are people who, for some reason (which seems to have a strong hereditary component) become easily addicted. Where one person can go out and get drunk every weekend and never become an alcoholic, the addictive personality is endangered by a single drink. Some people can smoke for years, then quit cold turkey without any side effects. Others are never able to quit, no matter how hard they try.
People don't just get addicted to "bad" things. Anything can become a source of addiction. Here's just a list of things, off the top of my head, that people become addicted to.
TV
Video games
musical genres
shopping
yarn
arts and crafts
gossip
eating "healthy" (orthorexia)
sleep
tidiness
overeating
exercise/fitness
movies
books
dieting
illness
work
play
sex
surgery
keeping up with the Joneses
travel
social causes
shoes
fandoms
That's just a short list. The point is that people can become addicted to just about anything. Some of these things, however, are considered "good" and others "bad." I contend that, whether someone is so addicted with being "healthy" they starve themselves to death, or someone buy so much yarn their houses are jammed and their bills aren't being paid, they are not really any different than someone addicted to alcohol or cigarettes.
So for parents, what about when it comes to our own children?
My personal philosophy is that, in the end, even kids who are absolutely obsessed with games and gaming are going to be fine. They're going to get bored of them and move on eventually. Or, they might end up becoming game designers and start their own companies. Who knows?
A concern that had been brought up is that gaming affects developing brains. Well of course they do! So does everything else. But gaming doesn't *cause* the addiction. It reveals it.
So when does a parent know it's time to intervene? At what point does an obsession with an activity cross over to being harmful? That is up to the individual. You, as a parent, know your child best. What is a problem for one child may not be for another.
Our personal philosophy has been to give our kids a lot of autonomy. We made sure they knew what certain things were expected of them (we expected them to do their chores, eat regular meals, and get out and about for fresh air and sunshine, for some examples). Beyond that, we left them free to make their own decisions. We didn't always like the choices they made, but they were theirs to make. Only rarely did we have to put our foot down and tell the kids it was time to stop, get off the game, put down the book, or whatever, and move on to something else. I honestly can't remember the last time we had to do that.
This would not have worked for a friend of mine. She recognised an addictive personality in herself. Her sister is addicted to TV, and she knew she herself could easily fall into that trap, so she didn't watch it at all. She had a computer, but it was almost never used. She recognised the same response in her daughter, so she allowed only rare times of TV watching (movies, actually, as they did not have access to any channels where they lived). As her daughter got older, she was able to cautiously allow more screen time.
She knew her own limits, and she knew her daughter's limits. It wasn't TV that caused the problem. The risk was there, with or without TV or computers. By using controlled exposure, she was able to teach her daughter how to control her addictive tendencies towards anything with a screen, something I never had to do.
That's the call we parents have to make.
Now excuse me. I have some crops to harvest.
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