I've been visiting my parents for the past few days and I have a 7 year old brother who's life revolve's around TV, video games, and computer games. He eats a lot of junk food and is kinda chubby and he's kinda people-phobic and I hate to see him like that. Yesterday he was watching TV and it was hard but after a few tries I got him to come outside with me and play with the dog. Later he was watching TV again and I turned it off to show him some of the cool stuff I made and I wanted to make him something, but he was completely uninterested. Thank god it was time for him to go to bed because I really didn't want to turn the TV back on for him. I asked my mom about the TV problem and she seemed half concerned, but just gave me a bunch of lame excuses as to why he watches so much, like that it's my step-dad's fault because when he's around, he watches a lot of TV too and she has no say in what goes on. I asked her if I could break the TV but she kinda just laughed it off. I was serious, though. I wanted to cry. My family doesn't do anything together except play on the computer or watch TV and video games.
I totally understand wha you're talking about. One of my brothers who is 15 is the same way. My mom has been ill most of his childhood and her babysitter for my brother was the tv and video games. He's now obsessed with that stuff. He can recite whole movies from memory and he talks about shows and commercials all the time. He plays video games for hours every day. And he's getting overweight and hasn't had his growth spurt yet. My mom is very worried that he hasn't grown, but when I point out that all he eats is junk she just blows it off. I keep telling her that she needs to intervene and limit his time in front of the tv before he's an adult, but she doesn't do anything about it. Its sad. And I've seen the results of that in people my age. I know a lot of guys who live in front of the tv/computer. I know guys who are completely addicted to video games. I know one guy who is so addicted to everquest that he can't hold down a job. Its horrible.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing with him. I'm always asking him if he wants to go outside and do something else besides sit in front of some sort of screen. But I am rarely here (this is the first time in MONTHS) and I'm real worried about him but I know my parents won't change their habits to lead a good example, which is how kids really learn how to live. I'm thinkin about asking my mom if I can come stay with her two days out of the week to help, but it's only been two days now and already we've almost gotten into a fight. We've never gotten along really well. She's the type who is ingrainly attracted to the drama and I keep having to come up with ways to difuse it, like barely speak to her or ignore her. My step-dad is anxious for me to leave.
