Parents VS Videogames

Hello there I am 15 years old and my parents HATE video games. My brother was in love with video games and spent way too much money on them. Now my parents have reserves about me playing video games (which i understand) but my dad refuses to let me download a computer game or even STEAM. he insists that video games ruin the computer, Which doesn't make any sense (I have tried to reason with him by saying like hey y'know steam has like millions and millions of users) But he doesn't care. they say video games are bad for people. BUT THEY DON'T CARE IF I WATCH TV FOR LIKE 4-5 HOURS EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, So I have no clue what their thinking or reasoning is, any ideas on how to persuade em to let me get anything even just something simple like rocket league?

Unfortunately being on 15 there is not much you can do. His house his rules.

Don’t despair though. If I’d had my youth again I wouldn’t have wasted it playing games. Id be out getting into sports and fittness. Instead I got very fat and very lazy as my parents didn’t really mind.

@boycie:

The problem is I am active, I get great grades. And Most of the year is winter which are harsh so I can't really go outside, I have a great social life. It's just sometimes I want to sit down and relax.

I ruined our first pc by downloading a host of games. Back in those days, our hard drive was 1gb with 16mb ram, so i don’t think it really held too much of a future anyway lol.

Have you considered taking up a musical instrument? I started learning how to play the electric guitar at your age and it changed my life.

There loads of free resources/tablature/sheet music online. Lots of instructional material on youtube as well.

I'm 43 years old now,but my parents were not against me playing games for hours at a time,but to be honest at 15 years old,parents have rules and should be respected. Sorry for you not having be able to play games at all. Hopefully you work things out with your dad. Good luck.

Sadly, parents win this battle.

Well, like most parents (and actually most people in general), they're ****ing morons.

And also like most parents, they're stubborn, sanctimonious, self-righteous douchebags who are completely uninterested in you as a person and in any of your interests that will not one day lead you to riches (and even some of the ones that might if they can't themselves imagine how). There's probably no convincing them. Even if they were open to being convinced, they likely have little to no respect for you and therefore aren't likely to listen to anything you say no matter how well-reasoned. They don't understand video games, why people like them, or what effect they have on a computer so they make terrible arguments in order to retain a semblance of control over something they know next to nothing about, and back it up with parental force. If it helps, their parents probably said the same things about televisions or color televisions or dungeons and dragons or pokemon or whatever small-minded idiots were fed up with back when your parents were young. Welcome to life kid! My advice for dealing with it: stay in school, make a ton of money, buy yourself a nice home as far away from your parents as possible, and only visit them to burn money in front of them.

Get a job at McDonald and live in your own place, parents free

Time to find a new hobby.

Get a job once you're 16.

Um...that's a pretty strange attitude to take. Do you SERIOUSLY think that most parents see their kids as not people, but a ticket to riches? That they're completely stupid and don't care that it's really the kids who know best and have the most wisdom? I really hope you're being sarcastic here, because otherwise...HOLY CRAP.

EDIT: Also, to the original poster...don't you think it might be a better idea to STOP watching TV for 4 or 5 hours a night before you start asking for video games? I'm just saying, think about how this MIGHT look from their perspective. If you're ALREADY spending 4 hours a night watching TV and now you're asking for video games too, do you think they MIGHT be concerned that your video game time is going to be ADDED to your TV time? Has that been mentioned by either you or them? If your parents are about games ruining the computer, have you brought up the option of getting a game console? Non-PC? And if they're still worried, they can use parental controls to lock you out of online functionality and restrict you to offline gameplay? Compromise, dude. If you want them to work with you, give up something in good faith first.

Find something that's worse than video games and make that your hobby. Then when your parents are adamant you give up this awful, horrible, potentially dangerous habit you can claim that by comparison video games aren't so bad. Problem solved.

There's nothing you could do but follow the rules, but hey, why not try again explain gaming to your dad?

Well as a kid you pretty much lost already. All you can try to do is convince them why you want to play those games. Is it to stay in contact with your friends during a cold time in the year, playing with them online? Is it maybe because you want to relive a specific time period or maybe you need a mental challenge with a hard strategic game? Doesn't have to be your main reason, but at least something positive they can see in it. Maybe get your arguments from teams that focus on that like Extra Credits. But in the end, Parents rule. If you can't convince them, moving out is the only real option.

As far as the T.V I don't got that big of a choice I share a room and all they do is watch T.V, as for everyone else thanks for your input I'll try to find something they can relate to or something they will understand to try and persuade them. If I make any progress I'll keep you all updated.

join a gang

Most? Nah, I'm probably just projecting there, although in this case his parents do seem remarkably similar to mine.

I didn't say that they see kids as a ticket to riches, just that they don't see them in any sense but the economic one. When kids start taking interest in things it's never "wow, that's so cool, maybe I could share in your interests," it's always "Wow, so how are you going to monetize it? Oh, you're not? Then take an interest in something useful." That's treating kids as objects, not as people.

Like I said, I see most people as completely stupid. Parents being a subset of people...and besides, I especially judge as stupid people who don't understand new trends/technology/forms of entertainment/etc. and therefore react by condemning them as some sort of corrupting force. Stupid people been doing it since the dawn of time, Confucius was doing it thousands of years ago. It's nothing new, but somehow said stupid people always think they've arrived at some epiphany about life.

Is it the kids who have all the wisdom? "He is wisest among you who knows that his wisdom is worth nothing," and who in this scenario is insisting they have all the answers? Oh yeah, the parents. I don't, in general, think that kids are all stealth geniuses and parents are all braindead, I just think that our culture tends to drastically overvalue parents' wisdom and drastically undervalue children's wisdom, and therefore the difference between the actual and perceived wisdom is greater for children than it is for parents, hence the need to over-correct more in favor of children.

Um...what? The original poster didn't say anything about his parents only seeing him in the economic sense, unless you're talking about his brother spending too much money on video games.

Do you think that's unreasonable? Do you think the guy's parents shouldn't have any concern for the cost of their childrens' hobbies? You do understand that most parents don't have unlimited income, right? That most parents are working on a budget, and that money spent on entertainment often translates into "money taken away from paying the bills"?

Speaking of stupid, you do understand that TIME is a resource, right? As in, you can't really expect one's parents to bother taking the time to "understand" video games when they're a LUXURY in the first place, right?

Also, I'm still curious as to why the original poster insists on PC games. He talks about his parents thinking that he'll ruin the computer, but that clearly wouldn't be the case if he's playing console games with no internet connection (or even playing console games that are old enough that they don't even have online functionality). So I'm skeptical that "no games" is even the issue here. Has he even attempted to talk his parents into letting him do offline console gaming? If so, why not? Are "games" even the real issue here? I don't know, but he's clearly not presenting all of the relevant information here which makes me wonder if he's giving all of the relevant information to his parents.

Maybe they're afraid that video games will change that. Did for me. There's honestly nothing you can do at this point but wait until you turn 18 so you can set your own schedule with their say so and then prove to them that video games have no negative affect on your life.

Errr if y'all wanted more information just ask. I have a ps3 and a ps2 but they're the same games I have had for 10+ years. they don't mind me having them because they know that they bore me and have been played too much to enjoy. I think they're skeptical because my brother got absorbed in them, and they don't want the same thing to happen to me. I specifically want PC because it's easier to access and you can get newer games without having to buy a whole console like with a ps4 or xbox one and I think it would be easier to sway them into that then into a console.

If you got any questions feel free to ask

lol parents.

Tell them to buy Wheel of Fortune for PS3. Since they love TV so much they will probably play that with you. And then they won't think games are so bad. Lolz.

Trust me on this one man, all the rents dig Sajak and Trebek.

someone's got parental issues...

No doubt.

good luck with all that

@comp_atkins said:

@theone86 said:

@comp_atkins said:

@theone86 said:

@coagulate said:

I have no clue what their thinking or reasoning is

Well, like most parents (and actually most people in general), they're ****ing morons.

@coagulate said:

So I have no clue what their thinking or reasoning is, any ideas on how to persuade em to let me get anything even just something simple like rocket league?

And also like most parents, they're stubborn, sanctimonious, self-righteous douchebags who are completely uninterested in you as a person and in any of your interests that will not one day lead you to riches (and even some of the ones that might if they can't themselves imagine how). There's probably no convincing them. Even if they were open to being convinced, they likely have little to no respect for you and therefore aren't likely to listen to anything you say no matter how well-reasoned. They don't understand video games, why people like them, or what effect they have on a computer so they make terrible arguments in order to retain a semblance of control over something they know next to nothing about, and back it up with parental force. If it helps, their parents probably said the same things about televisions or color televisions or dungeons and dragons or pokemon or whatever small-minded idiots were fed up with back when your parents were young. Welcome to life kid! My advice for dealing with it: stay in school, make a ton of money, buy yourself a nice home as far away from your parents as possible, and only visit them to burn money in front of them.

someone's got parental issues...

No doubt.

good luck with all that

I'm learning to deal with it pretty well. It helps to vent, hence why I posted in the first place.

I have been asking.

Here's a question I haven't asked: are they not ALLOWING you to have games or are they just not going to BUY them for you?

Just curious because that's a pretty big difference. If they're simply not BUYING the games for you but are still ALLOWING you to have them, is there any reason why you couldn't just do some side work and then buy a PS4 or X1 once you've saved enough money?

wow your parents are strict... But there is really nothing you can do as long as you live under youre parents roof. Once they ask you to pay rent for living there you should insist that since your paying to live you should also get to play as much games you want. Or just get a job and get the f**k out when you get the chance if playing games is that important to you:)