Terrified parents slammed for not stopping children’s gaming addictions

PARENTS of gaming addict kids are under fire after one mum revealed her son hasn’t been to school in two years.

PARENTS of teens who haven’t gone to school for as long as two years because of their gaming addictions have been slammed for their efforts to stop the problem behaviour.

Logan Ford, profiled last night on 60 Minutes, is one of several teens in Australia confined to their bedrooms because of gaming addiction.

The 14-year-old said, if he had his way, he would play video game Fortnite for 14 hours a day.

Logan has already refused to go to school for two years and only leaves his room for food or the bathroom.

He is obsessed with Fortnite, which has more than 125 million players worldwide and an estimated 40 million people playing monthly.

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Sydney mum Britta Hodge said she struggled to get son Logan Ford away from video games, but many parents were quick to criticise her for not doing enough. Picture: Channel 9

His mum Britta Hodge said she had been headbutted, bitten, concussed and forced to call the police when Logan turned violent if she attempted to take his Sony PS4 gaming console.

But Australians struggled to sympathise with the distressed mother and another couple after they were featured on 60 Minute s last night.

“Cut the power cord! Drag the lil sod to school and make him go! How weak and pathetic are the parents! Who’s in charge here cause they certainly aren’t!” one person wrote on social media.

Social media was flooded with angry parents who said the games were not the problem.

“You are the one who brought them the console, you are the one who introduced them to video games in your home, you are the one who buys them the games and allows them to play them,” said another woman.

“You are the problem. Stop trying to blame video games for your lack of parenting.”

Is #60mins seriously doing a story about how parents can stop their kids being addicted to computer games? Has anyone tried....oh, I don't know...being a parent and not letting them play them that much?

— Colonel Kickhead (@colonelkickhead) September 2, 2018

#60mins right now pic.twitter.com/mc7FoO3ane

— Brendan Moro (@DurdleHerder) September 2, 2018

As a mother of a 11 year old who plays fortnite, I'd brake the console if things got that bad #60Mins

— Ana Covic (@anacovic80) September 2, 2018

Another concerned mum said the console would go straight under the lawnmower as her child watched it crunch.

“I have an 11-year-old who plays Fortnite,” she said. “He’s not permitted to play it on weeknights and has restricted two hours per weekend. That two hours is based on performance at school and how much respect my husband and I have garnered during the week.

“When he’s told he can’t have it, he gets ticked off but THAT’S MY JOB. I’m not a ‘friend’ I’m a ‘parent’. Stop getting the two confused. If my son acted like that, it wouldn’t be the cord that I’d remove, it’d be the whole machine mulched. Grow a pair.”

Despite the backlash, it is true that gaming addiction has become so serious the World Health Organisation has now classified it as a disease.

Experts are calling it a “modern tragedy” as overwhelmed parents fear for their lives, forced to let their children keep their devices because they get violent as soon as they attempt to remove them.

Ms Hodge said her once adventurous son had become “depressed, anxious, withdrawn and angry.

“He’s completely different. I miss my boy,” she told 60 Minutes. “I keep on saying to him, ‘I miss the boy I used to have.’ It’s not the boy I know.

“I mean, he’d be the one to hook up his fishing rod that would be the first to go camping, or play soccer. Now I can’t get him outside.

“An addiction is an addiction. It doesn’t matter if it’s drugs, sex or online gaming. We’ve been to doctors who have said ‘I don’t think we’ve seen such a chronic case’.”

Logan said he would stay in his bedroom for 14 hours and play Fortnite if he had his way. Picture: Channel 9

Ms Hodge said it was not as simple as taking anything away because of the repercussions.

“(He becomes) angry, aggressive — we’ve had to call the police ... I have been headbutted, I’ve had concussions,” she said.

“I’ve been bitten, black and blue down my arms. He’s my height so I can’t hold him back now, physically restrain him.”

Logan said he believed he had control, he just chose to stay playing that long.

He said he turned to gaming to cope with his parents’ marriage breakdown.

“I was depressed and I started playing games and it just made me feel happy again,” he said.

Like Logan, 13-year-old Sam is also addicted and it terrifies his parents Joanna and Brendan.

Joanna said the gaming world appealed to kids because they could shut themselves off from reality.

Parents Joanna and Brendan have struggled with their son Sam’s addiction too. Picture: Channel 9

Kids lives are complex & the boys in the segment are retreating to gaming because of complex social issues. #60mins you are not doing these kids or parents any favours by saying unplugging will fix them!

— Dr Joanne Orlando (@JoanneOrlando) September 2, 2018

“You don’t have to deal with the real world, you don’t have to deal with chores, you don’t have to deal with sports — you can sit there for hours and hours and talk to people and they’re not going to judge you,” she said.

“Some of the things I’ve heard them talk about online is so aggressive, they talk about slitting each other’s throats.”

Education coach Jill Sweatman said games were not just games but tools that had been so magnificently crafted to engage children that they became insidious.

She said the best way to describe the problem was through apoptosis, the death of brain cells.

Ms Sweatman said if children spent so much of their time and brain on entertainment, they would lose cells not being used in “planned brain death”.

She said those brain cells would not come back later in life.

Do you sympathise with these parents or think they are to blame? Join the conversation in the comments below.