Gaming time restrictions.

Nowadays I imagine most people here can play videogames as long as they wish, provided they had the time of course, but I remember when I was younger my mum restricted my play time to half an hour a day. Initially I always thought it would be half an hour for both me and my brother, but we always played 2 player games anyway. I don't know if anyone here currently has any sort of time restriction, but for anyone else did your parents always allow you to play videogames as long as you wanted?

Obviously they're not experts in this area and would have thought that videogames might have some serious detrimental effect, I mean, my mum always used to say playing too long would make you go crazy.

How do you feel about the length of the time that you were able to play? You know, videogames being fun of course I found half hour too short. The problem I had was that I needed to be careful on how I spent playing with that half an hour. Sure I only spent that amount of time playing, but I used up many hours just to read the so many gaming magazines that I bought over and over again. I would even read the instruction manual over numerous times.

I think that if I was given the time to play as long as I wanted, there was always that chance I would get bored a bit and do other things rather than read a mag before coming back for some more. On the other hand though, maybe I would be persuading my parents to buy more games. Do you feel it is necessary for parents to impose a time restriction on the kids playing times?

I remember most of my (then) mates at school didn't have such a restriction which meant they played so many more games than me. It was a bit of a bother to talk about games with them, because I acquired so much information from magazines, it looked silly that I knew about all these games but had only played a few of them. Were you ever annoyed by having mates who could as long as they wanted?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Ugh... Mine was horrible...

I was only able to play video games on the weekends. It would start Friday right after school and end Sunday at 6 pm... That was during most of elementary and middle school.

I'm a senior in high school... My parent still impose that rule on me... I guess as a way of focusing on my school work, rather than be distracted and make my grades suffer. Thank god that I didn't do horrible last year... At least with that, I proved I could do both. I still go behind their backs and play.

If we're mentioning friends, I was probably the only one with a restriction like this. All my friends were able to play no problem, where if I touched as much as the system, my parents would freak. And it's not like I would talk to the majority of my friends about video games anyway. Even though they never had a restriction, they would all say I play too much and apparently I don't shut up about playing either.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I never had any restrictions when it came to playing games. Of course, schoolwork did come first, so I wasn't playing non-stop either.

Despite that, I still got lousy grades. Some fun, huh?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Fortunately in my case, I didn't have any time restrictions since I always had good grades at school. I knew at that time that if i ever fail an exam my parents would have taken out my precious Snes (It was my reason to live at that time. I know, that's sad...).

"Let's hit him where it hurts most..." Good philosophy. It worked really well on me.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I don't recall my parents restricting my gaming time when I was younger. I didn't play for too long during the day anyway, and I did well in school. I think that if I had played a game for more than four hours or so, one of my parents may have expressed concern.

I was speaking idiomatically.

When I entered High School, my parents tried to make it so that I only played video games on the weekends, since it was a new learning environment. I was caught playing Final Fantasy IX once on a weekday and it sort of slid from there. My marks were even better in high school, so that rule became long forgotten in a short time.
However, whenever I play a game, I'll always walk out of the room when I hear my dad passing by, because I still dread to this day, that he'll tell me stop playing (bad eyes, and I play for quite a while after I start).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Summonmaster

When I entered High School, my parents tried to make it so that I only played video games on the weekends, since it was a new learning environment. I was caught playing Final Fantasy IX once on a weekday and it sort of slid from there. My marks were even better in high school, so that rule became long forgotten in a short time.

Same.

For the most part.

My Mom imposed it on both me and my brother to Friday + Weekends (in which Sunday had the 9 o'clock bedtime). It got to the point that I had to play games as much as I could in one weekend - I got to disc III of Final Fantasy IX on Sunday after borrowing the game Friday afternoon.

Either way, my Mom figured out that there was no point to the rule as I do what I need to do for school anyways - so it was changed to the normal "finish your homework first" rule.

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, I pretty much got to play whenever I wanted. All nighters every night in the summer and it wasn't uncommon to go until 2-3 in the morning on school days (I still regard 10 PM - 3 AM as "prime" gaming time, since I like playing at night). Not like nowadays though...I still play late and sludge through work the next day, but I just have to really be into something to play real long anymore. Otherwise, I wisely go to sleep now.

Although...It isn't uncommon for me to dedicate 30 or more hours to a game over a weekend if I'm really into it and don't have any other commitments.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I'm the same as those who didn't exactly have restrictions. Granted, my parents would notice if I was spending 3+ hours gaming on a school day, but they'd simply come by and tell me (in a gruff voice) that I should stop.

Summer time, however...hahaha.

I'm a little worried about how well I'll manage my time when I start college in September, however, though I bet I won't have access to a T.V. or a gaming console other than my DS Lite.

Most amazing jew boots

I never really had any restrictions. They'd pretty much just sigh and say smartass things like "You know there's more to life than games." or "Why don't you spend more time studying?" It's annoying, but it could be worse, as I've seen here. Half an hour? Weekends only? That wouldn't fly with me at all.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I guess my parents set some limits as well when I was like 13 or 14 and I think I am pretty thankful for that. If I remember correctly, I was allowed to watch TV or play SNES for one hour per day and that was totally okay for me. I mean, this way I could do other, more important things like doing my homework or going to the lake and stuff like that. I seriously pity those teenagers who don't have any kind of self-control anymore and who only leave the house when they have to buy some Coke Light or call the pizza delivery service.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

When my parents were upset with my grades they would take away my ability to play them Sunday after dinner until Thursday. Basically the time I'd normally be doing homework. They only very rarely actually TOOK AWAY my gaming privileges, most of the time I was just severely limited.

Now that I'm all grown up and stuff, though, they only get mad when I'm playing at 4 AM and I have the speakers too loud and I wake people up in the house. >_>

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I'm sure my mom did try to restrict my gaming time, but I don't remember. My mom never sticks to her punishments, so any restrictions just ended up drifting off somewhere in a few days, and things would be back to normal. I didn't play that much anyway, though; maybe about an hour a day.

How ya doing, buddy?

About the same situation as Rydia right here.

High school and all prior to it was ridiculously simple to me. As a result, I could do homework in a snap, it'd be almost perfect, and I would have lotsa free time.

I'd help with yard work upon request, handle errands, and my free time was mine and mine alone. They've never gotten on any of our (my brothers and I) cases. About the same story for all three of us. Not like we were leeches, to be honest =p

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

My parents restricted my videogame habits for Friday and Saturday. I couldnt really play much Sunday through Thursday. This was the rule I followed from elementary school until senior year in high school

Honestly, I didnt care much. Waiting a week before gaming just made it that much sweeter. In any case, during high school I was busy with track, accelerated classes, music and community service so gaming was out of the picture.

FELIPE NO

The only real rule for me was that I practice my piano, and later violin, before being able to do any gaming. That worked fine with me because I got into the habit of doing my homework as soon as I got home, or even in school if I had extra time in one class.

Even when I got a D- or whatever it was in Civics class in 8th grade (man that was a long time ago), my parents didn't restrict my gaming time, even though they were mad as all hell (the teacher for the Civics class sucked anyways, not much I could do about it).

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

my mom used to take away the videogames during the school week. then one time she lost my playstation. after that she didn't have anything to do with videogames

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My parents never restricted the time that I spent playing games when I was at school. I always made sure that I did my homework/revison before settling down for a gaming session, otherwise I knew that if I started on the games before I did my schoolwork I wouldn't get it done in time.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I was the exact opposite. I could sit and paly games for hours on end if I wanted too as a kid. Now I have no fucking time to play the damn things.

Taking away a system from a child in order to force them into doing homework, instead of simply teaching them the importance of such things in just shoddy parenting.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.