I made the mistake of asking grandson how was his grades. At the time he was playing a games. I then began to talk to him about his grades & the video games. He listened politely and his mother started berating me for talking to him. She said "I told him he could play, I work with him to bring up his grades and I don't appreciate your tearing him down". I said the first thing I said to him was how proud I was of his grades and that he needed to bring up some of them to at least a "B". She then proceeded to tear into me with all the bad parenting mistakes I made. I left her house in tears and to this day we have never spoke about it again. This grandson is graduating next year and he is a good kid. I have 13 grandchildren & 5 great grandchildren. I have come to realize that there are some things that we can mention & some we can't (like time spent on video games). I'm still close to my daughter & grandchildren. When I now visit them, I make sure to just listen and if asked a question, I answer. I try to be of help to my daughter and if she says no, I back off. Our relationship is fine and since she has gone thru a great deal with her daughter who has Lupus, I just want to be there for her.

I am extremely sensitive to the time spent on video games by the grandkids. My son, however, is still mesmerized by the games so what I say is not always listened to. However, while I am visiting, my daugherinlaw and I have agreed that there will be no games played in my presence. At first, my grandson was happy when I would leave (although, always, always glad to see me and engaged cheerfully with me during the visit) so he could play video games after I left. So after a few visits we found activities we both enjoyed; going to the park, hobby store, playing with trains, games, outside hikes, bike riding, swimming etc. Now, each visit, he begs me to stay and never leave. The subject of video games never comes up. And I do not need to know what limit my son, his father, has decided on, if any. I do know that, at least, while with me, my grandkids know how to have fun the old fashioned way.

I agree with Dr.Georgia. My 3-year-old grandson would come over and just want to play video games most of the time. I sat him down and explained even though he liked the game and wanted to play it, long lengths of time was not healthy. I gave him a time frame of 45-min to an hour that he could play the games. He said, "okay." I guess grandparents can say what we want. I did encourage interaction of my grandson with my other 3 and 4-year old grandchildren and myself. That worked out well with coloring, playing with clay, and playing outside. They love to race. So there are a lot of racing contests. It gives them a chance to run.

My daughter has been married to a gaming addict for the last 10 years. This has always been a huge problem for her but especially since my beautiful 3 grandsons have been alive. Since he (my son-in-law) is in the service he is gone quite a bit but the minute he is home it starts all over again. Needless to say she has filed for divorce recently and allows her boys very little if any time on videos, I support her fully. It is very sad to see these young people completely immerse themselves into this virtual reality so that the real reality becomes obscured and unimportant. To me it is just as bad as heroin or alcohol addiction, it is just more accepted, like a wolf in sheeps clothing.
Can you tell I am very passionate about this!!! Kathy