Parenting in the virtual world?
These last couple of days have been a challenge in parenting. My son who is now 7 has really started to test the waters of obeying the rules, and making good decisions.
He was recently gifted a Oculus Quest, Virtual Reality system. We really enjoy it for the most part. One of the things I don’t really like is that fact I can not see what he is playing unless I cast it to the phone, or the TV. That is also one of the things we like about it, since he can still play while my husband and I can watch TV since it does not require a TV.
This gaming system is recommended for 13 and older age range So many of the games often have older group of people playing, and has open to speak to other players online. Which I am not personally against but I do not feel he is mature enough to play online with his microphone for various reasons. At first I let him play it with his mic muted trusting in the fact that he was following the rules established. One day I noticed he was talking while playing so I decided to quietly cast the video and check to see if he was playing one of the multiplayer games. Which he was, so I asked him ( he did not know I could see his screen) if he was talking on the mic, as he told me know he went to the settings to mute the mic and then proceeded to hand me the viewer to “Check” that the mic was muted. I honestly did not think he knew how to navigate that options as easy and seamlessly as he did. He did eventually tell the truth and own up to what he did. Long story short he continued to try to be sneaky and eventually I deleted the game from the device........ end of story right?! NOOOOOOOO
This kid managed to find and download the game again!!! YEAH... I. LOST. MY. MARBLES!!! And now he has no VR. I admit I am guilty of letting him play and use the VR when I have or want to do something else, and when I don’t want to be bothered. And lately has been more often since Im back to work and have not been the best at my mom, teacher, maid, etc, duties. It is the holiday season and Im so tired and hate that I just want it to be done and over with.
This year has been such a stressful, chaotic, overwhelming year, there really is not enough words to express what this year has been. I find myself wondering how can I balance this life, of mom, teacher, wife, maid, chef, and employee.
What I can do is count the blessings, and I know my life if so full of them. Simple and grand blessings. I am so thankful that through all his mistakes and not so great decisions, my little boy always tells the truth and tries to do right, he prays for the strength to be better everyday, he does all things in love and grace, he is forgiving and all in all I am proud of the young man that he is becoming.
I often wonder how I am doing as parent, in those moments I remind myself of how far we have come and how much more there really is to go. I always tell him how thankful and proud I am of the good things he does (telling the truth, even when he is scared). I know I have high expectations of him, and its my job to give grace and know he is still learning and growing to meet them everyday.
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