I couldn't do one more day of sitting around while everyone watched movies. It's one of my pet peeves. Not watching a movie, but watching movies (or anything else) instead of living real life. It's no different than a drunk or a drug addict. When the "imaginary world" becomes a more significant part of your life than the REAL world-there's a problem-a "runaway from life" problem.
When it's drugs, alcohol, porn, it gets labeled addiction. But, when it's simply "entertainment" and you're still holding down a good job, keeping the grades up in school.... well that's just different.
Except... is it? Is it different than an addiction if it's ruining your personal relationships because you're too busy running away to the imaginary world to put the necessary time into the real life relationships to keep them maintained?
I don't think so.
Last night-I left all of the kids at home watching more movies with Maca. I went and hung out with friends (GG was away with his own friends).
Today, I had a talk (instigated by a rude little conversation the boys had with Mimi) with the "family" and specifically the boys.
1. Both boys were very adamant about spending 14 hours (14yo) and 21 hours (11 yo) a week "maintaining" their family relationships.
2. Both said that they personally believed that movies and video games were a detractor from building/maintaining relationships.
3. They both individually concluded that they believed that they needed to spend at least 5-6 hours a day focused on their relationships with the family in order to maintain them TO THE LEVEL THAT THEY EACH WOULD LIKE THEM TO BE AT.
In other words, they aren't happy with where their relationships are and they have a good idea what is needed to reach the level that they do want.... so where's the breakdown?
They both admitted, the breakdown was that they were lazy about doing the "easy quick fix" (watching movies and/or playing video games) instead of taking the time to do the things (they said "any physical activity that motivates us to talk") with the rest of the people in the family that would get them WHAT THEY WANT-by maintaining their relationships.
They were even able to say (without provocation) that they knew that when I was bitching about them playing the games or watching the movies it was because it bothered me that they weren't getting what THEY WANT out of their relationships with the rest of us.....
So.... I can't help but wonder, did it impact the thought processess of any of the other adults? This fact that the kids KNOW the relationships suck and WANT closer relationships with the whole family AND know that the gaming and movie watching is impeding their progress?