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Pascal remembers Monica
Pascal remembers Monica
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Trust that the friendships are stable enough to survive this. You say it took your son a long time to make these boys his friends. Games are fascinating to kids, but themost kids aren't stupid. If one of them is forbidden to play, or forbidden to play except half an hour every other day, if the friendship was worth anything at all before clash of clans happened, it will hold.

If it's really like you say, maybe providing the boys with something cool to do might remind them that there are other things they can do together besides playing computer games. If you live near a forest, have your husband goad them into a pine-cone fight. Give them materials to set up their own tree house. Or maybe there's a wall that needs painting and you can turn it over to them, with the explicit orders to paint it any way they like. Near a beach? Water and dirt - that's perfect. Winter? No problem, show them how to build an igloo. Or start a snowball fight. There's tons of things boys love to do; just because they've discovered video games doesn't mean they don't love doing these things any more.

I regularly goad my son's friends into snow-ball fights and ping-pong matches. They love competing against adults, especially if they have a chance at winning. Try playing soccer with three ten-year-olds, and you know what I mean.

Sometimes I think video games are just a poor substitute for human interaction. Offer kids a bit of your time, and they jump at the opportunity to do something with you. I fear that won't work much longer - once they're thirteen, fourteen, I guess they'll have their own priorities. But for now, it might be a way to remind them there are other things they love to do.

Trust that the friendships are stable enough to survive this. You say it took your son a long time to make these boys his friends. Games are fascinating to kids, but the kids aren't stupid. If one of them is forbidden to play, or forbidden to play except half an hour every other day, if the friendship was worth anything at all before clash of clans happened, it will hold.

If it's really like you say, maybe providing the boys with something cool to do might remind them that there are other things they can do together besides playing computer games. If you live near a forest, have your husband goad them into a pine-cone fight. Give them materials to set up their own tree house. Or maybe there's a wall that needs painting and you can turn it over to them, with the explicit orders to paint it any way they like. Near a beach? Water and dirt - that's perfect. Winter? No problem, show them how to build an igloo. Or start a snowball fight. There's tons of things boys love to do; just because they've discovered video games doesn't mean they don't love doing these things any more.

Trust that the friendships are stable enough to survive this. You say it took your son a long time to make these boys his friends. Games are fascinating to kids, but most kids aren't stupid. If one of them is forbidden to play, or forbidden to play except half an hour every other day, if the friendship was worth anything at all before clash of clans happened, it will hold.

If it's really like you say, maybe providing the boys with something cool to do might remind them that there are other things they can do together besides playing computer games. If you live near a forest, have your husband goad them into a pine-cone fight. Give them materials to set up their own tree house. Or maybe there's a wall that needs painting and you can turn it over to them, with the explicit orders to paint it any way they like. Near a beach? Water and dirt - that's perfect. Winter? No problem, show them how to build an igloo. Or start a snowball fight. There's tons of things boys love to do; just because they've discovered video games doesn't mean they don't love doing these things any more.

I regularly goad my son's friends into snow-ball fights and ping-pong matches. They love competing against adults, especially if they have a chance at winning. Try playing soccer with three ten-year-olds, and you know what I mean.

Sometimes I think video games are just a poor substitute for human interaction. Offer kids a bit of your time, and they jump at the opportunity to do something with you. I fear that won't work much longer - once they're thirteen, fourteen, I guess they'll have their own priorities. But for now, it might be a way to remind them there are other things they love to do.

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Pascal remembers Monica
Pascal remembers Monica
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I don't want my son to play these games because they change him in a way I find alarming.

I have sons around the age of your boy as well. They all play clash of clans, too, and I've noticed the same behaviour changes (talking of little else). The game also is a constant source of conflict in our family.

What can I do?

My wife and I started limiting the game time with a point system; the more they helped around the household, the more game time they got. We set a cap at 40 minutes a day and made it hard to actually earn that much playing time each day, but that system didn't work out so well, so now we're back to "you can play when we say you can", and we let them play for maybe twenty minutes a day if we feel they've earned it (which isn't every day), and only when all their homework is done and they've finished practicing their musical intruments etc (it's easy to enforce because none of our children have mobile phones yet - they need our family tablet in order to play).

We see little value in completely forbidding them to play. While you may be right that these games are addicting, a lot of things in life are, and we feel we have to teach them how do deal with that before they become teenagers and we lose more of our influence to their peers.

At the same time, these games are the only thing all his friends and classmates are (currently) interested in, and I don't want to destroy his friendships for him.

Trust that the friendships are stable enough to survive this. You say it took your son a long time to make these boys his friends. Games are fascinating to kids, but the kids aren't stupid. If one of them is forbidden to play, or forbidden to play except half an hour every other day, if the friendship was worth anything at all before clash of clans happened, it will hold.

I am quite convinced that some of his friends' parents don't see the problem I do

That's possible. But maybe a few of them also think that excessive gaming isn't good for their kid, and only allow it because all the other parents do. So limiting your son's exposure to the game might help these parents do the same with their kids.

I'd suggest a game-time reduction, not complete shutdown. This is much easier to sell to other parents; if you can talk to two or three of your son's friend's parents and reach an agreement that you'll all try to reduce the amount of time the boys play, that should go a long way in solving some of your problems, and it has a much higher chance of actually suceeding than if you try to convince other parents that a zero-tolerance-policy is the only way forward.

Of course things are easier if the boys actually have other things to do besides playing computer games. We live near a forest, and my kids like playing soccer and ping-pong, so that helps.

When he visits his friends, or they come visiting, they all sit bent over their mobile phones and play. When they are not allowed to play, they do not know what to do. Literally. They sit and wait for the time to pass until they may play again.

Make it absolutely clear that they won't be allowed to play after their alloted time for the day. If these boys are anything like my kids and their friends, they will get bored and start to think about what else they could do.

If it's really like you say, maybe providing the boys with something cool to do might remind them that there are other things they can do together besides playing computer games. If you live near a forest, have your husband goad them into a pine-cone fight. Give them materials to set up their own tree house. Or maybe there's a wall that needs painting and you can turn it over to them, with the explicit orders to paint it any way they like. Near a beach? Water and dirt - that's perfect. Winter? No problem, show them how to build an igloo. Or start a snowball fight. There's tons of things boys love to do; just because they've discovered video games doesn't mean they don't love doing these things any more.