[m0zg]

Oh no, I'm not "waiting". I'm trying to convince him that he's making bad choices, that he's making his own life dramatically harder in the long run, and so on, trying to get him to actually think what he wants to be when he grows up and create a plan of some sort for how to get there, maybe. He even nods in agreement. The moment I turn around he fires up a game or YouTube and he's right back to his dopamine cycle. So I'm afraid the school of hard knocks it'll have to be.

There's this misconception among non-parents (or even parents of well behaved kids) that kids are robots and they will automatically listen to whatever "lessons" you give them. That may or may not happen, depending on the kid, and you really have little to no control over whether it does happen.

And gaming, social media, etc, companies aren't making any of this any easier, unfortunately. This is something we'll have to pay a heavy price for in 10 years or so, that much is pretty certain.

[AussieWog93]

I'll play devil's advocate here: is he making a bad choice because of simple dopamine addiction or does he actually not want to go down the path that you want him to?

My 17 year-old cousin is flunking school because (in his parents' eyes) he was "addicted" to online gaming, yet strangely when with other family members his "addiction" symptoms would disappear and he would be helpful, diligent and talkative. He'd even listen to advice and help out unprompted. As in, you literally take a phone call and come back and he's doing the dishes. Not playing Fortnite, not watching YouTube, scrubbing plates.

The reality of the situation, that's painfully obvious to everyone except his mum and dad, is that a) there is some sort of breakdown in the relationship that has nothing to do with online technology (he has his iPhone on him 24/7 and will go hours without using it outside the home) and b) he fully understands that dedicating himself to his studies will help him follow the path his parents want for him - it's just not what he wants.

Drug addicts disengage from society well before they become addicted. I don't see any reason why "Dopamine addicts" are any different.

[m0zg]

I'd be happy to support whatever "path" he wants at this point, though it'd of course be much easier for me to support something related to STEM. Best I can tell, he doesn't have any plan or path. He just expects to ride on my coattails for the rest of his life, which I articulated to him many time is not something I'm willing to allow.

In contrast, growing up in rural Russia I had no coattails to ride on (and my father told me this countless times), so I'm a rather extreme example of social upward mobility.

[olau]

My kids almost never do what I tell them unless they can see the point in it themselves.

To me, it sounds like the school is either bad or the match with where your son is right now is wrong.

I've always been curious, also as a kid, but I do remember most of the class mates spending most of their time staring blankly out in the void. The only reasonable conclusion is that those lessons were wrong.

Just like if you design a UI and 70% of your users can't use it. Then we blame the designer, not the laziness of the users.

As an adult, I've since learned that large parts of the establishment doesn't regard people as humans. They don't care.

[mlyle]

I'm a middle school teacher. I try to create engaging, interesting lessons for a clear path for why things are worthwhile. I also only teach what many students consider "fun stuff": robotics, "How to Make Almost Anything," etc. My programs and classes have done pretty well in the past on metrics of engagement, learning, student satisfaction, etc-- partially because of the cheat code of having material that's pretty intrinsically interesting.

There is still a pretty big subset of students that without the threat of enforcement or bad grades leading to parental action, will do almost nothing. It's especially visible now with some of my students being remote-- it's a constant battle to avoid previously engaged, excited, and interested students from just popping a Fortnite window open and escaping the class discussion.

I can make 75% of my class time fun; I can make it pretty obvious why the skills we practice are extremely valuable stuff in both the near term and the long term whether or not they decide to be an engineer one day. But I can't make every minute of class time more immediately rewarding than playing Fortnite.

[m0zg]

Case in point: one of my son's classes is video game design. That's one of those "F"s he's going to get. I've looked at it as I was helping him, the class is actually surprisingly good. If this is not sufficiently engaging, nothing will ever be.

And as far as parental action, parents can't really do shit nowadays. Nearly 100% of homework is done on a computer, which of course also runs games and YouTube, and provides endless opportunities for distraction.

[mlyle]

re: nothing to be done: There's always spyware/locking down devices/etc. You -can- do stuff, but you need to really think about whether it's worth it.

I hear you saying the class is surprisingly good. Just for anyone else, though: keep an open mind and open ears about these kinds of classes. There is a whole lot of "fun STEM" out there that is really... not. Nothing is more soul-crushing than something that's supposed to be fun being mindless small steps way below one's ability.

I do my very best to -not- have my classes be in that category, most of the time.

[m0zg]

Spyware or locking down doesn't really work in this day and age if the kid is using a Windows PC. In most (if not all) Windows PCs you have local access to you can create an administrative account not subject to parental controls or anything else. No admin access is required to create it. This is trivially discoverable through Google.

And I think the class I mentioned is genuinely good, actually. It's how I'd teach the subject - builds up from simple to complex, using an industry-leading game engine (Unity), interesting assignments, etc. Of course kids nowadays want to build an AAA 3D game right off the bat, but there's value in understanding that this doesn't work, and you have to start simple.

[mlyle]

If your kid bypasses controls, though, that's something else you can address. Surely you have some levers you can pull.

My eldest is currently locked down on devices because he googled a couple of answers to the online advanced math class he was taking. (It was stupid; he had honestly completed much harder problems but for some reason decided to cheat on a couple of easy ones).

He's not going to bypass controls because A) he knows he will get access back (carrot), and B) he knows that if he further abuses trust that things can get much worse (stick)... and of course C) he knows that we will know if controls are bypassed.

[m0zg]

> The only reasonable conclusion is that those lessons were wrong

There's another reasonable conclusion: some kids just don't give a shit no matter what you do. That much is plainly obvious to any parent who has such a kid.

[uoaei]

This is gonna sound harsh, but:

You haven't earned the trust of your children.