As someone who did this to their parents when I was 14, didn’t attend any school past that, went to university (found creative ways to get in), dropped out, still got a job and then ended up being at the top earners in my profession, I can honestly say there are lots of paths through life, though to be honest it was touch and go a few times. My parents tried a lot of things, some pushed me nearly over the edge to worse things than playing games and refusing to leave my room.
What actually helped eventually is my father spending time with me to understand why I was doing it and eventually offering to drive me to a psychiatrist twice a week when I asked for it to sort my head out, though it took 2-3 till I found one that clicked with me.
I guess I just wanted to say… don’t feel like a criminal, it’s hard being young, especially for some who are intelligent or different.
Responding to OP, a few too many parallell sub-threads.
Addiction to video games is a very different thing to using video games as a coping mechanism for severe mental health issues, which sounds to be the case here. Removing video games is just removing the coping mechanism, not solving the core issue.
This stuff requires professional help to deal with. If your kid is having issues with anxiety disorders / autism / adhd / etc, they may be in a situation where they simply cannot handle seeing a psychiatrist in-person (i.e. verbal shut-down, complete anxious breakdown from leaving the house, etc) which makes receiving a diagnosis... almost impossible. A diagnosis you need to qualify for most help offered by society.
As a parent you are completely f*cked if the place you live in does not offer the correct help in situations like this. You are forced to navigate through welfare systems that are not at all designed to handle people with these issues, and forced to expose your child to (to them) potentially mega-traumatic experiences, making treatment even harder.
This group of kids is growing larger in all western societies and most don't have systems in place to help them (yet).
Being faced with threats of prosecution as a parent in this situation sounds extremely rough... I have family that have dealt with similar issues in another country, and it is finally starting to improve after ~8 years of depression, missed education, navigating overloaded and maladapted welfare systems. Getting in contact with a psychiatrist over video call to get a diagnosis + treatment was a sloooow but eventual start to a solution. Getting a diagnosis helps to qualify for better help.
Being excessively reclusive needn't be a death sentence. Have you tried to transition to home-schooling[0], which might get the law off your back? If he is interested in gaming, perhaps he could try his hand at game development, or parts of it such as music or art. Spending a couple of hours each day working (with you perhaps) on some skills and then publishing something on itch.io - say a short PICO-8 game - might help open him up a little and give him some street cred with former friends and classmates.
Hey, these outsiders commenting on your situation are armchair generals. Don't fret. Everybody has different problems, but we all have problems. We get dealt different hands in life and not all of 'em can be played perfectly, you just work with the cards you're dealt.
If you can't get him in to school, then this doesn't sound like truancy, it sounds like a disability. A medical diagnosis of some mental issue would get the law off of your back and make accommodations available to you and your family, at least I assume so having lived my 30-something years in a couple of other Anglosphere countries. Here they'll give you options for home learning (but still within the public system, homeschool is a different option), for part-time public-school 2 days a week, or for other accommodations to help a needy kid.
Just wanted to say it's alright, and nothing is necessarily your fault -- I've struggled with some very similar problems to the ones you have. It's going OK now though! School is working again!
I know nothing of the specifics so please forgive me if this sounds obvious or insulting...
It might help to sit him down and have an adult conversation with him about the whole situation. Kids show a surprising amount of astuteness when necessary. The important thing is to approach the situation as a team (you with your son against the world, as opposed to you against what your son is doing). Maybe framed as "If you don't want to go out anymore, we can work together to make you comfortable and safe, but the government has rules and they're going to fight us - so we all need to put our heads together to figure out how to make this work!" Figure out what compromises he'd be happy with, and what ways there are for "enlarging the pie" so that he feels like you're on his side in the end. With greater trust between you, he might start talking more about what's going on in his head.
This might make it easier to have specialists come in to see him, because you can explain to him that you need diagnosis X from this guy to get the government off the family's back. Just whatever you do, don't trick him (lie about why someone is there to see him). Lose his trust and you lose him.
Unfortunately, there is little empathy on the Internet. People will take the two bits of information you offer, think they understood the whole situation with all its facets perfectly, and start to give questionable advice and mete out harsh judgement. The intent may be good, but the outcome is no better here on HN than on the more infamous platforms.
So my unasked-for advice would be to not discuss your situation with people on the Internet and as quickly as possible forget what they told you or think about you. You are the only one who really knows what is going on. So is your son, BTW. So what does he want? (Don't answer here!)
I'm probably telling you something you already know, but that really, really sounds like depression. I have experience of close family with depression and the way you describe his behaviour is very similar. Has he been seen by any kind mental health practitioner? I know the psychiatric services here in the UK are terribly stretched, but he and you sound like you need external help. Even if it takes a while for you to see a psychiatrist, your GP may be able to provide some help.
I hope you manage to find a way through this and are able to get some help. My kids are not teenagers yet, but this sort of thing is one of my big worries for the future.
But like, additions and anxiety treatment are not treated by enabling. When kids get to mental health hospital, they can not play games whole day. Instead, a system of rewards and punishments is created and they are forced to increasingly participate in life activities.
I do not want to criticize OP, because the mental health issues are hard and help is oftentimes next to impossible to get. For all "contact doctor", half of the time you get no help. Even hospitalization can be super hard to get unless the kid clearly suicidal.
But, the idea that taking away PlayStation or severly limiting it, that forcing the kid to push the boundaries is somehow cruel is just wrong.
I didn't say that and I'm not sure what the fallacy you just employed is called.
It's cruel and inhumane to forcibly remove someone's access to something they are personally and emotionally invested in. It's cruel and inhumane to force one's own view of a “good life” on someone who obviously disagrees.
The real challenge of parenting is to find ways to help your child without resorting to cruelty. Your fallacy is to assume that cruelty is necessary and that anyone who criticizes the cruelty must somehow be criticizing the desire to help.
Sometimes forcing a person out of their comfort zone is the best thing that can happen to them. In fact, nearly all good things that have happened in my life have required me to exit my comfort zone, which for a long time was playing games alone at home. Sometimes it has happened voluntarily, sometimes due to government (conscription) or social pressure (going to study in another city, because that's what you are supposed to do). In all cases, the outcome was good. My social skills improved, I got education, a job, wife, children, nice travel experiences.
> t's cruel and inhumane to forcibly remove someone's access to something they are personally and emotionally invested in.
Not always. And not in this case. It is not cruel and may be necessary.
> It's cruel and inhumane to force one's own view of a “good life” on someone who obviously disagrees.
Speaking about fallacies, this framing is clearly not what is going on in that situation. In either way, the kid is growing to be entirely unable to live without caregiver of a sort, so yes, it is duty of parents to intervene regardless of kids agreement.