[bethyls]

I did my EE undergrad at Stanford (now in my early 30s).

Throughout college I watched an absolutely insane amount of TV. I would procrastinate the hell out of every problem set and coding assignment I was given, often staying up until 4am or later to binge watch anything I could find. At the time, I certainly thought I had an addiction, and there were moments when I felt like I needed to just get my shit together and be less lazy and all my problems would go away. This never really happened, and I wasn't close to top of my class, but I still managed to graduate without issue and it didn't hurt me in getting internships/jobs.

With the benefit of hindsight, therapy, and over a decade of distance, I can see very clearly that I was actually struggling with some deep mental health issues (among them: depression, ADHD, and CPTSD) and was leaning heavily on TV as a coping mechanism. My parents were deeply involved in my life growing up to a degree that I believe was very detrimental (and their behavior was absolutely one of the direct causes of the mental health struggles that I'm still dealing with today). During college, this “involvement” often meant giving me lectures about how I was in danger of falling behind my peers because I wasn’t interning at Google (and because when I visited home I defaulted to watching more TV).

You say in your post that your child’s grades are “not great”. In the comments, you say they have a 3.0. There is literally nothing wrong with this. Your child’s grades are fine. My grades were fine too, and my parents similarly disagreed.

My take, based solely on the extremely limited information from this post and my heavy personal bias, is that your child is doing the best they can while dealing with something deeper than a gaming disorder. My advice is to let them be. Be supportive, and trust them to handle their work, education, and emotions in whatever way they think is best. It does not at all sound like they are “throwing away a great educational opportunity” (and again, this is basically what my parents said to me in a similar situation).

I apologize if this comes across as hostile — reading this was admittedly somewhat triggering for me, and despite their flaws, I do believe my parents did what they thought was best. At the same time, their best was sorely lacking. In the off chance my take is correct, I believe being supportive without trying to intervene will probably work out in the long run. If I happen to be wrong, it certainly won’t hurt.

[theGnuMe]

I am you basically but opposite in that my parents were totally uninvolved. I had food and shelter but no emotional support and no micromanaging insistence that I do well. I actually wish they had talked to me about school or emotional things... but they don't have those skills. They were both high achieving professors, always busy and always working, so I felt an intrinsic expectation to do a PhD. My parents also hated each other so there's that too. I guess what I am trying to say is that you can get to the same place (depression, adhd etc..) from different paths. In your case "tiger" parenting and in my case "hands off" parenting.

It's interesting that what happened in the past doesn't really matter now or for the future.. huh.. I guess it makes sense that we are all depressed from different reasons... but really all here in the same place now.

[throwawayigd]

Thank you.. I do 100% agree that there's nothing wrong with 3.0, I honestly do, and FWIW have never bothered them about the grades or said that they are not good. I was around average back in my day and have told them that.

My worry is primarily about the insane amount of gaming that we're able to observe during summer and no idea if that was the case during the semester or if it will resolve during the fall when classes hit. It is definitely likely that there's some other underlying issue, but having a 19 year old share that with you is a hard problem, and hence I was looking for advise/pointers or general thoughts on whether I should just leave them alone and hope it resolves.

Unfortunately, to leave them on their own devise is not easy for a parent, but perhaps we should.

[null_investor]

Sir or madam, you need to go see a psychologist. You have real control issues. You and your SO need counseling really bad. Go talk to a professional, I can't believe you are asking this question in HN! Funnily enough, even people here are more considerate than yourself with your sibling.

Your "child"(actually, an adult) is a person and a person has desires. They might be full of your shit and don't care so much about your precious investments you've made to get them the education you are paying for. They've never had to work for it. Does it hurt? You have to deal with this.

You are probably rich as you can afford this, so it means you are well-studied, so I'll suppose you understand how the brain works given different stimuli and you gave your "child" (of 19) the wrong idea about the world for 19 years, now you expect it to just get a wide comprehension of the world and perform well?

They will never be able to give as much value as for example, I would if I had that opportunity at that age, but I understand him/her.

You have a sickening desire of control of your sibling as if they were your property. You need to go see a professional, now.

You have no control over them, I bet if you keep being a PITA they will start doing drug and that will be all your fault. Get professional help before it's too late.

And let the 'kid' play their games.