Addiction Counselor Reacts To Parents Freaking Out Over Video Game Addiction 😲😲😲

You don't understand how much time goes in YouTube videos. I'm feeling you on this one. Dude. Dude, is that. Is that a pig ax that? He just. Oh my God. This is like some kind of like action scary movie. Like the. This is intense. Okay, in this video we're going to be doing something a little different. And this is at my son Weston's request. He actually requested that I do a reaction video for Video Game Addiction. So I found some videos we're going to take a look at together. And we are going to particularly look at how the family is interacting with this problem. Now, I'm going to go ahead and warn you. There is a ton of ton of bad language in what you're about to watch. So just a heads up if that's offensive. You may not want to watch this particular video because it's going to contain a ton of bad language.

Where are all my games? No Dead Rising.

It's gonna be my job. I do. I'm really good at it. I still learned. You got car payment, you got insured. I'm really good at it. Hey, yeah, well, you gotta make money while you're not destroying my game. Pay the. I don't care. You got to get a job. What is it? What is this going to do? How are my game though? Maybe you'll quit playing for a while. Get a job, pay some of your bills. I'm never going to quit playing.

Oh my gosh, you guys, this is serious. This is dramatic. Like, does this seem real to you? I mean, part of me feels like it's so over the top. Could it really be real? But this is some pretty intense emotion. Now know if you have ever dealt with someone who has an addiction or even a kid that just compulsively plays video games and doesn't want to do anything else. I am sure you have felt like this father who wants to just run them over, smash them to smithereens. Let's see what's going to happen next.

You.

You.

It's okay. GameStop was dislikes.

I never met there YouTube videos. Are you thinking funny?

Oh, I'm a native over here.

Oh.

Psycho Jesus.

Hey.

My family.

Okay, so this little interaction, I don't know if this is like the brother or who this other person is behind the camera, but this little interaction makes me feel like this is like for real happening in this family. And the reason is, is because I feel like if it were just filming the meltdown, this person behind the camera wouldn't be so instigating of this young man, who's literally melting down. And what's interesting is you can tell he's just like laughing, laughing at him. He's poking at him when he knows he's clearly very upset. And then when the kid gets mad and sort of throws a video game box or a whatever back at him, he's like, you freaking psycho. I can't believe it. But in my mind's like, dude, you were poking the beast. What did you think was going to happen there?

Oh, that is too bad. Oh, wait, Survivor. Oh, he lost the disco.

So, wow. Like, that was crazy. There is a ton of family dynamics going on right here. You can tell that whoever this other person is behind this camera is just totally an instigator of this problem in the family. Whatever's going on here, this other person gets some kind of secondary need met. Some kind of need. And. And that person's being met by scapegoating this obviously this young guy who has this addiction problem and pitting the parents and him against each other. This other person is definitely in this dynamic, stirring the pot. And the thing I want to point out that's probably the most important or therapeutic piece about this whole thing is when this kid is melting down and saying, I hate my family. Those of you who watch this channel, you guys know all the time that I tell you as the family member, the number one thing you have to do is get out of the bag. I roll. And that is definitely not what is happening in this video. That is the opposite. They're literally pushing this kid, this young man. And I know he may have done a lot of things to deserve this. I'm not saying he didn't. I'm not even saying this isn't warranted or didn't deserve it. What I am saying is this is literally the most ineffective way possible to deal with someone that has an addiction. And you may be thinking to yourself, well, that's old school, you know, that's what my daddy would have done, or something like that. But I'm telling you, this young man isn't going to learn a lesson right here. All he's going to learn is, I hate my family. This is so unfair. I can't believe this is happening to me. It definitely will not stop the addiction. It might prompt some kind of revengeful get back at you type of behavior, but it's definitely not going to get anywhere good. Now let's take a look at a couple of more videos about how families react to video game addiction. And by the way, I am going to Link these videos in the description below.

So what's so bad?

What's so bad?

Yeah.

Okay, now I'm gonna ask you another question. Video games, tv, no school. You want to be a bum? You want to be a bum?

No, I'm making YouTube videos.

I'm making money.

Obviously I'm not a bum.

You ain't making. You ain't making.

That's.

I'm making money for a minute.

You know what? You're a smart ass. I am gonna make sure that you don't play video games. This TV is going off. You watch there. I don't want no tv.

Really?

I don't want no tv.

Really?

I don't want no video games.

No.

Put it back up.

Oh, see, why you gotta piss him off?

What did I just get done telling you?

Fine.

You want to be a smart ass, do what.

Why is he so angry?

Did you turn the TV back on, you idiot?

Yeah. Wow. Again, in this video, I'm seeing a pattern of you got a very angry parent, a very upset young person, and then you got a third person over here who's just poking the beast. I have a feeling that it's a sibling in both these cases, although you can't really see, and I don't know for sure, but I definitely get that feeling. Think.

I don't even know where he go. Oh, you want to play? You want to play? You want to play?

What the.

Your new system. Your new system. You want to see? Are you.

No, no.

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding?

Oh, my God.

You see, what's going on here with this parent is obviously it starts out with the parent being upset because he says the kid is on video games too much. And then he's like, okay, no more video games, no more tv. Turns off the TV and the kid acts like super nonchalant. So now the dad goes and gets the video game and the dag in the video game here. And smashing it, in my mind is a revenge behavior because he's ticked off at this kid for reacting in a way that he feels is disrespectful. And I guess in some ways the kid definitely makes light. He doesn't scream or melt down like the last young fella did, but he just kind laughs it off and acts passive about it, which clearly is not the right thing to do with this dad. But do you see this? This boundary, this way of interacting with this kid like this is not healthy. It's not effective because now the dad is just emotionally reacting to the situation, which I get when you're in this situation, it will definitely make you want to do these things. But telling you again, not effective.

Your new system. Now you ain't got no video game. There, there. I don't give a how much this cost.

What are you doing? What the hell?

So now mom gets involved. So at first, mom was just sort of sitting over there watching it. Now Mom, I guess this is Mom, I'm assuming this is mom is just freaking out and saying, what the heck? What are you doing? And so now you've got the split parenting going on where the mom's trying to go against the dad or at least take up for the kid or calm the situation down. So this is just getting messier by the second.

I'm tired of this.

What is your problem?

What? Turn off the TV until we had this game.

Right?

Okay.

There's no reason.

There's.

He's like Super Saiyan.

Okay, here we go. We got a new one here.

And maybe teach him a little lesson if he doesn't start doing his chores. Logan, I'm talking to you. Your computer's going to be next, so here goes.

Okay, so this is a similar dilemma, but a totally different way of handling it. And this mom is definitely sort of in control of her emotions, but she's purposefully prodding the kid because it's kind of like, I'm making a public example out of you and I'm doing this. And she almost has this sort of like, smiley kind of affect on her face. Like she's getting a lot of enjoyment out of this. Let's see what happens.

Don't do that. That costs a lot of money. Don't. Don't do that.

Stop, stop, stop, stop.

Again, we see a very similar situation here. Somebody else is videoing this. Somebody else is sort of laughing. So not only do. Are you throwing this person into a rage by destroying the thing that they're addicted to, but you got this other person over here laughing at them. So it's just like, you know, you're pushing this person to the brink. And like I said, I'm not taking up for someone that has an addiction. I get that they do a lot of things and they probably don't need to have the video game, you know? But I am telling you, this is a terrible way to go about it. So if you're watching this and you're a parent and you're struggling with this, I understand you're feeling. I got you. I feel you. But please don't do it this way, because I'm telling You. All you're going to do is make it worse. And all the kid is going to think is how they hate you, which is literally going to distract them from realizing that they have a problem. It's just not going to work. In fact, it's not just not going to work. It's going to blow up in your face. It's going to get ten times worse.

I'm so sick of this.

This is what.

This is what I'm talking about.

You in this freaking phone all the time.

Give me it.

Do it. Give me it now.

No.

No. That's it.

I had enough. I had enough. What are you doing? What are you doing? Give me more reason why I shouldn't. I have to text people back.

Why?

Because I have to. No, no.

Oh, my God.

Stop filming. I hate you. Why do you have to snitch? You're.

You have a job. You're going to school. Well, I have to go to school and do.

Well, YouTube is harder than school. You know how many hours I put in? You know how many hours, nights, days I put into my videos?

Huh? You know, you know, it's really hard.

To be a YouTuber.

You've never been one.

What do you mean? You don't give a.

You don't respect me.

I used to respect you.

I had your back.

Okay, so this one is interesting because it seems like. Seems like these must be brothers and the younger brother snitched on the big brother or something and he's melting down saying, you don't understand. I'm kind of relating to this big brother here, though, when he's saying, you don't understand how much time goes in YouTube videos. I'm feeling you on this one, dude. I don't know what happened or what or why this kid snitched, but. Oh, this is about to get. This is about to get messy. Let's see what happens.

Are you snitched?

Huh?

You want me to do something? Yeah, do something.

Okay.

Snitch. I should have done this a long ass time ago.

Calm down, bro. I can't stand you. Calm down.

I told you.

Dude. Is that. Is that a pickaxe that he just go down into the garage, open the door and literally there was like a pickaxe, like Fortnite style pickaxe by the door. What the heck? Who has a pickaxe by their garage door? Like it's. It's almost like he didn't even step in the garage. He just reached over there and grabbed it. Like, I think that's what that was. Is that what that was.

I told you not to tell my mom.

No, no.

Shut up.

Oh my God. This is like some kind of like action scary movie. Like the. This whole interaction is almost like you see in a movie where someone's holding someone's family member hostage or something. I mean, wow, this is intense.

Holy, guys.

Okay, so I don't know what that the older brother did that the younger one told on about. But you know what that reminds me of a lot is a lot of times parents who have kids struggling with addiction, whatever that addiction is, they may find out like that their kid is using with this other kid or even if it's an adult, like your spouse is using with this other kid, other person. And I get asked a lot of times by family members like, should I tell on them? Should I like call the other kids parents and tell the other kids parents what's going on? Should I, you know, call their work, call my spouse's work and tell them what's going on? And in general, I advise against doing that. And I think you're going to sort of tell on someone if it's a safety issue, then yeah, if you're keeping someone safe. But if it's just like I'm going to tell on you to thinking that that's going to get it to stop, usually all you're going to get is a reaction just like this young man had where he was just so furious and vengeful. In my experience, that usually is just going to blow up in your face.

The reason why I stopped the video is because my parents were coming in. Look, he's crying over there. He deserved the doofu. Snitch. I told you not to snitch, dude. And you better not tell my mom. You better not tell my mom.

Dude, dude, shut up.

Dude. That's what you get.

Shut the up.

This is.

Why do you hate me?

You better not tell my mom and dad.

So it's interesting. So now it's like you can see the aftermath. They sort of cool down and. And you can hear him sort of come up the stairs and he's saying like that's what he deserved, but I don't know. And in his voice it's like I can hear like a tinge of like regret, like I think I went too far. But then immediately he starts sort of even out loud justifying his reaction that he just had. And he's watching his kid meltdown. Not only is now he's scared that the brother's going to tell him for doing that, but I can Tell in the back of his head, he knows that that was a mistake. But instead of just admitting that that was a mistake, he's going to continue to say he had it coming, he deserved it. Which is what happens when we make bad decisions is we just sort of justify it in our head. Especially when you have an addiction going on. And when you're coming at someone with an addiction like that, you're just literally helping them. You're just giving them ammunition to justify. In fact, I think that's like one of the more enabling things that you can do is allow yourself to be put in that bad guy role so that now all their attention is on you as the villain versus the problem.

Because they used to ride. You better not.

You better shut the up.

Dude.

Dude.

That's what you get. And this is going on uses.

What the hell with this Popcorn all over the couch and all over the floor. You did that. Say it was me and you look it up. I'm. Well, we're still eating it.

What about the stuff I asked you to do? Okay, Take the trash out, put the dishes away. I get home, the trash is full. The dishwasher still full of dishes.

I thought I did that. I did that, right? I don't know what's up with the camera. It's. She started filming.

I don't know.

But anyway, you sleep till noon, 2.

O' clock in the afternoon. You don't go to bed all night and you got time to sit down here and play a video game or.

I. Okay, I forgot about the dishes.

Video game.

I'll do it next time, okay? Don't you know why?

Because I asked you to do these things. Two things. Oh, and Grandpa. Grandpa just got a hospital and I asked you three days ago to cut his lawn for him because he can't do it right now.

Me and grandma were doing.

I had to go over and do it. I had to cut his grass. All you do is play video games.

Stay on there.

1 o' clock in the morning, sleep till 2 o' clock in the afternoon.

Okay. What?

That's what I do. What? I'm a gamer. Yeah, I'll guess that, huh? Let's just go back to playing.

I mean, I don't know for sure if this dad's freaking out because there's an actual video game addiction or this is more in line with just sort of parenting stuff and the kids sort of neglecting their chores. But this is an example of letting your emotions get a hold of you. Making decisions out of emotions, which I understand. I'M a parent, and we all sort of reach our limit and we get there. But this kind of discipline, this kind of teaching a lesson, it just rarely. It just doesn't. It just doesn't teach a lesson. Sometimes you can sort of force people into compliance, but you can't force people into learning what you want them to learn. And in fact, the harder you try to sort of shove it down their throat like that, the less likely they're going to be to. To hear what you really want to hear.

Dad.

Dad. What even was that? Dad, what's going on? Do you think that's a say, a way to deal with things.

How you do things?

Point to camera.

That's not how you treat your son.

I told you to get some things done around here. And all you do is stay in bed all the way to, like, 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. You stay up at 6 o' clock in the morning, you don't get nothing done.

Sorry, guess what?

You're gonna get some stuff done.

All right, guys, we're gonna stop this right here. And I'm just gonna tell you, like, if you're watching this and you're struggling, you're related and you're like. And you're thinking, yeah, that showed him a lesson, or that's what he needed to do, I'm gonna strongly suggest that you. That you hop over to my channel and watch my videos on boundaries. You know, how do you hold boundaries? Because clearly this is a parenting issue where the kid's not following through with his responsibilities, which I understand and can be frustrating. But this father is sort of violating the boundary and all these young people are learning is basically, these are like revenge behaviors. And so check out that video on boundaries. In fact, I really want you to watch it. If you've got any of this going on your family, and I'm going to put it right up here for you just so you don't even have to look for it. I'm gonna put it right up here so you can watch it. And lastly, if you're watching this video and you're a young person and you're thinking, yeah, that's how my parents are, and we'll make them watch this video of yours. Amber, I would think twice about that, because when you do that, you're probably just gonna be instigating your parents. So maybe it's could. You could have a little conversation about it. But definitely don't use my video as a way to say, see, I told you, you're responding the wrong way, because you're just going to instigate an argument when you do that. All right, you guys watch this boundary video next, because I feel like after watching this, we all gonna need some boundaries videos. Oh, my gosh.