How to handle different rules about video games at friend's house?
My 8-year old son, like many boys his age, is obsessed with video games. We try to have a rule at our house where he's allowed to play certain games that are appropriate to his age, for only a specific period. During the week, if he's done his homework and has behaved well in school, then he's allowed 30 minutes. During the week-end, it's 2 hours/day.
This has been working well for us (even if he complains at times). However, he recently made a new friend who's also into video games, but the rules at his house are obviously very different. There doesn't seem to be any limit of "screen" time, and he's also allowed to play games with a rating of M (!). We think this is unacceptable and have told the boy's parents that our son is not allowed to play certain games at their house. They are quite fine with that, but somehow our son still gets exposed to games that we don't agree with (either because the friend talks about them at school, or will show the games while his parents are not watching, or the parents think that this is a mild game, and we disagree).
So there has been a lot of fighting in our house about us being unfair, about how these games are fine and we don't understand, etc., etc. The problem is that this kid's parents are very nice people, we like them, and we really like the little boy, so we don't want to end the friendship. In general they have values that are very similar to ours; this is the only area where we disagree.
And thus my question: How can I explain to my son that we disagree with these rules without giving him the impression that we think his friend's parents are bad?
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Is he upset because his friend has a different set of rules, or is he upset because he's not allowed to play these video games?
At this age, your son is able to understand that different households have different rules. I would approach it from the standpoint of, "We love Johnny and we love Johnny's parents, but we have different rules in this house than Johnny has at his house." End of story. Then, invite Johnny and his parents over for dinner so that your son can see that two households don't have to be identical to be friendly with each other. He doesn't have to like the fact that the rules at your house aren't the same as the rules at Johnny's house.
If you haven't all ready done so, it might be a good time to sit down with him and explain to him exactly what it is about these games that you find so inappropriate. But the issue is really a two-fold one: he doesn't like your rules, and he doesn't really understand why he can't play these particular games. If you feel like the games undermine your particular value system, then you can tell him exactly why. It will also give you the opportunity to reinforce that you don't believe that Johnny's parents are bad because they let Johnny play these games.
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