Rust Anger and Anxiety Decreasing game time without meltdowns

[Raikou]

My son is 12. He has been playing Rust. He plays an hour and ten minutes twice a day every other day. He used to play other games but has become fixated on this game lately. I am gradually reducing his time. I realized after research this game has a toxic online community. It's been hard living in a hot place this summer no money to spend on doing things. Last night my son became very agitated when I would need to speak with him while playing the game. He has become disrespectful to me and doesn't want to do anything anymore except games. If I call him on the disrespect he gets more upset. He tells me to stop or it will make it worse (the volume. ) Someone in the home was not feeli G well and he was being loud in game (excitement.) I had him get off the game. He wanted to go back to it an hour later. I said no. I let him know what I found out about Rust and that I think it is unhealthy. I told him I don't want him playing it anymore. He asked me afterward if he could keep PubG and Unturned. I don't know how to proceed. I definitely want Rust gone. I don't want to crush it for him since he has friends from school that he plays with. I am going to tell him not to make any friends he doesn't already know. If any of them are behaving in a negative way, I don't want him playing with them. Here's my question. How do you transition off of specific games the child already has wants to play now instead of Rust? (Pubg Unturned Apex Legends) without taking everything he likes away or disturbing the entire household with an outburst? I feel these games are bad news. He likes creative survival etc. Any ideas help greatly appreciated. I think it has become a social feel good outlet and escape.

Sincere thanks all

 

 

[Hmmge]

I'm not a parent, but I'll share my 2 cents: It is vital that you give your son an alternative to gaming. If all he wants to do is gaming and you take it away, it will only create resistance and resentment. It's like taking all he enjoys away, leaving him sitting in a boring room with nothing fun to do. Even though there are other things, it's hard to see when the gaming immersion was strong. It's generally not a sustainable strategy to force somebody to do or not do something. Rather, we should try to make them themselves want to change. It might be the case that a kid is just too young to understand the long-term negative impacts, in which case the only way to make them want to stop is to give them something else they want instead. Is there something else he likes? Such as sports, building stuff, other outdoors activities, or even just other entertainment. Try to replace his gaming time with doing that activity instead. If there isn't anything obvious that he wouldn't mind doing instead of gaming, I would make it my highest priority to show him. To show him people(preferably teens) doing cool non-gaming things. I'd show him what even very young composers can do with music, how they actually do it in practice(Ashton Gleckman is fricking 18 years old and he's already a famous composer), I'd show kids building robots, I'd show kids doing street tricks with skateboards and parkour, I'd show programmers/hackers and what they can do, I'd show art, I'd show technology, I'd show travel, anything that might spark that curiosity flame that will engulf him by finding out about a completely new world and finding it even cooler and more fun than games.

That's how I would approach it.

[Raikou]

Thank you so much Tom! It has been very difficult for me. I am disabled. I will take your advice as it seems perfectly logical. He loves building, has a million Lego and wants to make a stop motion with Lego. I will begin there. Thank you for taking the time to write your response!