Just When You Thought it Was Safe

What a trying week we have had.  I have wrestled with whether or not to post this and I am just going to do it.  Come what may.

On the 27th we found out that T. has been getting up in the middle of the night and playing World of Warcraft with a group in Australia.  Someone (or a couple someones) in a guild playing group convinced him to use Skype to communicate with them and since they play between 12 and about 5 a.m. he has been setting his phone alarm and getting up to play with them for the past few months. 

We keep the game on the desktop in the family room so there is no "private" playing and we allow only up to 2 hours (yes, I know that is a long time but his grades have been great and he has 'earned' extra time by doing chores or extra credit at school) each day.  He can't do chatting on the game so he found a way around it with the Skype texting - no fees for the service he was using.  

To make matters worse, he went into the Skype account and changed the profile from what we had set it when we were using Skype when Jim traveled.  He made himself 17.  Lovely.  So, he lied about his age and had a 20 yr old girl (or a 40 yr old guy as far as we know!) convinced they were in a relationship.  I discovered all of this because he fell asleep with his phone on and the last message from her/him was for him to wake up and play with her/him.  WHAT?  I read back through the exchanges getting physically ill at the progression of the dialogue from mild to rude and a bit crude. (mostly on the girl/guys part).  I wanted to go to Australia and find this person who was dragging my son into a pit!  I want to explain to this person that T. is still my little boy.  He is only 13.  I want my little boy to stay that way for a few more years.  I know he has to grow up but I want it to be a gospel based growth path and not a WoW based one.

For the past few months when he gets home from school he has been showering and falling into bed so I thought it was just a growth spurt.  Nope.  If you spend 4+ hours on the computer at midnight most nights then you are tired the next day.  I have caught him up at odd hours a few times over the past couple months but he had ready explanations - couldn't sleep, Connor grinding his teeth, just got up 10 minutes ago - so I sent him to bed each time and tucked him in.  As I looked back to when those happened and saw what he typed to this girl/guy I feel stupid that I didn't see what was really happening.  I felt we were doing a pretty good job at protecting our kids but this just proves to me that a predator will find a way to flatter a kid and make it seem like their idea and what a good idea it is.  Satan works on even the young.

As I examine what I could have done they only thing that comes to mind is not to have purchased WoW last Christmas for the boys.  C. never was that interested so he only spent enough time to figure out it was boring him but T. liked it and kept at it.  T. never seemed addicted or obsessed to a dangerous degree.  Yes, he could be fresh when he didn't want to get off but we chalked that up to being a teen.

We have cut off all electronics for T. and turned off the Internet at night and deleted Skype from everything.  Tomorrow I delete all the WoW files and cancel the subscription on-line. It may be a long time before I feel I can trust him with electronics.  I want him to feel that he can move on from this and be a kid with other interests and activities that take up his time in a positive way.  I want him to understand that he was a victim in this and that the person that took advantage of the situation is a predator in at least one way.

Whew.  That is about it.  I know there will be struggles and maybe more problems/fall-out from this but I am confident with prayer and fasting that we will get through this.  Love will conquer.