“I’m not allowed to touch my computer, the PlayStation or my phone for the rest of the weekend.”

My 12-year old son shuffled away with his head hanging down.

His father had handed down his sentence after my son’s conviction of excessive sighing, eye-rolling and flouncing when asked to complete homeschool assignments.

“So now I have no idea what to do with myself.”

Poor, kid. I felt for him. He must have been in such emotional pain.

Still, I did nothing to ease his distress.

He’d earned it. In addition to the eye rolling, his whining when he couldn’t find a clean spoon, because apparently, the parental devices weren’t loading the dishwasher fast enough for him, pretty much sent this mother over the edge. Then there was the waking up early on weekends but moaning like he was in physical agony when he was being woke up at 10 am (yes. Ten. In the morning. You read right.) on a weekday to do his school work.

Therefore I felt only slight pity for him as he stumbled around the house like a druggie needing a fix. I began to observe him – waiting to see how manic he would become the longer he was away from YouTube and Minecraft.

First, there was the sitting in the couch, knees folded to chest, bouncing his legs anxiously, looking at me sadly as if the pitiful expressions he hoped I was seeing would convince me to overturn his father’s ruling.

He literally has no capacity to imagine what to do without the games and a cellphone now. It’s a sad development in his young life but even sadder that many adults, including myself (though I’ve gotten better), sometimes have the same problem.