-=> Quoting Damon A. Getsman to All on 31-Jan-2015 16:07 <=-

 DAG> Despite being amazingly resilient for everything
 DAG> that he's been through, it seems like the last two years of
 DAG> intermittent homelessness are finally starting to have a behavior
 DAG> effect upon him. 

I suspect it's less the transientness in any case.  Some of it may just
be age-related.  And, as you mentioned (both in the part I snipped and
below) the video games probably do have somewhat to do with it as well.

 DAG> Things got better for awhile, when I was with my fiancee, as
 DAG> spring hit. He had to change schools _during that one school year_ four
 DAG> times, so that certainly didn't help anything.  However, he met another
 DAG> bi-racial kid that lived just one apartment down from us at his school.
 DAG> So although he got a few more videogames than I would like, he really
 DAG> did spend a huge amount of times with his friend and other friends from
 DAG> the school outside playing. 

Having a compatible friend makes a lot of difference... how long were
you able to stay where he had the friends?

 DAG> However he suffered a bit of verbal abuse, and definitely neglect,
 DAG> from my fiancee when I was working, which I later found out about. 

Sigh... not what he needed, for sure.

 DAG> Since I've moved here, things have gone
 DAG> downhill a bit.  There were starting to be some behavioral changes, at
 DAG> this point, due to the 'addictive' nature of video games, and how they
 DAG> activate the same brain instant-reward pathways as any sort of
 DAG> stimulant drug does.  You can tell.  :|  You could tell last year, but
 DAG> it wasn't even really a problem yet. The main problem in this area
 DAG> is the fact that no other parents seem to give much of a shit about
 DAG> getting their children out to play with others here. 'Helicopter
 DAG> parenting' is in full effect. 

And without friends to get out and play with, there is more incentive to
occupy oneself with the video games, too...  

ttyl        neb

... I still have a full deck, I just shuffle slower now.

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