I like to think of myself as a really lenient dad. I have four children; three boys, my eldest, and my youngest girl. They're ages 13, 12, 10, and 7, respectively. My second oldest child, 12 year old Malcolm, has generally been the friendly type. I love all of my children dearly, but lately, Malcolm has been an area of concern to me.
I'll put it bluntly: his grades are dropping. He's exhibiting signs of depression. He is abusive to my wife. He has made us spend exorbitant amounts of money on 'waifu pillows' and 'hentai books' that he won't let us read. Malcolm is a problem child. Luckily, I don't have 30 years of experience in Psychology for nothing.
Malcolm is addicted to anime. No ways about it. He paints his walls with all manner of young ladies, scantily clad, in Japanese art style. He locks himself away, shuts others out, and refuses to focus on school work. Every night, my dear wife near cries herself to sleep.
That’s how our house was, just a few months ago. I’m pleased to say today that we have made progress.
I figured, ‘If Malcolm is addicted to anime, maybe we can addict him to something else’. If Malcolm has a dark hole in his life,that he fills with anime, maybe we can unclog the anime and replace it with something good.
It was a cold autumn morning. Around two o’clock in the morning. Sun was down, house was pitch black. The only noise was the cat trying to get a midnight snack; yowling loudly. After satisfying the feline, I crept into my son’s bedroom, where the other source of sound was: his headphones.
Two o’clock in the morning. Still awake. Headphones so loud I could hear the mindnumbing anime intro songs from outside the door.
Yet, when I opened the door, Malcolm was fast asleep. As he slept, he was being brainwashed with anime propaganda, and having his brain turned to mush.
What I heard from his headphones is too graphic and disgusting to put to words on this website; but I assure you I made no hesitation. My wife came into the room; and confident he would not wake up due to the loud noises in his ears, we got to work.
The previous morning, while he was at school, we counted out all of his manga books and anime DVDs, and we went to our local church to obtain an equal number of bibles and VHS tapes from esteemed pastors and reverends around the world. We replaced every bit of bookshelf space he had with the bible; we replaced every DVD with the sermons. We took all of his anime and manga outside to use as fuel for our family barbeque the next day.
When Malcolm woke up, he came down to help set up the barbeque. We also took his phone and incinerated it too, while he was distracted. No more anime. Just Jesus now.
Every day we pick a book of the bible for our son the read. We made him spend time at church. We sent him to Jesus camp.
He’s back now, and he’s no longer addicted to anime.
30 years in psychology pays off.
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