Hey Mac Families,
My 12 year old decided this week that he needed a monitor to use with his Xbox. I was slightly confused because he has a TV hooked up to the Xbox already... what on earth would he need a monitor for? If you have a middle schooler, I'm guessing you already know the answer to this.
They *must* pack up and transport their entire Xbox set up when attending sleepovers. Why? So that they can all sign in to their accounts and play together. On separate devices and monitors. In the same room.
Now, I could have totally met his request with a solid no, but I didn't. I decided to help him find a nice, transportable monitor (with an HDMI port, of course!) on Facebook Marketplace that he could purchase with his own money. I spent an hour trudging through listings and sending out messages to the sellers who were charging around $20.
Why did I do this?
Well, for several reasons.
- Whether or not I love the idea of my kid dragging around his expensive electronics, the reality is that this is what they are doing. If he wants to be invited to sleepovers, and participate in the gaming activities of the evening, he has to be equipped properly.
- The social game is REAL, y'all. I'm not one to give in to peer pressure for the sake of fitting in, but when your kid has struggled to make friends since his bestie moved away in third grade, you do what you gotta do to help foster and maintain the friendships he has created in middle school.
- Sometimes, you have to do things that are outside of the box as parents... out of your comfort zone. Different that your parents would have done. The fact that I helped my son make this monitor dream happen will stick with him.
- Plus, why not? I trust my kid to be careful with his stuff. If he breaks a $20 monitor, is it the end of the world? Nope. Will I immediately buy him another one if he does break it? Nope. Did I make that clear to him before he packed it up for its inaugural run? Yup.
The first monitor that we went to look at was huge and heavy. The little old lady that was selling it thought it was a 20" but it was a 32". As disappointing as it was, we had to pass. As you can imagine, my kid was bummed.
Instead of heading home, we pulled over and I checked my messages to see if there were any other options waiting for us. Nothing. Another scroll through Marketplace sent us down the road to see a brand new monitor with a price tag of only $20, being sold by a mom who had two monitors delivered to her house that she didn't need for a work at home job. It was one of those "it's cheaper to keep it than to ship it back" things. SOLD.
(Ironically, the second monitor she received was hooked up to her 13 year old's Xbox. We laughed about middle school boys and their grand plans.)
My kid learned that his mom would help him make his dreams come true, even if those dreams seem a little silly and a bit risky to us adults. He learned the value of buying used and how to go about that, especially because he was using his own funds for the purchase. He learned that you don't have to take the first option, just because you are afraid you won't find another opportunity.
I'd say that day was a good day.
Peace ☮️, Love ❤️, & Macaroni 🌼,
Christen
