My 12 year old wants to play Fortnite every single day after school and on weekends. He's got decent grades still and does his chores so I don't want to be that parent who's too controlling. But sometimes I catch him sneaking his Switch after bedtime. Where's the line between healthy interest and actual problem?
My 12 year old wants to do the same thing. I set a rule that school and chores come first, then he can play. But some days he still tries to negotiate for more time. The key is not budging.
If his grades are good and he's still doing his responsibilities, daily Fortnite doesn't sound like the worst thing honestly. But set some boundaries and stick to them. Mine wanted the same thing at that age.
Fortnite is engineered to be addictive so it's not really fair to call it his fault. That said you're the parent so you get to decide limits. Daily play is probably too much but a couple hours on weekends seems reasonable?
How much is he actually playing? Like hours per day? That matters because there's a difference between an hour and five hours. We use that as the baseline for whether it's a problem.
The real question is whether it's affecting sleep, schoolwork, or his social life offline. That's where the line gets drawn for us. We let them play but with hard stop times and other activities required.
At 12 it's a balance. Just make sure he knows it's a privilege not a right and that can disappear if other stuff suffers. I had to take the controller away one time and my kid got the message real quick.
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The line between addiction and just what kids do now is blurry. That said every single day is a lot. We had to set hard limits with our oldest on gaming. Fortnite is designed to keep them hooked so you have to be the bad guy here.