That's the excuse all lazy (as in unwilling to put in the effort to understand their kids) helicopter parents have for forcing their kids into things. My desir

That's the excuse all lazy (as in unwilling to put in the effort to understand their kids) helicopter parents have for forcing their kids into things. My desire to stay indoors and code/game all day was at its peak when that was my only option for socializing besides being dragged around on long drives to see places more interesting to my parents. The most I was allowed to do otherwise was going to the movies with vetted friends for high school graduation. In comparison, for a few years (in another country) I had the freedom to go relatively far myself to hang out unsupervised with friends. The result was that I typically spent more time outside and participated of my own interest in all sorts of events (public speaking etc). This also translated to other hobbies, when I had the freedom to choose my routine, I had all sorts of other hobbies like drawing, when this was taken away, all I ever focused on was instant gratification (or problems I could keep in my head) because I couldn't rely on being able to plan or prioritize my day. This did a lot of damage and I've only recently recovered nearly a decade later. Now, if my parents had put aside the "kids just want to play games/watch TV all day" belief and paid attention to what I was trying to learn and what I was interested in, they might've saved me a lot of frustration AND helped my development by enrolling me in extra classes about the things I was interested in instead of the things they were interested in.