OK, I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to put in a plug for giving him some access to video games. Hear me out, please.
I was very much the "no screens!" mom, while my DH (the electrical engineer) was buying "learn to use the computer" games when our daughter was like 18 months old. [insert eyeroll here]. He thought, reasonably, that growing up comfortable with technology was a life skill, so I tamed my inner Luddite and let him do it. DH also likes gaming occasionally, and he introduced the kids to it -- again, earlier than I'd like. I tolerated it, but with some rather smug disapproval.
What I did not realize until maybe 18 months ago: for many teenage boys, gaming is how they socialize. In pre-Covid days, they'd go over to each other's house and take turns watching each other play. When they couldn't do that, they'd arrange to meet up online on a particular game at a particular time and play together, chatting through their headphones. They'd follow the same e-sports figures and youtubers, and that was their special internal language that the out-of-touch parents didn't know. They'd go to e-sports tournaments and follow their favorites and even try to play (and get booted in the first round, of course, but they'd come home bubbling over with excitement anyway).
This past year, it has been a total lifesaver. My DS is doing very well, but he has lost a lot and been very isolated. He lost his BMOC end-of-8th-grade status and concerts and ceremonies and events. He started HS without ever setting foot in the building or having an orientation or meeting his teachers in person -- it's all online. Baseball and basketball and summer camp were all canceled. And he hasn't been able to go to friends' houses or do any of the other stuff he would usually do for a solid year. And yet he has maintained his connections to all of his friends, because they have been able to continue meeting online to play videogames together. And he is happy. The stupid games that I railed against have been the one constant source of connection with his friends.
Now, obviously, you can't let gaming become the be-all, end-all; he does music and arduino and rides his bike and bowls with dad and Fitbit challenges with his friends and all sorts of other stuff. But I feel compelled to write this simply because it had quite literally never occurred to me that there could be anything positive about gaming. Because I am not a 15-yr-old boy, I had not realized that meeting up online is such a key part of their social lives until I saw for myself what a positive effect it had on DS.