Our household was faced with a situation not long ago that required me to seek a unique resolution. Once again, I caught a family member playing handheld video games late past bedtime. Now while that doesn't surprise many of my readers, the repeated offense surprised the heck out of me. You see I consider myself a fair parent. I'm the parent that plays chop-chop on Fruit Ninja and avails my body to be hurled without notice onto the bed by the "Incomminnng" rant of my son. So we have plenty of playtime and scheduled video game time.
Somehow the schedule to play video games this particular night did not agree with my son's recent enthusiasm to play his newly-purchased video game. And leave it to a brilliant kid to figure out a way to get his play time after bed time. First he has to investigate if the coast is clear. He gets out of bed and clears his throat as he makes it to the bathroom to get some water. Bathroom light on. Bathroom light off. Mommy is still awake. Back to bed he goes. Ten minutes go by. Then he's up relieving himself of the water he just drank. Bathroom light on. Bathroom light off. "Honey are you okay? Did you drink juice at lunch?" "Yes," he answers. Mommy is still awake. Back to bed he goes. Now only five minutes have elapsed and he's up again! It's too much for him and he may actually be getting sleepy by this time. Bathroom light on. Bathroom light off. Only this time he peeks in on Mommy through my half-open door. "Why are you still up?" he asks. I answer. Ever so cool, he gently closes my bedroom door! I don't have a clue what he's up to. I don't realize I have been bamboozled by this pre-teen that I feed, chauffeur around to voice lessons, and am a regular stand-in as his impromptu pillow fight target.
I'm ready to turn in so I go check on him in about thirty minutes. My, my, my, what could that be? What is it that I see? A blue light oozing from under his pillow, namely a Nintendo DS. Oh, what nerves he has! I thought about waking him up, because if I'm not going to get any sleep wondering what I will do to him in the morning, then why should he? I couldn't do it. I grabbed both handheld gaming systems and put them in my room. In the morning I didn't say anything out of the ordinary. After my son made his bed, I thought he would say something. He didn't. Smart of him, huh? I finally asked him if he fell asleep playing his game. He said, "No," as if he played no game at all. I began to explain to him all the privileges he was losing immediately.
Now parents, you know it's hard to discipline our children. It hurts us too. We just want our children to do the right thing. Soon after I spoke to my son, I begin prayer and meditation, something like this, "If this issue keeps recurring, Lord show me what I'm missing. Give me a new way of looking at this because I don't feel like what I'm doing is working." I must have been praying hard, because within the hour I received a fresh perspective! First, there was the question of why my son liked video games? He is competitive by nature (not sure where he gets that from!). He likes to win. He is persistent, playing a game level repeatedly until he wins. He also loves the chase. Him going after something. Next the thoughts came to my mind that my son is not consistently involved in competitive activities, like sports. Bad Mommy. Could it be that if I involve my son in competitive sports, I could re-channel his desire for competition, chasing, and winning from video games to sports? Well I tell you what - it is a resolution worth pursuing. I asked my son if he would like to be involved in more sports. He said, "Yes." Guess what? I'll keep you posted if re-channeling his focus to sports is a video game cure that works.
