Comstock Chronicles: iPad Gaming

a lesson from the children

I was sitting on the couch with my daughter who was watching my son play a game where you drive down a water chute on an inner tube, tank, rooster, or what-have-you. My five-year-old was enjoying himself; my daughter was not.

It was difficult for her to watch her brother drive his tank the wrong direction up a ramp. He would forget to engage his invisibility bubble. He would come in last place. He would choose the snowman character instead of the bikini-clad chick. So she kept interjecting to tell him how to play the game properly.

“Let him play his way,” I told my daughter. “He’s figuring it out, and it’s no fun with you leaning over his shoulder and telling him what to do the whole time.”

My daughter started pouting. Her lip could’ve caught some flies sticking out so far, and she actually began looking at the ceiling instead of the family iPad.

“Why don’t you leave the couch if you’re not even going to watch?” I asked her.

“No!” she protested. “That’s not fun.”

I’m pretty sure I chortled at this point.

It wasn’t long before my son saw her distress and asked her what to do next. Her angst was too much for him to want to play his own way. This was a shame and certainly not what I wanted but then I heard my own words in my ear and wondered if I was interfering too much myself. Maybe next time I take Rose aside and instruct her privately. Maybe I simply ask her to leave the couch. Maybe I don’t say anything at all. Or maybe I say something encouraging to her instead, “I see you really care about Benny playing the game well. How about we find encouraging things to say so he feels like he can play his own way without our judging him?”

I’m learning right alongside them, and I’m thankful I don’t have anyone leaning over my shoulder telling me how I’m doing it wrong. I do that to myself already.

This scene reminded me to ask the Lord for patience and long-suffering as I watch people playing the game of life in ways I don’t think are right. And it reminded me to find something positive to say about their efforts so that they don’t change their ways just because of me. Change and growth is something the Lord does in others from the inside out, not as the result of my criticisms.

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