Am I The Problem?

I always wanted to play games with my son. But recently, I’ve started to wonder if I’m doing more harm than good.

My son is six, and we’ve been playing games together for well over a year now. I wanted to give him the gift of this hobby that’s meant so much to me. Most of all, I wanted to be the dad I always wanted to have: someone who’d be there to support, to cheer, and to share in all of his fun adventures.

Pokémon Legends Z-A was shaping up to be a really special game for us. It was the first Pokémon game that we’d start playing at the same time. We dissected trailers, talked about our starter choices, even decided what we’d nickname our pokémon. And this time, I wouldn’t have the advantage of going first. My son was thrilled at the idea of being on an equal footing with me.

But he really struggled with it. Z-A isn’t turn-based like other Pokémon games. It’s a real-time action game, and a relatively unforgiving one. You don’t have time to think about your next attack and pick it out from a menu. You’ve got to work out your strategy while trying to lock on to an opposing pokémon that’s moving around, then quickly pressing one of four face buttons corresponding to the attack you want to use. In other games, the battle pauses when you switch out your pokémon, but that doesn’t happen in Z-A. You have to remember what the best counter is while tapping away on the Switch’s fiddly D-pad to throw out the correct pokémon as soon as possible.

Frankly, I had trouble getting to grips with this new system, and I’ve been playing Pokémon games for 30 years. My son still struggles to use both analog sticks at once to walk and move the camera, so this was a lot to deal with. He doesn’t like to lose, and he started getting angry and frustrated.

I sat by while he took on the single-player story and online battle modes, offering encouragement and chipping in with advice. I played up the stories of my own defeats, to show him he wasn’t alone and to keep his spirits up. But, privately, I wondered if this new action-based battle system was just too much for him.

He got discouraged. He stopped playing and went back to his old standby, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Fair enough, I said. Games are meant to be fun, and if you’re not having fun it’s okay to play something else. Z-A will always be there when you’re ready.

The next week was full of work and other commitments that kept me away from playing games. One day, locked in my home office, I thought I heard the sounds of Z-A coming from the living room. He must be dipping his toes back in, I thought. Good lad.

Then I heard a shout of triumph and the rapid patter of small feet. “Daddy! I did it! I made it to Rank D!”

Wait. What?

Last time I saw him in the campaign, he was nowhere near Rank D. So he jumped five ranks and defeated a whole string of bosses in just a few days… all by himself?

I started to leave the office door open to pay a little more attention to what was happening. I heard him win and I heard him lose, but it was what I didn’t hear that was more important.

There were no grunts of frustration. No angry yells. No blame, no excuses. Once I even heard him calmly explain to his little sister exactly what he’d done wrong in that last battle.

This was welcome, but shocking, because it’s not what he’s like around me. He’s not patient about solving problems and lashes out when things go poorly. It’s the controller’s fault, or someone else’s fault for distracting him. Even when he’s not playing against me, defeats seem to hit harder when I’m around. Without me, though, he seemed to be taking it in his stride, constantly popping in to the office to tell me how he was doing.

It was hard not to come to a difficult conclusion: Is it me? Am I the problem here?

I like to think that I am being a positive presence, but I could also see how I might be making things worse. Maybe he feels pressure to perform in front of me. Maybe he’s less patient about solving problems because he’s sitting next to the guy with all the answers. Maybe he gets frustrated faster because he knows that I could tell him exactly what to do, but by trying to nudge him towards discovering the solution for himself, he thinks I’m withholding.

As he kept running into the office to announce his latest triumphs, I realized there was a simple solution here: just stay away. Give him his own space to play.

Except, well, I don’t want to do that. I want to be the dad of a family that games together. I want to be involved in my son’s hobbies. But one thing kept gnawing away at me: isn’t that selfish? Surely that would mean prioritizing my needs over his.

I was thinking about all this over the next few days when he came into the office yet again. He was about to reach the top rank in online battles — some achievement for a boy who, days before, couldn’t consistently use the shoulder buttons to lock on to opposing Pokémon. And he wanted me to come outside to be there to witness the moment he achieves his goal and to celebrate with him.

What I’d missed in all my self-centered deliberations was that he was never mad at me. He took defeats poorly when I was around, sure, but at no point did he actually want me to step away. I spent all that time worrying so much about doing what I thought was most fun for him that I missed out on what he really wanted, which was more time with me.

We still play together as much as my work schedule allows. Sure, he still gets frustrated and lashes out when he loses. And yes, I still suspect that I am an unintentional source of pressure.

But I also know that win or lose, he wants his dad there, so that’s where I’ll be.

---