Over dinner, my second grader announced that tomorrow was going to be “Bring a Game to School” day. I recall as a kid enjoying these break-the-norm events in elementary school, especially when it was close to the Holidays, Spring Break, or the end of the year. Likewise, if I were a teacher, I too would want to shake up the routine to grab the interest of antsy kids counting down the hours til Christmas. So, all and all, Bring a Game Day sounded like a cool idea.

As usual, the next morning in a household of five was a bit frenetic between dramatic wake ups, not-hot- enough showers, getting dressed, breakfast choices, and oh yeah, the constant demand by all three children to either “Watch your phone” or “Play the computer”. “No,” we say through gritted teeth, because “We need to get ready for school” and “Aren’t you excited to see your teacher today?” and the final pushback “Hey, the phone will be here when you get home!”; none of which seem to ever assuage a seven, four, and three-year-old. For the most part, Thursday was just another example of getting kids ready in the digital age.

Back to my daughter, who lets out a wail as we are about to leave. “I need to bring a game to school today, remember?!?!” No problem, I tell her, just hustle and get it, we have time before the bell rings. Now, here is where the plot thickens. My daughter bounds up the stairs, throws open our game closet, rustles around, comes running down with Chutes And Ladders, and explains as we scoot out the door that even though it’s kind of baby-ish, she thinks it will be good choice.

That evening at dinner, I ask my daughter how Game Day was.

“Terrible” she says. Terrible? Really? Did she get teased for her baby-ish selection? Did she lose (that’s an easy one to set her off)? Did some boy not want to play? Did the teacher cancel the whole thing?

Ummmmm…no. It was terrible, she begins to explain, because everyone else got to play on their phone (or Kindle or any of the other three devices she rattled off) and she didn’t, and oh by the way, so and so has such and such game and it’s way better than what we have on our phones….

Wow. Has it come to that in a brief span of five years since smartphones changed the world and tablets became Mom’s new handbag?

In the mind, and ears, of a second grader, does hearing Game day at school instinctively compel them to grab their digital device and excitedly stuff it into their backpack? Apparently so because in my daugther’s classroom that day, digital devices whooped board games 19 to 1. What would Parker and his Brothers of Monopoly fame think of all this? What about Sorry’s Henry, Hilal, and Herman Hassenfeld (that is, Hasbro)? I’m guessing their heirs have transformed these boring old board games into apps and are monetizing it. But I digress. Are games not the games they were thirty years ago, let alone five?

In retrospect, I take solace in the fact that I personally thought of the traditional board games in our closet when my daughter mentioned that it was Bring a Game day, so I have not lost my way. But more importantly, I take pride in the fact that my daughter thought that Bring a Game meant something from our jumbled closet and not Minecraft or Angry Birds or Plants v. Zombies or some other 99 cent time waster that we have afforded her on her iPhone (yes, her iPhone, sans cell service, although I’m sure she will bring that up in third grade that all the kids are texting- I’ll deal with that in 2014).

In the continued battle of Dad (and Mom) versus Devices, I’d like to think Dad prevailed today. Now, I get she is forever on guard when Game Day rolls around again, but today, a victory. There is something both intimate and educational about sitting together, many times one on one with my child, and playing a game in the physical world where there are rules, strategy, luck, and wisdom to be shared. Albeit Chutes and Ladders doesn’t have much strategy to it, but I can assure you that game has afforded me the opportunity, in but a 15 minute session before she bores and wants to move on, to illustrate a valuable lesson in life that you should never quit even though the landscape looks grim.

Posted on 1/3/2014

Written by Matthew J Beshear

Matthew J Beshear is a Dad. And a husband, too. And along with his wife, they struggle each day to find the balance for their children between an ever evolving world of digital, devices, and technology and breathing fresh air, interacting with other humans, and learning how the real world works.

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