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Vasi Family: Dads Should Play Even If They Lose

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Young people are good at games. I know because I’m a teacher who is constantly getting his butt kicked at video games by his high school students. I use video games to teach all different types of math, from pre-algebra to pre-calculus. No matter how smart and well-coordinated I feel, it never fails; I get beat bad.

I still have the sad memories of losing my first game of Smash Brothers to a 9th grader.

I say all of this to let you know – I’m getting old.  I don’t have the time or energy to play as much. But the problem for Dads is that we get so turned off by not being able to compete and quit playing. What if I said that your kids don’t need you to be good, they just need you to play?

Some of the best memories I have playing games with my Dad (which didn’t happen that often) have to do with him being terrible at Halo. My dad didn’t play with me a lot, and when he did win at a particular game I would never hear the end of it, but I loved the fact that he didn’t quit playing because he wasn’t that good.

Of course, I now play games with my young sons. This is an image of me and my firstborn, DJ, playing.

If you are wondering what all of the paper on the floor in the picture at the top is, well, DJ had dumped out the contents of our shredder. My wife sent him into the Man Cave to pick up the mess. My job as supervisor quickly turned into that of ‘gaming buddy’.

As you might suspect, I game regularly. I thought my sons wouldn’t be able to compete with me until they were much older. Surprisingly, just last month before DJ’s 4th birthday, he genuinely beat me at a video game. I am my dad!

I guess what I am trying to say to all of us dads is; we can’t give up playing with our children because they are better than us.

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Andrew Robertson
Andy Robertson is the editor of AskAboutGames and has written for national press and broadcast about video games and families for over 15 years. He has just published the Taming Gaming book with its Family Video Game Database.