“I Hate This Game” Might Be the Whole Point

A parent said something to me that I have not stopped thinking about.

We were talking about Time In — that regular, one-on-one, child-led time where the parent’s job is not to question, teach, correct, suggest, or improve, but simply to be with their child and offer positive attention. You can read about it here.

And this parent looked at me and said: “I don’t know what the rules are and I hate the game.”

Reader, I wanted to stand up and applaud. Not because I want parents to hate Time In. I don’t! I want Time In to become one of the pillars in your family life where everyone can breathe a bit more easily.

But also? That parent had just stumbled into a VERY valuable lesson.

That discomfort — the “I don’t know what I’m doing,” the “I don’t understand the point of this,” the “this game makes no sense and I would like to speak to a manager” feeling — may be exactly how your child feels much of the time. In many environments. Multiple times per day. Every single day.

Good to know, right?

When you sit down for Time In and your child starts playing a game with rules that seem to be made up, changed, abandoned, revived, and enforced with the intensity of a Supreme Court ruling, it can be deeply uncomfortable.

You may want to ask:

“What are we doing?” “Am I doing this right?” “Why can your dinosaur fly but mine has to stay in jail?” “Is there a plot?” “Are we still playing store or is this now a veterinary hospital for angry spoons?”

And during Time In, your job is not to take over and organize the chaos into something more tolerable for your adult brain. Your job is to notice. To follow. To stay present inside your child’s little world for a few more minutes than you normally would.

This is hard because adults are very attached to knowing what’s going on. We like rules. We like structure. We like beginning-middle-end. We like games where someone explains the instructions and then everyone more or less follows them.

Many complicated kids do not experience the world that way.

They walk into classrooms, birthday parties, grocery stores, soccer fields, family dinners, and playgrounds where the “rules” are invisible, shifting, implied, or understood by everyone except them.

Then we wonder why they melt down. We wonder why they refuse. We wonder why they try to control everything. We wonder why they are so rigid.

Wellllll.

Have you ever tried playing a game where you don’t know the rules and you hate the game?

Exactly.

This is where Time In becomes more than “special time.”

It becomes a portal into your child’s experience. (A slightly sticky, Lego-covered, pretend-soup-filled portal perhaps.)

And once you feel even a little bit of what they may feel — the uncertainty, the confusion, the vulnerability of not knowing how to succeed — empathy gets easier.

Not automatic. But easier.

So here are two things to try the next time Time In feels irritating, confusing, or boring.

First: silently say to yourself, “This is information.”

Instead of judging the game, or your child, or yourself, notice your body. Are your shoulders tight? Are you impatient? Are you desperate to ask a question? Are you itching to make the play more logical?

Great. That’s information.

Second: stay 90 seconds longer than you want to.

Not forever. Not until your soul leaves your body. Just 90 seconds longer.

See what happens when you don’t rescue yourself from the discomfort right away. See what your child does when you remain warmly present without taking over. See whether you can communicate, “I can be with you even when I don’t totally understand your world and even when I’m uncomfortable.”

Because that is the message. Not: “I love this game.” Not: “This makes sense to me.” But: “I love you enough to stay curious.”

And that, friends, is connection.

If Time In feels hard in your house, or if your child’s world feels impossible to enter without stepping on an emotional landmine, I’d love to help. Schedule a 1:1 coaching session with me and we’ll sort through what’s happening with your particular kid in your particular family. 

Sometimes the lesson is in the discomfort.

Annoying sometimes? Yes. Useful? Also yes.

xo G