Playing Video Games With Your 4- and 7-Year-Old Is the Ultimate Test of Patience

There are many moments in motherhood that test your patience—bedtime negotiations, the mysterious disappearance of matching socks, the sudden meltdown because someone’s banana “peeled wrong.” But nothing, nothing, prepares you for the emotional gauntlet of playing video games with a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old.

Forget spa days and meditation apps. If you want to know your true spiritual strength, hand a controller to a small child and whisper, “Okay, let’s play.”

🎮 Level 1: The Illusion of Fun
It always starts with good intentions.
You imagine bonding.
You imagine laughter.
You imagine being the cool mom who knows how to jump, run, and collect the shiny things.

But within five minutes, you realize you’ve entered a realm where logic does not exist.

Your 4-year-old is spinning in circles, staring at the sky, proudly announcing, “I’m helping!”
Your 7-year-old is sprinting ahead like they’re training for the Video Game Olympics.
And you? You’re stuck between trying to keep everyone alive and trying not to scream, “STOP PRESSING RANDOM BUTTONS.”

🎮 Level 2: The Emotional Rollercoaster
There is no emotional neutrality in kid gaming.

• Someone is crying because they fell off a cliff.
• Someone else is crying because you didn’t wait for them.
• Someone is mad because the character they wanted is “too slow,” “too fast,” or “too something.”
• And someone (you) is questioning every life choice that led to this moment.

Meanwhile, the 4-year-old is still spinning in circles.

🎮 Final Level: Acceptance
Playing video games with little kids isn’t about winning.
It’s not about strategy.
It’s not even about the game.

It’s about being in their world—messy, silly, unpredictable, and full of joy.

And if you can survive this?
You can survive anything.