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I don’t usually play Nintendo when the kids aren’t with me in Huntsville (not as a rule — I just kind of forget the video game systems are there.). This past weekend on Super Smash Bros Ultimate, my son’s Incineroar beat me so savagely that I’m thinking I will schedule some practice time (Nintendo Switch).
I just can’t escape the cat-rat-Pokémon’s throws. My Kazuya repeatedly got wrecked. It wasn’t even laughable. Naturally, Aiden loves brutalizing me (when I don’t use Link or Robin 😉).
Aiden even suggested that I should try playing as Incineroar. I explained to him that if I use the overpowered character, he and Maddalyn would stop wanting to play the game with me. It would be over with sad, pouting faces.
How does Aiden know the names of all this stuff? No, seriously
Here’s something else that I just put together about my son: he knows the names of everything video game. Every thing and I’m not exaggerated. He knows the names of characters’ special moves and Smash attacks in Smash Bros games — where I might say a character’s move is it’s “Up Special”, he’ll correct me and say “it’s the Flying Spark Fire” or whatever.
He does detailed walkthroughs of Zelda and Minecraft games without sitting in front of the games: he’s all “the cave of wisdom is where you get the ancient sword. The sword of truth is on the weeping island after you beat the tree birds…”
I wouldn’t be as amazed by his memory for all these things if I wasn’t 100% sure that he never reads dialogues. I’ve watched him just mash buttons to skip character dialogues, game tips and prompts, etc. I’ve even asked him on multiple occasions, “You didn’t want to read that to see if it tells you what to do?” He’ll respond something like “Oh?”
I don’t fully understand my mental capacity for song lyrics, so maybe his names of video game things works with a similar part of the brain.
ADHD
This past weekend, I talked to the kids about ADHD and the way it affects me. I also, explained that it’s good for them to understand it because they will probably go to school with someone who has it. It won’t be the last conversation we have about it.
I mentioned a couple of things that trigger my frustration to help them understand why it seems like certain actions irritate me more than others. Something they do often is talk to me at the same time/interrupt each others’ talking to me.
I explained that when someone is talking to me, I want to get all of the information. If someone else starts talking to me while I’m listening to the first person’s words, I’m going to feel like I need to get both people’s messages simultaneously — which is impossible and kind of breaks my brain for second and, naturally, makes me upset because both streams of information have been severed.
For months, I’ve been enduring this one major habit the kids have where one will start talking to me and the other interjects something cutting off their sibling. I tried to approach teaching the lesson in explaining bad manners, being polite, and so forth, but I don’t think it’s stuck. However, I am proud that my daughter uses “excuse me” now. That’s awesome, and I want to acknowledge that out loud.
Anyway the be polite approach hasn’t halted the problem. So, I’ve moved on to pity in that I hope the kids will realize that interrupting someone talking to their dad makes their dad’s brain hurt.
We’ll see what happens.