Teaching My 4-Year-Old to Game: Genius Move or Horrible Mistake?

Part 2: My Kid, the Button-Mashing Philosopher

 

So picture this: my four-year-old, eyes shimmering with that wild “I’ve discovered fire” look, just hit me with, “Can I get my own Nintendo?”

Honestly, I froze. You know in movies when the hero gets that thousand-yard stare, the orchestra swells, and you can practically see them doing existential math in their head? That was me—stuck mid-game, clutching a controller that’s probably seen more pizza grease than any actual cleaning product.

I mean, on the one hand, this kid just figured out how to jump over a pit in Mario without instantly face-planting. On the other, he now acts like gaming is a constitutional right. I made this monster. I handed him the keys to the Mushroom Kingdom, and now he wants the deed to the castle.

So, naturally, I panicked. Pulled the classic parent stall: “Let’s talk about that later.” Which, let’s be real, is code for “I gotta Google if letting you play Mario at age four will melt your brain.”

But here’s the kicker—he didn’t whine, didn’t flop on the floor, nothing. Just plopped down, grabbed the controller, and goes, “Let’s beat the turtle guy.”

It hit me right then—he wasn’t fiending for screen time. He was hooked on the vibe, the hanging out, the tag-teaming the chaos with me. This was less about pixels, more about partnership.

We dove back in, full turbo. He’d take Mario for a spin through the easy bits, I’d bail him out when things got spicy. We were an absolute unit—father and son, united by questionable plumbing skills and a mutual disregard for Goombas.

Cue plot twist: I fired up Contra. The old-school bullet bonanza that scarred a generation. Handed him the second controller and, in a low-key sacred moment, whispered the Konami Code. “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. Magic words, buddy. 30 lives. Boom.”

He looked at me like I’d just handed him the keys to the Matrix. And you know what? He held his own. Was he good? Absolutely not. The kid still thinks grenades are “spicy meatballs.” But he didn’t rage, didn’t sulk—just kept grinning, hitting continue, yelling, “Do it again!” after every digital demise.

That’s when it clicked. This wasn’t about the hardware. Or even the games. It was the play. The mayhem. The giggles. The weird, sacred ritual of passing down the controller—just like my dad did for me, letting me lose to Bowser until I could taste defeat in my sleep.

Eventually, we hit pause. He looks up, eyes still on fire, and says, “Dad, I don’t need my own Nintendo.”

I swear, I almost melted right there.

“I just wanna play with you.”

Cue emotional KO. I’m done. Wrecked.

So yeah, teaching a four-year-old to game? Galaxy-brain decision. Zero regrets.

Will I cap his screen time? Duh.
Will I lose it if he asks to stream on Twitch? You bet.
But right now?

We’re a co-op squad.
We’re storming castles.
We’ve got lives to burn.

Game on, little dude.