Winning the Longest Game
Happy New Year! Happy Thursday! You made it!
When my kids were little, we used to play games all the time– board games, card games, puzzle games– we tried them all. Now that my older child is in college, we play a lateral thinking game on our phones most nights. I got curious about the longest game ever played, so I started googling. Here’s what I found: The longest board game ever played was 79 rounds of Dune, which took people 85 hours to play. The longest video game ever played took 3,126 hours. (That's 130 days and six hours, so hopefully, it was broken up over a long period of time.) And the longest baseball game ever played– a single game– was played for 100 hours and one minute. The final score was 468 to 307. That's a pretty long game.
The longest game of all, though, the one we never ever stop playing, is parenting. So far I’ve been at it over 20 years, and my dad has been at it for 50. And hopefully, we’ll all be in this game for a very long time. That got me thinking about this incredibly long, unending, unrelenting, full-body experience–parenting.
I have talked a lot here and on Instagram about change– specifically looking at how we change ourselves and how that impacts our kids. So I’m going to name the thing that can be so frustrating to parents about this work: Lasting change takes a long time.
The absolute truth is that sometimes, even when we're doing all the “right” things and trying to be patient, it’s hard because growth and change are slow and non-linear. We’re told that “Slow and steady wins the race,” but I’m here to say that growth is slow and messy and sometimes seems to move in reverse before taking another big leap forward.
(Our progress as adults happens in fits and starts, too. We can learn a new parenting idea or skill that makes total sense, and we have every intention of using it, but then we don't… until we do.)
The good news is that our children take decades to grow up. That means that if we start now, we have time to figure out the kind of parents we want to become. Even if your kids are older like mine, it’s NEVER too late to start this work. Here are some ways to use that time to your advantage.
First, notice incremental positive changes in how you think about your children. This really matters. How you think about your kiddos impacts how you treat them, and how you treat them affects how they see themselves, their relationship with you, and many future relationships.
Second, celebrate wins, even small ones. When we notice our progress, we feel better, and then we can do better, which makes us feel better. This idea applies equally to parents and children.
The bottom line is that games, even long and difficult ones, can be rewarding if you remind yourself that you're playing for a good reason. Yes, parenthood can shred the nerves much more than a game of Uno, and the stakes are obviously much higher. However, you can still view it as an opportunity to test out strategies, fall behind, make a comeback, catch some lucky breaks, and sometimes all win together.
Tip of the Week: Respond to this email with ONE recent parenting win. I’ll write back!
Resource or Activity of the Week: Check out these beloved family games (they will take less than 3,126 hours to play): Wirecutter Best Games, Parents Magazine Best Games, Another Genuinely Good List of Games
Want to explore how I can help parenting make sense, even when it feels impossibly difficult? Reach out.
You’ve got this,
Cari
One more thing– Please forward this to any other parents who might love some short, sweet, and useful weekly parenting tips! (If you got this from a friend, good job for having such thoughtful people looking out for you! Please head over to my website to check it out, or click here to sign up for the weekly newsletter.)
