Pearls: Taking a turn shouldn’t be this difficult

EDITORIAL MUG: Matt Pearl

No previous exercises in patience could have prepared me for the challenge of playing board games with my kids.

It’s not because they can’t play, or because they won’t learn the rules. It’s not because a game of Sorry or a hand of Uno is beyond their mental capabilities. The part of the experience that yields the most frustration is something else completely.

They won’t take their turn.

Go, honey, it’s your turn, I say. You’re next, I say. After his turn, it’s your turn, I say. Then, after I’ve said each of those a couple dozen times:

GO! If you’re not going to take your turn, then we’re going to skip you! Do you even want to play anymore? This is why we can’t have the TV on while a game is going! Please roll the dice. You played a wild card – what’s the new color we’re playing?

You get it. It’s like every game we play requires me to prod, to push little humans continuously to keep the action going. If I stopped reminding people to take their turns, the game itself would grow stale and dormant, and kids would likely begin randomly walking off and getting drinks or water or pounding piano keys.

Yet every now and then, I feel like having a family game night, each time hoping that the kids might have, since our last round of Chutes and Ladders, taken a big leap forward and become more adept at watching the game and taking their turns.

And each time as I put the game board back in the box, I say to my wife (or sometimes to my cranky self), That was not as fun as I had hoped.

I was thinking about this one evening lately after a failed attempt at a family Skip-Bo competition, and I took one of those side tangents in my cluttered mind. So much of life reminds me of the frustrating family game with the kids who never remember to take their turn.

I spent years in the classroom, where it felt at times that 100 times a day I had to prompt, beg, prod and shame kids into speaking up and answering my questions for the lesson.

Lunch is ready at a family dinner and it’s time to form the food line. You have to twist folks’ arms to get them to line up and eat, and then when you get behind them in the line, they take forever putting the food onto their plates.

Small-town driving is an exercise in courtesy replacing the rule of law, and again turns into an event where nobody seems particularly sure when it’s his or her turn to stop or go. We wave on the driver who doesn’t have the right-of-way. We both pull into the intersection, each seeing the other has taken the opportunity – se we stop and wait for the other driver, who also stops – then we both go – then we both stop. This continues until laughter or frustration compel one of us to motion the other through the intersection.

The toys in the box at home lay there for months, but when one child begins to play with one of these forsaken items, the other kids suddenly become interested in the exact toy that’s already being used. It’s tough to take turns, I guess.

Maybe it shouldn’t be so frustrating, but I can’t help it. I like it when the trains run on time, when folks know when their turn is next and take it. I came by it honestly; my father would frequently remind us that He who hesitates is lost.

I’m not giving up on game night, and I’ll not accept the fact that my kids cannot play a game clockwise and take their turns in time. I’m not giving up, but I think it’ll be a while before I go a whole round wihtout saying, Get going! We’re all waiting for you to take your turn!

Matt Pearl owns and operates The Tri-County Ledger.