Step Back and Watch

My sons and a group of their friends are gamers.  They play PC games, Xbox, PS3, you name it.  They get together or play online, depending on the day.  Recently they decided to start playing Dungeons & Dragons.  Not the MMO, but the old school paper and pencil version.  I suppose they finally caught the bug from their old man, who's been hooked on the game since giving the original blue box to my best friend for his birthday in 1979.

The boys come together in my basement every Saturday night.  They joke, eat all our food, play a few hours of D&D, and generally have a great time.  After every session, I get the run down from my boys about what happened in the game and how things are going.  It's at this point that I find myself chomping at the bit to "fix" all the things that they are doing wrong....or more to the point, that they are doing differently than me and my friends would do.  Really, my way must be the correct  way, and therefore better, right?

It's hard having to step back without interjecting but still offer advice when asked.  The parental urge is to dive in, direct, lead.  But my kids and their friends are old enough and smart enough to take care of all this on their own at this point.  And even better, it's really pretty cool watching them work out the dynamics of a complex game system as well as the even more complex social situation that many hours around a gaming table present.

They have their own set of house rules, their own set of interactions, their own pecking order.  I love it.  I love it because I had nothing to do with it and it's working.  I love it because I've done nothing but teach my boys the bare bones of the game and they ran with it.  Their group has communally purchased books, miniatures and other supplies.  They've started bringing their own snacks...something I'm most grateful for...and are generally self sufficient.

It's at the same time very near what me and my friends did way back when, but also seems strange.  Just when I think they're going about it all wrong, they smooth it out and continue to chug happily along.  I'm proud of them for it, but also proud of the group in general.  It shows me that that our teenagers are not the stereotypical slackers we think they are; well, not all of them.

This has been a great "get out of the way" parental situation for me.  I look forward to many more.  We all think our kids are amazing, but it seems that really comes through when they develop their own systems, processes, and networks.