Grandson Gabriel and the Video Game World

Our grandson Gabriel Paulson visiting Grandpa and Grandma Paulson for a couple of days. He is four (and one-half) years old. He likes activity. He is engaged all of the time from the moment his feet hit the floor until he falls exhausted into bed for a nap, or at nighttime.

All grandparents are, or this is true of every grandparent I have talked to thus far, familiar with this story. Gabriel simply likes to play, and he likes someone to be with him at all times, if possible. Gabriel is a people person. Some children can find time to engage in “self entertainment” for a while. And, Gabriel can do this for a short stint. But, if you leave him to, for example, change a load of laundry, or clean up the kitchen, or fix a bed or two, Gabriel begins to beckon you to “come and play with me”.

Right now Gabriel is at Vacation Bible School (VBS) enjoying the camaraderie of other children his age while they learn about the love of Jesus and how to love one another as He taught us to do in this world of pestilence, famine and other concerns the world brings to its inhabitants.

But a few hours before he went to VBS his Grandpa and he were enjoying playing the Wii video games on our home entertainment center. The Wii system allows you to make a computer animated likeness of yourself. You can pick the face contours, eyes, nose, hair color, body size (tall or short, thin or wide), and you can even add glasses if you wish.

Gabriel was playing Wii sports. He would bowl or play tennis with other Wii likenesses that had been developed by our family members. So, for example, he would bowl as his father, Michael, or his uncle Tony. Later he was playing tennis as his aunt Erin. His opponents were a true diversity of individuals that included other females and even an African American person.

At one point Gabriel switched to boxing, and as his aunt Erin or later his Grandma, they were pummeling opponents to the mat which truly delighted his Grandpa (I love boxing, as my father did before me). No sooner did I suggest to Gabriel that we develop a character that looked like him (blond hair, round face, smallish nose, and, at his own suggestion, the perfect pair of sunglasses) we were into our first round of boxing where GABRIEL was defeating these computer animated “bruisers”.

Grandma came downstairs, after hearing our chants of, “knock him down”, and then Grandma stated that Gabriel’s mother had said, “No boxing!” So Gabriel went back to tennis. This time he made all four players be a computer image of him. You saw four Gabriels playing doubles tennis. I said, “Don’t you want to try to beat someone else?” Gabriel said, “No, this way I will win all the time.”

I a way, however, Gabriel had created a perfect Wii world, he could win, but nobody else had to lose really. No one had to suffer defeat at his hand. I only wish the world could be a little more like this for everyone, everybody wins; nobody loses.