Gamified Aniketh

It was late in the evening, and Mrinal was chopping vegetables for dinner when her phone vibrated on the kitchen counter. She did not pick it up immediately.

She glanced once, then again, as if hoping it might stop on its own.

“Hello?”

The ceiling fan hummed above her. Oil crackled softly in the pan.

“Yes… yes, this is Aniketh’s mother.”

There was a pause.
Her fingers tightened around the knife handle.

“I see,” she said quietly. “No, I wasn’t aware.”

She listened, nodding, though no one could see her.

“Thank you for calling. I will speak to him.”

The call ended.

The vegetables lay half-cut, edges uneven and the stove burned on.

Mrinal did not resume chopping.

Aniketh’s school bag lay open on the sofa, books spilling out as though they had been dropped without thought.

“Where are your notes?” Mrinal asked.

Aniketh did not look up. His eyes were fixed on the screen in his hands. The room pulsed with sound and colour, fast and urgent, alive in a way the rest of the evening was not.

“Ani…”

“Aniketh?”

There was no response.

She reached out and pressed the power button.
The screen went black.

“What did you do that for?” he snapped, springing to his feet.

“Your teacher called,” she said, keeping her voice steady though it tightened at the edges. “You have not completed your notes. You have been unusually quiet in class. You are falling behind.”

He laughed once, sharp and brittle.

“So what?”

“So what?” she repeated. “You have not written anything in days.”

“I do not want to,” he said. “It is boring.”

“Everything cannot be fun all the time.”

Something shifted across his face. A flicker passed through him before it ignited.

“You do not understand,” he shouted, pushing the cushion aside. “Just leave me alone.”

Before she could respond, he ran down the corridor and slammed his bedroom door.

There was a click, the lock engaged and silence followed.

And then came the muffled sound of crying…

Just a Phase or a Red Flag?

The door remained shut long after night settled into the house.

Mrinal sat at the dining table with her husband. Two cups of tea had gone cold between them.

“He was not always like this,” she said. “He used to write stories. Do you remember?”

“He is distracted,” her husband replied. “It is probably a phase.”

She shook her head.

“Phases don’t look like this.”

They sat listening.

There was no sound from the room now.

That frightened her more than the crying had.

Later that night, her phone glowed in the dark as she searched for answers. Counsellors. Psychologists. Specialists. One name stood out, not because it promised miracles, but because it sounded like an answer, and so, Mrinal saved it.

The Clinic

The clinic waiting room smelled faintly of sandalwood. The light was soft. There were no posters shouting advice or warnings.

Only one framed line hung on the wall.

Behaviour is communication.

When Sheetal Nair stepped out and smiled, it felt less like an appointment and more like an invitation.

“Mrinal?”

Sheetal’s office was quiet in a way that did not feel empty.

Mrinal sat forward in her chair, her hands clenched in her lap.

“He has changed,” she said quickly. “His grades are dropping. He does not write anymore. He gets angry, sometimes violent, and then he cries. I do not know where I went wrong.”

Sheetal did not interrupt.

When Mrinal finally stopped, her breath uneven, Sheetal asked, “When did you first notice the change?”

Mrinal thought for a moment.

“Last year. First he stopped reading. Then he stopped writing. Then everything else.”

“And gaming?”

Mrinal hesitated. “He plays a lot.”

“How does he play?” Sheetal asked. “Casually, or intensely?”

“Intensely,” she admitted. “Hours pass and he does not notice.”

Sheetal nodded, as though something had aligned.

“Has anyone told you he lacks discipline?”

Mrinal nodded.

“Good,” Sheetal said. “Let’s remove that word.”

Sheetal did not begin with advice.
She began with observation.

Aniketh sat at the far end of the sofa, his knees drawn up, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled halfway over his head. His foot tapped rapidly against the floor. His eyes moved around the room without settling anywhere.

Sheetal noticed how he responded more to movement than to voice, how he avoided eye contact when spoken to directly, how his body remained tense even while sitting still.

She turned to Mrinal instead.

“Has he always reacted strongly to interruption?”

“No,” Mrinal said. “Earlier he would sulk. Now he explodes.”

“So the escalation is recent.”

She leaned forward slightly.

“Does he regret it afterward?”

“Yes,” Mrinal said quickly. “He cries. He says sorry. He locks himself in.”

That mattered.

Strong reactions followed by remorse suggested overwhelm, not indifference.

Impulse without remorse pointed one way.
Impulse followed by shame pointed another.

One assumption quietly left the room.

Ruling Out What It Is NOT

“Before we understand what this is,” Sheetal said, “we need to be clear about what it is not.”

She spoke slowly, choosing accuracy over comfort.

“He is not careless. He is not uninterested. He is not incapable of effort.”

She glanced at Aniketh.

“Children who struggle with regulation today often do so selectively. They can sustain effort deeply when the environment supports it.”

Mrinal said curiously, “So what is happening?” she asked.

Sheetal did not answer immediately.

She took a blank sheet of paper and sketched a rough outline of a brain.

“This,” she said, tapping the centre, “is the reward system. It runs on anticipation, feedback, and a sense of achievement.”

She shaded the front.

“And this is the system that manages planning, waiting, and self control.”

She looked at Mrinal.

“At this age, these systems do not grow at the same pace.”

She drew two columns.

“Tell me,” she said, “what happens when he plays?”

“He wins levels. He gets rewards. He sees results immediately.”

“And when he studies?”

Mrinal swallowed. “Corrections. Waiting. Marks that come weeks later.”

Sheetal nodded.

“His brain has learned speed instead of meaning,” she said. “Not because something is wrong, but because that is what his environment repeatedly offers.”

“So he is addicted?” Mrinal asked.

“No,” Sheetal replied. “He is conditioned.”

She paused, choosing her words carefully.

“Games speak the language his brain understands. School does not.”

“Then why the anger?”

“Because interruption feels like loss,” Sheetal said. “And loss feels unsafe.”

She leaned forward.

“He is not choosing defiance. His nervous system is reacting.”

Mrinal closed her eyes.

“So it is not his fault?”

“It is not his failure,” Sheetal corrected gently. “And it is not yours either.”

Mrinal whispered, “So games are not the problem.”

“No,” Sheetal replied. “Regulation is the missing bridge. Games currently provide it. We have to rebuild it elsewhere.”

That sentence stayed with Mrinal.

“He becomes calm when he plays,” sheetal said slowly. “He becomes restless when we stop him.”

“You’re not removing entertainment,” she said.

“You’re removing regulation.”

Mrinal's husband, who had been silent until then, shifted in his chair.

“We’re letting him negotiate now?” he asked.

Sheetal turned to him.

“We’re teaching him to stop before he breaks,” she insisted.

“This is not a detox,” she said firmly. “There will be no sudden bans and no moral lectures.”

Gaming would be reduced slowly.

Effort would be redesigned. Tasks would be smaller. Endings would be clear.

“Stop when he succeeds,” Sheetal said. “Not when he is exhausted.”

At home, language would change.

Not Why can you not focus?
But I see this is hard. Let us break it down.

After outbursts, there would be no lectures. Only one question later.

“What was your body feeling?”

Awareness would rebuild self control.

The Silent comeback

Progress did not arrive loudly.

In the first week, doors still slammed, but the screaming softened.

By the third week, Aniketh wrote three sentences. Only three. He stopped, then finished.

By the sixth week, he asked, “Can I finish this level and then do my homework?”

Recovery appeared in pauses.

In hesitations before shouting.
In requests for five more minutes.
In notebooks reopened without being asked.

Nothing dramatic.
Everything real.

At the final session, Sheetal said to Mrinal, “Your son did not lose discipline.”

She smiled.

“He lost balance.”

Outside the clinic, Aniketh waited with a controller in his bag and a notebook in his hand.

Both worlds still existed.

That evening, Aniketh sat at the table, his pencil tapping thoughtfully against the paper.

Mrinal watched from the doorway.

“Mom,” he said suddenly, without looking up, “can you look at this? I have sketched our house.”

Outside, the evening light softened.

Inside, something steadier had returned.

Not the boy he once was, but a boy learning slowly to live in both worlds.

And Mrinal finally understood what Sheetal had meant.

Some children do not lose motivation. They lose environments that speak to their brains!

And sometimes, recovery does not look like discipline. It looks like understanding, applied patiently, one small win at a time…

**************