If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
A mother in Chicago is going viral among parents and gamers alike for logging onto Roblox and calling on her 11-year-old daughter to defrost dinner.
ChaCha Watson that she had tried calling her daughter Miracle repeatedly, to instruct her to set out frozen garlic bread and lasagna so she could put it in the oven when she got home. But Watson claimed the preteen was too busy in the online world — specifically in the life simulation game Berry Avenue by Roblox — to notice.
Watson told Today.com she has been playing the game with her daughter for over a year and knew her avatar could quickly reach Miracle’s player if she signed on. Once online, Waston said she confronted her daughter’s avatar in a virtual car.
“She just so happens to be in the beginning stage when you first pop up on the game. So when I popped up, she was just so happened to pull up,” Watson told the outlet. “And I said, ‘You see me calling you!’ and then she was like, ‘I’m sorry mom.’”
Watson then instructed Miracle to complete the chore and could tell she finally did so because the virtual car stopped in its tracks.
The mother hilarious — and effective — parenting antics have since gone viral on social media. “When my baby don’t answer the phone I pull up on ROBLOX,” Watson wrote on Facebook.
Watson used the attention to encourage other parents to meet their children where they’re at — metaphorically and literally — and maybe even do a little bonding while you’re at it.
“Being a single parent, you just want to make sure that you’re spending time with your kids. That’s really important to me — to make sure I’m spending quality time with her. So I downloaded Roblox and …that was just one of the best things ever,” she said.
Another dad recently sent social media into a frenzy when he turned his children’s chores into a game of bribery for internet access.