A time machine game for practicing better reactions
Originally posted on LinkedIn, March 3, 2026.
My son is 9 and has a strong sense of justice. When something feels unfair, he reacts immediately, without stopping.
I tried talking to him. “You don’t need to react like that.” “Think before you respond.” He listens and understands, but a week later the same thing happens. I realized that talking about it wasn’t enough. He needed to practice it.
So I built him a game called Time Machine.
The idea is simple. After something triggers an intense emotional response and his sense of justice kicks in, he opens the app and walks through a real post-mortem: what happened, what he felt, and how he reacted. Then the game begins.
He taps a Time Machine card, returns to that moment, and chooses a different way to handle it. Nobody tells him what to do. Not a teacher, a counselor, or his dad. He comes up with the solution and chooses it himself.
Each round earns him another card for his collection 🃏. Like every kid, he loves collecting cards, so I used that.
I built it with AI that can ask questions, answer, respond, and most importantly, avoid judging him. We live in a time when we can build our own tools for self-improvement.
The game is still in its first trial, but my son has already collected 3 cards. Yesterday he told me, “Dad, I think next time I’ll just walk away.”
I hadn’t told him to.