Parenting an eye-rolling teenager glued to a gaming system is not a simple feat, but what if you could turn screen time into an opportunity for connection? Hannah Boquet shares how she decided to play video games with her kids and discovered the power of esports to foster trust, communication and essential life skills. Dive deeper into how you can strengthen family bonds, support your child’s development — and maybe even be considered “cool” by your kid.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Video games and kids. It's a complicated subject, and I imagine just about everyone has an opinion, especially parents. But what happens when a parent decides to step into the world of video games to understand their kids instead of begging them to get offline?
In this talk, esports competitor Hannah Bouquet shares how she found connection with her kids through playing esports and how video games can actually be a game changer for families.
Before I get started, I just want a quick show of hands. Who here has teens or preteen children? Okay, cool, that's a lot of you. I just want to know, has the experience been for you the same as it's been for me? And by that I mean very connective, the communication is always very clear, there's never any conflict, definitely no sneakiness. Same? Same? Okay, great, good, good, good.
I'm glad we can start all on the same page. But it's wild, isn't it, how quickly our children are growing. I began thinking a little while ago, how do I find a way to stay connected with my children when they're in this stage? When they were little, they would climb up onto my lap and ask me to sing them lullabies and read them stories.
And now I feel the time that we have together just slipping through my fingers. My kids are digital native youth, and that means the entire time they've been around, so have video games and smartphones and the internet and all of the technology. So, I've been watching my kids play video games for a while now, but I had no interest in myself until I had this genius idea.
I wondered, what if, instead of trying to pull my kids into my world with me, what would it be like if I stepped into their world with them? I mean, back in the day, I was pretty good at Diddy Kong racing, so, like, how hard can it be? Picture this. I'm sitting at my house with my headset on, with my PC in front of me, and my kids are over at their dad's house.
My oldest, who are then 10 and 12, are there with their headsets on and their devices. and we all dive in to the wonderful, magic, mysterious world of Fortnite. Immediately, my kids are off, racking up points, opening treasure chests.
I literally don't know what they're doing because I am right where I landed, spinning in a circle, don't even know how to open a door or open a treasure chest or move on to anything. And pretty soon, I have to let my kids know I've been shot and I'm down. Immediately, my 12-year-old said, it's okay, hold on, Mom.
And this kid comes running towards me, building a structure out of literally nothing, and holding his hand over me to heal me. That was kinda cool, I didn't know you could heal people.
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