Photo: sean dreilinger / Flickr

Parents want to have better relationships with their children. Children want to have better relationships with their parents. The problem, however, especially for children in their early teens, is that interests for the two groups do not overlap, and teenage angst often means where interests do overlap, children don’t want to do things with their folks.

In recent years, however, as video gaming has broken out from the basement to the living room with consoles like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect, and from the bedroom PC to the home PC through casual games like Bejeweled and Farmville, their finally is an area of overlap. How can parents better take advantage of this?

Tips for parents

Take genuine interest in the games your children like that you happen to like as well. See, the secret with gamers is that they’re no different than professionals in an industry – they love gaming jargon and thrive on insight. An easy way to break the barriers to entry for gaming with children is to speak about the games you’ve been playing that they happen to like, too. Understand what leveling up means, why you avoid micro-transactions, and why the double pea shooter in Plants vs. Zombies is the must-have weapon in the game.

Then start dropping hints slowly. Don’t impose. Just go about playing on your own, and eventually, if your child sees you’re not a ‘noob’, as the term goes, you’ll be surprised how open to gaming with you they may become.

Tips for kids

While this guide is written predominantly for parents – mothers, specifically – children play a big role in this, too. The first thing is for children to be open to gaming with parents – if you reject it off-hand, you’re writing off a chance to play games more often, and with your folks. Test your folks’ interest, and if it genuine, entertain it. If it is fleeting, let your folks know how seriously you take gaming, and that they’re interrupting your leisure time.

It’s all about understanding

With Zynga, the social gaming behemoth behind FarmVille and CityVille, says that the new hardcore gamer is ‘female and is 40’, it’s telling that gaming is consumed by the whole household, and not just teenage boys. As such, parents should prepare boundaries and concessions around gaming as they do television and other household activities. Children should be open to gaming with parents, too.

The point is any chance to spend more time together as a family should be treated seriously. Contemporary video gaming represents that. If you want more clues on how to go about it, checkout the fantastic Gaming With Children website.

Tags: Parenting