Connecting with your teens

Sometimes connecting with adolescent aged children can be challenging because hanging out with parents is not always at the top of their list. If you can join them in an activity they are interested in, it can be helpful. 

G. and L. are very interested by video games and one of their favorites is Skyrim. They have been after J. to play it for a while and this afternoon he sat down to have a second Skyrim playing session with them. J. is not bad at video games (as opposed to me, whom they don't even ask because just figuring out the mechanics of it feels too difficult to try to teach me), but he's used to different controllers than what they are using, which makes it challenging. 

I have to say it's very amusing to watch J. try to figure out the game based on L.'s fairly cryptic instructions, then have her get frustrated and reach over and do it for him. As a bystander, it is even more amusing to listen to L.'s commentary about the whole thing. I felt as though sometimes the whole thing started to border on farce. 

D. eventually joined us and his instructions were a bit more useful and thorough which allowed J. to be more successful. It did not stop L. from leaning over every now and then to "help". Given the sketchy instructions from L. and the sheer complexity of the game, I thought J. did rather well. Far, far better than I would have done had I tried.