Moderation.

Situational awareness.

Good communication.

Teamwork.

Sharing.

Priority switching.

Critical Thinking

Board Games, video games, esports, mobile games. All of these make up gaming and esports. All of these also provide paths to learning the life lessons mentioned above, which most of us would agree are important for having a successful life. 

But how?

In this series I’m going to walk you through everyday examples of how I’ve began teaching my children these life lessons using gaming as examples.

Remember, you are in a relationship with your kids, there is give and take, compromise, fun, hard, sucky, and amazing times. Your job as a parent is to guide your child on their path of becoming their own person, not force them into a path that isn’t theirs. That makes life very difficult and unhappy. Today’s topic is below.

Priority switching;

Wow. What a topic this is. We all do it, every day without really noticing most of the time or even realizing the skill required to do it effectively, efficiently, and without overwhelming ourselves to the point of burnout. This can also be referred to as micro goal setting, setting a handful of different “things” we need to accomplish on any given day.
Having this skill honed means that you can assess, based on the current information you have, what the most important need/want/task/etc. is at that exact moment. An example being; you’re working hard and in the zone, then you recognize you had forgotten something that is also important. Did this need just become a higher priority, and require you to switch gears immediately?

Since this isn’t a skill that’s second nature and everyone executes priority switching differently, it requires some effort and/or recognition by you in order to refine the ability to effectively priority switch. Now let’s get to the gaming point of view.

I recently went on a work trip to a conference, it was 3 solid days of just that being my focus. The night I got back my son asked me if I could play Apex Legends with him tomorrow evening, I replied “we will see, I had to leave my daily priorities aside and focus on the conference and travel.”

To which he asked “well, does that mean those daily tasks aren’t important?”

What a great question! “Not true buddy, the trip and conference became an immediate and important priority, therefore it required my attention, I needed to switch from my daily priorities for a short time.”

He nodded, but I could see he still didn’t quite grasp the concept how I wanted it to impact him. I wanted him to understand on a deeper level so I tried another approach.

“Bud, it’s like in Apex when you’re firing on a team and see that someone becomes a greater threat or two of your teammates are firing at one guy, you analyze in a split second and adjust fire to them, knowing that you’ll go back to the first enemy soon. This is priority switching, you’re immediately recognizing that something else has become a higher priority for the time being and allowing yourself to switch.”

There was that “OOOOHHHH” moment I was looking for. 

These are the teaching mechanisms we can pull from gaming, this priority switching skill can and is being gained through multiple games. However, a very important part of developing, honing, growing this skill is being able to recognize it and give it the reflection time it deserves. Evaluate daily on what skills you could potentially be unlocking and haven’t because you aren’t spending the time to recognize them.