Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive & Creative Self

by Manoush Zomorodi

With all games, she recommends helping children make the connection between what they do on-screen and real life by—sigh—quizzing them. Yes, add this to your modern parenting repertoire. She counsels parents to ask their kids what they have gotten better at since they began playing a game. However, the important aspect to this question is to get at the abstract skills. So if your daughter answers, “I got better at slinging this bird,” or your son says, “I’m really good at using this kind of power-up,” you have to dig deeper. Push them to move past the concrete tasks and get into the larger skills behind them—such as “I found trying different strategies helps with this level.” I tried this with my son after his first slumber party. He was thrilled that I wanted to talk video games and responded with enthusiasm when I asked him what it took to be good at the game he and his buddies played. “You really had to think hard and focus!”