Episode 47: Your kid aspires to be a professional gamer. What do you do?

The declaration many parents are hearing: Mom I want to be a professional gamer! How did you react to this? What should you do? Listen in for a few tips!

 

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 FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Has your kiddo ever said that they want to be a professional gamer? How did you react? What did you do? How do we proceed with our kid having this as an ambition? Is it something we take seriously or something we dismiss? Let's chat about this.

Speaker 2 (00:17):

Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable, real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the bead that mom movement with your host, Dolly Denson, he friends

Speaker 1 (00:42):

Here, there is an app that will transform the safety of your kids. Smartphone and technology use. It is my favorite way to sleep easy at night and have peace of mind because it is monitoring my kids' activity online without me being in their business. It is the bark app and yes, bark like a dog bark bark bark. It tells you when there's something that you need to be concerned about starting at a small fee each month, you can protect your whole family across all devices. Get connected with bark today. Use code, be that mom for 20% off your subscription for life and get a seven day free trial to check it out. So I think this happens with both boys and girls, but more often with boys, I believe that they have made a declaration that it is their goal to be a professional gamer.

Speaker 1 (01:25):

My first thought on this, when I first heard this declaration was, Oh my God, like they're living in a dream world, right? Have you had that reaction to, and as I explored it more, I was quite surprised to see that this is actually a career for some. So when looking at it and thinking about it and conversing with my son about it, I came up with a couple of things that I think might be helpful for you. If you have been faced with this same thing, I believe it's kind of like our kids seeing they want to be an astronaut or they want to be a doctor or a lawyer. These things are achievable. So I think that a productive stance on this is to think about it in terms of them having an ambition, and then you helping them to define that and figure out what is involved with that and to support them in their belief, to build them up as a person.

Speaker 1 (02:17):

And of course, I'm not a therapist, a psychologist or anything like that. But as a mom, I have found, and I can even look back to my own mom and see that she always believed in me. And she was like my guide to help me realize what it is I wanted to be. And it's not a particularly productive stance to just tell someone, Oh no, you can't do that. Right? Like we should come from the stance you believing in them and them discovering what they're capable of versus us beating them down and them having to build themselves back up or come from a place of being defensive. So in terms of them wanting to be a professional gamer, while in our eyes, it's like, this is a make-believe world. If you Google it, look into it, you will see it is actually a career and can be quite lucrative.

Speaker 1 (03:04):

But it also is very, very difficult and competitive to get into. Now, a lot of people will automatically think, well, you know, all of these professional gamers are just these people that sit in their basements and don't have any social skills. And all they do is eat and they don't get enough sleep and all of that. But if you actually explore this, like Google it, you will find that it is truly a career in most professional gamers in order to sustain what they do and to be competitive because it's highly competitive. They have to have a healthy lifestyle and healthy habits in place of like eating and exercise and sleep and hydration and all those things that are so foundation for any of us at any point. So if you look at those things, this career, this professional gamer thing is actually a true career and it's not all about someone being addicted to gaming and stuck in their basement, no social skills and all of that.

Speaker 1 (03:59):

So what I recommend that you do with your kiddo, if they have made this proclamation is to support them in believing in themselves. And that they're capable of anything they put their mind to, but also help guide them in exploring these things, have them Google, what things a professional gamer has to do in order to remain competitive in order to get to the place where they are at. Of course, they spend a lot of time practicing on the game. So they will spend a lot of time on a screen, but they also are. Most of them, if you look at them closely, they're very mindful about their eating, their exercise, their sleep, their hydration, their mindset, all of those things, because all of those things play into their focus with their game, their speed with their game, their accuracy, with their game. So come from a place of building them up, create realistic expectations around that and around it, and then have them explore this and work on them, having a routine around it while also encouraging other activities in their lives, you know, normal developmental things.

Speaker 1 (04:57):

And to making sure that their priorities are in place for what things have to be done before they can spend time doing the game. If that makes sense. So I wouldn't come from a place of, Oh my God, that's so ridiculous. I can't believe that you think that you could do that. That's like a make-believe world instead come from this positive place of building them up and helping them explore. When I wanted to be a nurse, I'm a nurse practitioner now, but when I wanted to be a nurse, I made that proclamation when I was a very young kid. So what I did to explore that, and what was encouraged of me to do was to find in high school, a position where I was working in the field so I could get a feel of it. And then that could be like a yay or nay for whether or not I'm going to like it.

Speaker 1 (05:39):

Of course, I loved it. I loved working in the hospital and I did proceed with going to nursing school and eventually nurse practitioner school. But my mom didn't just dismiss it and say, Oh, it's hard. It's a hard field. I don't know if you want to do that. She actually encouraged me to explore it more, to find ways to, you know, tip toe into it and figure out if it was something I would like. So that's what I encourage you to do in anything that your kid is wanting to do, but especially for today's topic on wanting to be a professional gamer, help them to explore what is all involved with that study the ones that are professional gamers and have been successful at it. And then you can also interject which a lot of parents I see do other alternative career choices that are very similar, such as building games, somehow being a graphic designer or, you know, something that's related, you can kind of encourage those things, but I would not crush their dream of being a professional gamer because what eventually, or what it will actually do is crush them, not their dream because you're not believing in them.

Speaker 1 (06:41):

And it has to be them that discovers what they want and what they want to work towards. And there are actually people out there that are professional gamers and are successful at it. There's actually scholarships given, you know, like they give scholarships for sports to play football for a certain game. They actually have scholarships now for their gaming sports for different colleges. So it is a thing. So what I would do is just explore it with your kid. Okay. I hope you found this helpful and I'll chat with you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:12):

Thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join. Dolly's free community till next time

Speaker 1 (07:26):

Before you go check this out. If you are a mom that is listening to this podcast, you are wanting to keep your kids safe in the digital world. But let me tell you what is so very powerful and what helped me so so much when things got really tough in my parenting of the digital natives world, I already had a routine of taking care of myself every day with not only the simple things like drinking more water and getting enough sleep most of the time. Anyway. Um, but I also had a routine of exercise in a routine of fueling my body with good nutrition, with guaranteed nutrition, through a smoothie, with tools that helped me during my workouts and this routine. It sounds silly that it could help so much, but it did help me so much when I was gutted by the challenges of raising kids in this digital age, it helped me have a safe place.

Speaker 1 (08:17):

It helped me have a strength that I otherwise would not have mentally and spiritually and physically. And then it also on a day-to-day basis helps me to be more present for the kids because I'm more present for myself. First, if you do not have this in your life, I want to connect you with this. I want to simplify this for you, connect with me and I will connect you with tools that work for anyone that simplify everything around exercising and eating and making this a habit that sticks. And that will be an example for your kids and your family. Connect with me. We'll have a discovery session. We'll figure out which options will work best for you. And then I will connect you with my online community to help support you as you get started and to help you keep up the motivation and the momentum to make this a lifestyle switch that lasts forever. So connect with me today.