Millennials and young Generation Xers grew up during the original boom of home gaming systems. Now we’re all grown up with kids of our own—and still gaming. In fact, more parents are playing video games than ever before, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Unlike staring at our phones or obsessively checking our work email, video gaming screens don’t have to take us further from our loved ones. Here are 14 ways you can use gaming to get closer to your family. 
Sandbox games allow the gamer to roam around and experience a virtual world, as opposed to progression-style games that emphasize completing a task. One of the original sandbox games, The Sims, is great for parents and kids to play together. In case you’re not familiar with it, the life-simulation video game allows players to build a home and virtual people and watch them go about their day while helping them make decisions. Parents and kids can build this world together, deciding what their world looks like and what the Sims do. Kids love having a little bit of control—what a great way to let them explore it! 
If you have kids with a wide range of ages, finding an activity for everyone can be really hard. Angela, a mother of three kids ranging from 10 to 17 told us that she uses Minecraft, another popular sandbox game, as a way to get everyone to play together. “Sometimes I’ll come up with Minecraft challenges for them to do. So I’ll say for instance, ‘All of you build me a movie theater in the next 30 minutes,’ then I judge them. Because of the big age difference in my kids there isn’t a lot that they all do in common, but Minecraft is one.” 
Younger kids love to “help,” often making things much harder for parents than they need to be! Luckily, some games are designed to let little kids pitch in: In Super Mario Odyssey, for example, mom or dad can play as the main character while a little one acts as Mario’s hat. The hat can float around and discover new parts of the world, giving kids a feeling of accomplishment and pride in helping the team. 
Even before kids are old enough to handle a controller themselves, they can participate by watching and strategizing while mom or dad plays. Hillary, a mother of two young boys, says her 5-year-old loves to give directions (“turn right, go left”) and make up new characters who can beat the bad guys. “I appreciate that he’s using his imagination,” she says. 
What parent doesn’t love to tell a good “when I was your age” story? And, with the exception of teenagers, kids usually love hearing them. Luckily, the video games you probably played when you were young—Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Zelda—are still out there and accessible on a variety of platforms. Purists can opt for a Nintendo Classic console, a miniature version of the old, gray, have-to-blow-in-it-for-it-to-work systems we used to have. The ones sold these days come with dozens of classic Nintendo games included. 
Frank Daponte, a video game and virtual reality artist in Plantation, Florida, strongly believes that playing video games with kids builds critical thinking skills. “Mentally, they learn rapid problem solving and how to deal with adversity in a safe way,” he says. They also learn about rules and consequences, Jordan Shapiro, a professor at Temple University and senior fellow at Sesame Workshop, says in his book The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World “The more they play, the better they get at mediating the tension between their own playful desires and the boundaries that create a space for fun,” he writes. That takes self-regulation and impulse control, skills that help create successful relationships and careers as adults. 
Even a shooting game like Halo can lead to deeper discussions of emotions and morality if you play with your kids, Sesame Workshop’s Shapiro writes in Forbes. He once sat side-by-side with his sons while the boys played Halo: Combat Evolved, and it led to a pretty deep talk. Once gameplay was over, the three of them talked about why it might be okay to shoot imaginary aliens, but not people. “We thought about what the aliens might represent in a kid’s life: anxiety, frustration, anger, etc. I asked them what, in their own emotional experiences, comes on like a monster—uncontrollable, scary, overwhelming,” he wrote. Ultimately, Shapiro felt like he was able to turn the game into a life lesson in emotional intelligence. 
Arizona State University’s Center for Games and Impact offers a collection of guides for parents that are a bit like “lesson plans” for video games. They offer a description of the game, a theme for the lesson—for example, friendship and effective collaboration—and suggestions for discussing, interacting and sharing the game with your children. An easy way to kickstart your video game quality time experience. 
Nintendo’s Wii Sports games like bowling, tennis and boxing are a longtime favorite for many families. Along with the physical benefits of active games, Wii has some super fun one that encourage teamwork and togetherness, too. Your family will laugh all the way to the finish line with Wii rowing as you try to work together to complete a race. For the more musically inclined, Rock Band allows each member of your family to choose an instrument or sing and collaboratively recreate favorite songs. 
Next time you notice your older kid settling in to play video games, take a few minutes and sit yourself down where she’s playing. Showing interest in what your child is doing can strengthen your bond—and any positive interaction with your tween or teen will benefit your relationship! 
If your kids are way into video games and have their own phones or computers they’re probably already watching their eSports gamers like popular YouTuber and internet personality Ninja (who makes about $16 million a year), play on Twitch or another streaming service. Live-action spectator sports are a favorite pastime for bonding with friends and family, so why not eSports competitive video gaming? Nearly 400 million people worldwide watch eSports and there’s even a push to include them in the 2024 Olympics. Just like you’d gather with friends and family to watch the Super Bowl, you can get some bonding time while watching eSports. 
If your kids are in high school and serious about video games, embrace it! Science and tech-minded teens may very well have a future in video game creation or emerging technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence. You could help them research some of the best video game design schools like the University of Southern California or the University of Utah, and even look at alumni lists to see if one of them made your child’s favorite game. 
Under normal circumstances, when parents are at work and kids are at school, family time can be pretty limited. One avid gamer parent we talked to said that he and his brood use video games to interact with each other even when they’re all busy doing their own things. “We always have a game going where we’re fighting to keep the high score,” he says. “You might turn on the game and find that someone else has taken over the top spot while you were working. Even when we can’t find a moment to play together, it’s a way for us to keep a conversation going through friendly competition.” 
Parents are ambushed with often-conflicting information about the risks of screen time and video games. But there are benefits, too, says Daponte. “I’ve found my kids’ dexterity increased quite significantly once we started playing some games together,” he says. “It has also helped their reading to some extent—it’s just something they start doing while gaming without even realizing it.” Remember: Kids today are growing up in a different world and will require a different set of skills to navigate it. In the same way kids used to need to know cursive, kids growing up now need to be fluent in technology. Playing together on the iPad or tablet lets little ones practice swiping and tapping, keeping them up to speed on technologies they’ll use in school and way beyond.
