What to do if your child tells you they want to be a gamer, youtuber or streamer

Once upon a time there were parents who outright banned their son from video games. Mark was a competitive young man who excelled in various sports and competitions. He was winning so much that, for winning, he even won a raffle in which nothing more and nothing less than... A video game console was raffled!

He grew up and became emancipated, started playing games and working in a video game company. Of course, the fate of Mark Merril might seem doomed to addiction, but nothing could be further from reality: he decided to undertake and ended up creating what is, to date, the most played and competitive video game in the world: League of Legends.

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Assessing the Risks and Opportunities for Success

This fable based on real events helps us to frame three points.

The first is that the coercion total in the use of video games well can be counterproductive.

The second is that where there is greater use of video games, there is always going to be more probability that there will be more problems, but

nothing bad has to happen necessarily.

And the third is that in the 2000s, when Mark Merril began his stage of greater involvement with video games, there was no awareness of a successful path with them; today there is, and also, we can channel this motivation to a professional career related to gaming.

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The royal road if your child who wants to be a gamer, youtuber or streamer: the progressive path

You cannot understand the competitive path in video games without reaching the general public. As we see in the graph, most of the benefits of e-sports come from the sponsorship or sponsorship that certain brands invest as advertising.

Thus, the creation of content that leads to reaching an audience is above the competitive performance in video games, and creating content implies the need to dive in and learn from the following specific knowledge:

• Management of social networks.
• Marketing.
• Market study.
• Graphic design.
• Video edition.
• Technical knowledge of audiovisual and computer infrastructure.
• Communicative skills.

These realistic expectations serve us to frame the starting point of the progressive path. Putting it all down to the practical ground: if we let our young man play video games for 10 hours a week, will have to sacrifice the time of those 10 hours to undertake his personal brand within the gaming and content creation world.

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Accompanying your learning

That he is able to sacrifice playing time to raise his personal best is a very good sign of real motivation. Now, here as parents, we have to put the batteries to really check that our child is taking it seriously, and for this, we have the responsibility to accompany him in this process, especially if he begins as a minor.

For this, we have to take advantage of this opportunity to learn in parallel with our children a bit of each of the previously identified sectors, as well as specific knowledge of their gaming field or content creation topic.

Once this first step is safely achieved, we can agree (even by written contract) that if of those 10 hours weekly games of gaming, 5 continue to invest in their personal brand (and growth or positive feedback is seen) and 5 in gaming, we will be able to value expanding, very gradually, this time of involvement, and always being subject to school and social, mental and physical health obligations.

The result of this well-directed path is brutal learning in all aspects; a process that confronts our children with the effort necessary to "make room for yourself" and with the reality of market (market where competitiveness is very high since it is something accessible today for almost everybody). What do you contribute differently and of value?

From Gamewell we have educational courses for parents and gamers done in an entertaining and dynamic way; And if you still need help to manage this world in a healthy way, you can contact a professional. Neither castration nor debauchery, healthy and responsible use. And in fact, healthy use will lead us to persevere longer and perform better.