Hannah Boquet

Before I get started, I just want a quick show of hands.

Who here has teens or preteen children?

Okay, cool, that's a lot of you.

I just want to know, has the experience been for you the same as it's been for me?

And by that I mean very connective, the communication is always very clear, there's never any conflict, definitely no sneakiness.

Same?

Same?

Okay, great, good, good, good.

I'm glad we can start all on the same page.

But it's wild, isn't it, how quickly our children are growing.

I began thinking a little while ago, how do I find a way to stay connected with my children when they're in this stage?

When they were little, they would climb up onto my lap and ask me to sing them lullabies and read them stories.

And now I feel the time that we have together just slipping through my fingers.

My kids are digital native youth, and that means the entire time they've been around, so have video games and smartphones

and the internet and all of the technology.

So, I've been watching my kids play video games for a while now, but I had no interest in myself until I had this genius idea.

I wondered, what if, instead of trying to pull my kids into my world with me, what would it be like if I stepped into their world with them?

I mean, back in the day, I was pretty good at Diddy Kong racing, so, like, how hard can it be?

Picture this.

I'm sitting at my house with my headset on, with my PC in front of me, and my kids are over at their dad's house.

My oldest, who are then 10 and 12, are there with their headsets on and their devices.

and we all dive in to the wonderful, magic, mysterious world of Fortnite.

Immediately, my kids are off, racking up points, opening treasure chests.

I literally don't know what they're doing because I am right where I landed, spinning in a circle, don't even know how to open a door or open a treasure chest or move on to anything.

And pretty soon, I have to let my kids know I've been shot and I'm down.

Immediately, my 12-year-old said, it's okay, hold on, Mom.

And this kid comes running towards me, building a structure out of literally nothing, and holding his hand over me to heal me.

That was kinda cool, I didn't know you could heal people.

My middle son, if you have a middle son, you can probably relate with this, he comes crashing a semi-truck through the wall his brother just made, hops out in a full body banana costume, and lays his hand over me to heal me.

After the exasperated sigh of why do I have to,

That was the point where I could have quit, where I could have said, I'm terrible at video games, this is not for me.

But I didn't quit.

I didn't quit because we were laughing so hard.

I was laughing at the absolute absurdity of this entire situation.

And I suspect they might have been laughing at how completely terrible I was at video games.

But at that point, they decided that they would stick closer to me and teach me how to play this game.

But I didn't just learn about the game.

I learned about them.

I learned about the connections that they make together and the way they communicate while they're playing these games.

And maybe, the most importantly, I learned this is the connection that I've been craving as well.

I feel like we played and connected in a way that not a lot of teens and parents get to connect, because we connected through play.

We connected through them teaching me a new skill, and me being brave enough or silly enough to think I could maybe play along.

And as it turns out, I wasn't alone.

I was talking to my brother Amos about video games, and he told me something surprising.

He told me that he has connected with his nieces and nephews more through video games than anything else in the entire world.

Before you judge him too harshly, you need to understand that Uncle Amos lives in New Zealand.

Before he was in New Zealand, he lived in Germany.

So the entire time that my kids have been around, they've never known Uncle Amos.

They've never been in the same country as him.

He would not get an hour-long phone call from my kids.

But hopping on Fortnite, playing games together, making memories together, maybe learning how absolutely feral my middle son is?

It's a game changer.

Now, you might be sitting there wondering, what is esports?

Luckily, it's pretty simple.

Esports are just competitive video games.

Anything can be an esport if it's a competitive digital game.

Games like Fortnite, shooter games like that, can be an esport, or games like chess can be an esport if it's played with computers.

What ties them all together is that they're all competitive.

If you have ever talked to a child, like ever in your life, you've probably heard of games like Mario Kart, Fortnite, Rocket League, all esports.

or electronic sports, but do not call them electronic sports because you will lose all of your street cred, especially with your children.

Trust me on that one.

And it's not just my kids who get to have this experience now because the state of South Dakota this year sanctioned esports as a high school activity.

Yeah, that's pretty great.

So right now, kids are playing e-sports teams within the four walls of schools in South Dakota.

This is important because these kids are not just playing, they're practicing.

They're practicing and gaining skills that they will use for the rest of their lives.

Skills like leadership, teamwork, communication, strategy, and the ability to handle tough emotions.

So fast forward to these same kids starting their careers.

Businesses also get to benefit from the skills that kids have gained in high school and in college.

And in that same vein, we can talk about the inclusivity of esports.

I challenge you to think of a more inclusive sport anywhere in the world.

It doesn't matter your age, your background, or your ability.

Anyone can play, compete, grow, and win in esports.

Of course, there's other benefits that I didn't notice until I got further into this with my children.

I understand that as a parent, video games and esports are kind of a complicated subject, because we fear the communication that happens within these spaces, especially because sometimes our kids are talking to strangers.

I think that that's a valid fear.

And I understand now, when I join my kids in this space,

I got to learn with them and help teach them how to navigate this space.

I also learned that it's not just scary, there's joy in these spaces because this is a shared space and we can have shared experiences here.

When I was there with them, I got a firsthand glimpse into their world and I learned how to better protect them and help them through this space.

In fact, video games even helped me when it was time to introduce my kids to someone new.

As a single parent, it can be kind of awkward to introduce your kids to your significant other.

So a couple months before we introduced our families, we all hopped on Fortnite to play together.

This is a life hack, I am serious.

So his kids and my kids and us all jumped onto Fortnite together.

And it was pretty awesome because there was no pressure of like, if we didn't have something to talk about, we're just playing a game, we don't have to talk.

If things weren't going so great,

We could just dip, we didn't have to stay for any certain amount of time.

I got to see how he responded to my kids' silly, competitive, or sometimes a little bit feral nature, and I also got to see how he responded to his children, if they were upset or being critical with each other.

And then, when the time came for us to introduce our families in person, we all had something to talk about.

And maybe this idea isn't so new after all, because back when I was a kid, my parents told me that TV would rot our brains and threw our TV into the trash.

Growing up in rural South Dakota in the 90s, I really didn't miss our TV that much.

If you grew up in South Dakota, in the wild, wild west, or east, in my case, of South Dakota in the 90s, you probably have a pretty good idea about what we got up to.

If not,

Let me paint you a picture.

Imagine trying to ride cattle in a field.

Maybe climbing up to the second-story roof of an outbuilding in the winter to hop on your sled and go screaming down the other side.

Or maybe the timeless tradition of daring your city's slicker friends to touch the electric fence, knowing full well how that will feel because you yourself have touched the electric fence a time or two.

But these are all memorable parts of my childhood and stories for another day.

But I will never forget the Christmas that my parents surprised us with the Nintendo 64.

This gorgeous electronic came with four controllers, and it turns out my parents didn't throw our TV away, they just put it in storage.

So they brought that old box down, and we all got to sit down and play together.

It was a blast playing with my brothers, and sometimes I even won.

Like I said, I was pretty good at Diddy Kong racing.

But the true joy came when we would get to connect with my dad.

You see, my dad had two distinct sides to his personality.

On one side, he was pretty strict and serious and a disciplinarian, which I understand he was raising a gaggle of children, so that can kind of be expected.

But on the other side of him, he was playful and carefree and absolutely hilarious.

And when we all got to race and play together, this is the part of him that we got to see.

My brother Ezra told me a story about one day he was sitting at home playing Halo, and dad came home on his lunch break.

Dad sat down and started playing with him, and pretty soon half an hour goes past, then an hour, and then it's two hours later, and finally Ezra's like, dad, don't you have to be at work?

And dad said, work can wait, we're saving the world right now.

My dad didn't really like video games.

He didn't like them, nor was he good at them, but he chose to connect with us there because that's where we were.

He chose to speak our language, even though he didn't really like it.

Now that he's been gone for eight years, I wish that we could make more of those memories with my kids and with us.

And as a mother now, I draw from those experiences as much as I can.

Whenever my kids ask me to play Fortnite or Minecraft with them, it doesn't matter how busy I am, I never regret sitting down and playing with them.

Video games have surprised me in so many ways.

From schools creating a sense of belonging for kids who wouldn't otherwise have that, to teaching them skills for their lives that they will use for the rest of their lives.

From my dad playing with us growing up, and me playing with my children.

When I speak of eSports, people come out of the woodwork to share their stories with me.

Not stories of sitting in a basement and chugging energy drinks.

Stories about connection.

That's what brings this all together.

When I began pondering how I would share this story about esports with you all, I realized if I wouldn't have said yes when my kids asked me to play Fortnite, none of this would have happened.

I said yes to them, and then my boss asked me if I would drive up to northern Minnesota to research this esports competition and see what it would take to make that happen here in Sioux Falls.

I started learning from and with my colleagues about how to build this right here in Sioux Falls.

And then last September, I got to co-lead South Dakota's first all-ages free esports competition in Sioux Falls.

And our board of directors has agreed to bring it back for round two this October.

And now today, I'm standing here on this TEDx stage, somewhere I never saw myself in a million years.

But this whole journey started with wanting to connect with my sons.

And ultimately, that's who I'm still trying to connect with.

What I found through flailing around Fortnite, saying yes to unexpected opportunities, and learning alongside my children, is that connection is always worth it, even if you don't know how to open the door.

My sons are who I keep saying yes to.

And I would say the best unexpected benefit of all, my kids legitimately think I'm cool.