5 golden rules for playing video games with your kids these holidays

Entertaining children is a difficult business. By nature, children are perpetual energy machines. Their natural motion is running whereas a parent's tends to be the smooth bendy action that transports a G&T into an open mouth. Bonding, however, is a non-negotiable.

Without it children are more likely to try to smother you with a pillow the moment they get old enough to understand what an inheritance is or become famous and spend an uncomfortable amount of time telling the world how shit you are. It is also a fair amount of fun playing with your kids when you all agree on what constitutes fun.

That is where gaming comes in. Whether it was groups of neighbourhood kids gathered around the arcade machine at the local shop or working professionals betting on the outcome of their home Fifa tournaments, playing video games have always been a fun way to bond.

Personal experience has taught me that there are a few things to watch out for when engaging in the sport formerly known as TV games with your kids - if you want everyone to walk away smiling:

1. STEER CLEAR OF COMPETITION

Games are a tense business. Once you get sucked in, tempers are liable to flare more than a pair of bellbottoms and things get taken very personally.

If you decided on playing game modes that pit you against your child instead of on the same side as her, then it won't be long before she starts dreaming of you on the wrong side of a continental pillow. More importantly, you're trying to raise a child, not an adversary, so if you're going to play Fifa, take turns picking teams and achieve your World Cup dreams together.

2. RPGS WORK BETTER

A big part of the fun of gaming is getting sucked into a world that you emerge from three days later with pizza stuck to your leg. RPGs (role-playing games) give you that opportunity.

You get emotionally invested in characters and their plotlines and if you get invested, your kids will too. Don't worry about the fact that most of them are one player. Watching someone navigate the Florentine rooftops of Assassins Creed 2, or any other game, is just as much fun as doing it yourself.

If you don't believe me, just ask your kids what Twitch is.

3. KNOW YOUR ROLE

If you are a parent who grew up gaming then console and PC gaming may come a little more naturally to you than it does your kids. This increases the likelihood that you'll give birth to a little instructions monster that wants to interfere at every moment.

Don't do that. No one likes that. Sit on your hands and chime in only when you are asked, otherwise hold your tongue. Half the time you end up just dadsplaining anyway.

Conversely, if you know your little blighter is a know-it-all, indulge her. If it ends in your virtual death then so be it. At least you won't have to pay Desmond Dube for that funeral.

4. TRY TO BE RESPONSIBLE BUT NOT TOO RESPONSIBLE

If your child is 11 don't play Witcher 3 or GTA 5 with them. That's just silly and you're going to end up having to make explanations to her teachers.

That said, much like with movies, a little bit of parental discretion can be exercised when gaming with the kids. Final Fantasy tends to carry an age rating of teen because it involves a lot of combat, but I have seen more graphic violence on Cartoon Network than in the Final Fantasy franchise.

Point being, don't stick too closely to the rules because that almost always ends up in people playing something boring.

5. HAVE FUN

Duh.