Simple Ways to Connect with Your Teen: Have Regular YouTube Time Together

Whether it’s YouTube, TikTok, another social media video site, or a combination, there’s a VERY good chance your teen enjoys watching socially posted videos. And if you’re willing to approach it the right way, this can pose a delightful opportunity for you to connect and build your relationship with them. Here are a few tips to help you use shared video watching as a genuine connection point with your teen. (I was going to list these as bullet points, but the tips all just kinda flow together. There’s probably some sort of meaningful symbolism in this, but I’m shaking off Covid weariness at the moment, so I’ll just leave it alone.):

Find a channel or two together that you can both enjoy watching regularly, but let your teen be the primary guide on this. Don’t rush it or force it. Don’t try to make it something that seems inherently meaningful or educational or some other parental perspective. Invite your teen to share a variety of their social video interests with you, and see if you can find a couple of channels that you can both genuinely enjoy in each other’s presence. Come back to that channel or those channels on the regular, even as you keep the door open for others your son or daughter is into. You don’t have to be totally into it, or thoroughly enjoy it for the sake of its content. But can you enjoy watching it with her/him? If you can stick with a regular time to share your video experience together, that will give it the most impact. This is one of the entries in this post series that is especially ideal for starting when your child is a young teen or even a pre-teen. Establishing this shared tradition before they hit the high school days can help this become a simple but stable point of connection between you that can help open important doors of conversation over the years. Having said that, don’t try to make it be a talky-talky time as a rule, because that will probably keep it from being such a valuable connection. Let it simply be…fun. Because the real value in having a favorite parent-teen YouTube channel together is that sets a tone for sometimes just sitting and laughing or smiling or groaning or cheering or cringing together. And don’t ever underestimate how much difference that can make.

To illustrate how my stream-of-consciousness tips can work, I’ll tell you briefly about the YouTube connections my son and I have enjoyed together over the years. When my big ole son was still a rather wee lad (6 or 7 years old, maybe?), he used to love listening to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star at bedtime. I think it was from some kind of little “music box” he got from his Nana, or something. One night, I couldn’t find the little song-playing gizmo, and he wasn’t buying me just singing or humming it for him. So, I did a quick search on my phone, and found a video on YouTube by some fellas calling themselves, “The Piano Guys.” He loved it, and we were both impressed by the cool video. That video became a regular bedtime tradition for years, which grew into taking turns picking a different video by the wildly talented cellist/pianist duo and their team at least a couple of nights a week. Their videos for “Cello Wars,” “Moonlight – Electric Cello,” “Charlie Brown Medley,” and “One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful” are still legendary for us. And I suppose “The Dumb Song” would be on our notorious list. At some point through his middle school journey, we both sensed the need for some video material just a bit on the wilder and crazier side. Enter “The Slow-Mo Guys,” a couple of British knuckleheads with access to some ridiculously high-end slow motion camera equipment. Basically a couple of Beavis and Butthead spirited man-children trying to find the coolest things in the world to blow up, smash, or splatter in high definition slow motion glory. Absolute video GOLD for a dad and young teen son to share for some bonding time! So much re-watchable mayhem there, but our most often quoted reference definitely comes from their Cinnamon Challenge video – “I’m NEVER doing that again!” (with snarky late adolescent British inflection). And somewhere further into his teen years, when we no longer shared such a clear bedtime ritual, he introduced me to crew of “Dude Perfect,” because he thought I would enjoy their high energy sometimes silly, sometimes breathtaking antics as much as he did. He was right. Check out any of their Stereotype videos… You’re welcome! Well, that was quite as brief as I thought it would be, but here’s the point: Our regular YouTube time together (especially at his bedtime) over the years helped him to know that we can just be Two Guys Being Guys And Being Real Together. And I believe that is a priceless foundational element in our relationship today.

I’m not trying to tell you which channels or videos to watch with your teen. That will depend on your teen, and to a lesser degree – you. I just know this simple point of connection has been a curious mainstay over the years of my relationship with my son, bringing us together to laugh, gasp, explore, and remember together. And sometimes creating just the right point of continuity to invite Conversations That Really Matter.