I have been a parent for ten years and during this time I have endeavoured to give my children the best start in life. We are geek and as such our children are growing up in an environment surrounded by tech and gaming. As any good parent would, I began downloading phonics and maths games for the children as I’m all about education. However, I found these rarely kept them interested for very long and they soon reverted back to the likes of Angry Birds. But that’s okay because learning isn’t just about literacy and maths, there is a whole world of science and physics, art and more. When I found games that targeted these areas the children were not only absorbed by them, but extremely successful, but today I would like to talk to you about one game that every child should play.
Before we start it is important to remind fellow parents of the importance of children understanding e-safety. We know the internet is a great and unlimited resource but it also full of bad bad people using anonymity as an excuse for offensive behaviour. There are many great websites with advice for parents and cartoons targeted for children’s understanding, such as kidsmart.org. Make sure you and your children are clued up!
So what should every child play? Well Minecraft of course. I’m guessing the majority of you out there are familiar with the game that lets you build anything from a house or whole civilisations, and teaches you basic survival, living off the environment whilst trying to stay alive during the night.
Though it is considered a game I view it as a toy, a virtual toy, like Lego but a lot cheaper and less painful to stand on. When you break Minecraft down to its basic subjects, it teaches science, engineering, technology and maths. In fact there is a website dedicated to the use of Minecraft in Education with lots of ideas on the different subjects you can cover. The free to play demo means an opportunity to try before you buy, but at a one off cost of £17.95, it is well worth the purchase for the hours of fun it brings.
The likes of mods and texture packs mean the potential is endless, no finishing the game and then it becoming redundant, but this also has another advantage. Basic IT, learning the ways of the internet, figuring out simple things such as which is the real link and not some camouflaged ad that will screw up your computer. My girl is so adept that she has to show me how to uninstall the stupid search bar from the stupid…anyway needless to say, she has skills I do not. My daughter is considered gifted and talented in ICT, I’m not saying that is solely the result of Minecraft but it certainly contributed.
Another plus for this game is it is not heavily reliant on the ability to read and means that my son began playing at just 3 years old, having watched his sister beforehand, and now at 5 he is becoming a little pro. I know many people would probably criticise the amount of time my children spend on laptops or gaming, but children take the experiences away with them. Both at school and home Xander uses Lego to construct a house he would like to make in Minecraft, he draws designs of giant volcano he wants to build, I also encourage him to label his drawings so Bam! Snuck some literacy in there.
But what blew me out of the water though was my daughter’s ability. Now 10 years old, I find her running her own empire, instructing fellow players on exactly how she wants the castle to be built, and to be honest being very bossy about the whole thing. When I asked her what she was up to the other day she retorted “Showing these guys how to do something because they don’t know, how can they not know?” Which led to a sit down talk about how to treat other players to get the best out of them, if she is to rule an empire she must be a firm but fair leader.
Over the years I have learnt a few lesson so thought it my responsibility to share with you my top tips:
1. Make sure they have mastered the basic skills before allowing them to go survival or it will end in tears, seriously loud tears.
2. Children must understand why it is they need to kill the animals, you don’t want little psychopaths on your hands. It is a good lesson to learn where your food comes from, but endlessly slaughtering animals for fun is not a good direction to go.
3. Don’t become controlling. It is easy slip from casual observer to controlling parent. If you find yourself saying things like “No if you put it here then…” or “That won’t work, why don’t you…” Then stop it immediately. Whilst you believe you are being helpful what you are doing is stifling creativity and stopping them learning from mistakes. We all must learn from our failures, children included.
4. But don’t wander and leave them to it, especially in the early days. Your child will inevitably come across rage inducing frustrations from not being able to build something quite right. You need to be there to calm them, offer a little hand but most of all judge when it has become too much. If your child is in the midst of an anger fueled meltdown, then it is time to turn it off. No doubt your offspring will return later with a clearer head and a better idea
5. Teach them how to mod and leave them to it. You will amazed at how quickly they pick up patching and modding skills.
6. Ensure you find a family friendly server, or better still create your own and allow only close friends access. Children are growing up in a world of MMO’s and therefore need to learn how to behave and communicate in an acceptable way. Destroying your brother’s castle because he killed your sheep is not okay. My son was made to provide new sheep for his sister and she was instructed to build him a new castle, which inadvertently lead to them creating a super kingdom, win!
Above all Minecraft should be fun and assuming you have enough platforms it can be a great rainy day family activity. Problem solving, critical thinking and creativity are all promoted with this one simple game, it fosters a need for cooperation and patience, it fuels imagination and determination, so it basically rocks! Let your geeklings loose and you may just get a couple of free hours to….I dunno know… write for a geek based website.
