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Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

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Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#141
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not mean "lonely" as negative. But people sometimes go "oh I dont get it instantly I must be too old for it, cant do it and kids get it naturally". And that is not the case, kids are figuring it out slowly and their play is more incapable then they think at first. However, they "feel" like they know what they are doing whole time, so learning is pleasant. But also, I dont really think Minecraft is like lego. Yo…

True. Original Minecraft had no story or game. The game was survive. You could "win" within 30 minutes of your first time learning things. The plot and end dragon and all were added a lot later. My kids have never finished the game and pretty much only play creative mode. I didn't think you meant it negatively. Just an interesting way to describe it.

The beauty of Minecraft is that you do your thing and gameplay emerges - it does not pushes you in any direction. And you can switch game playing style whenever you want however you want. You can be explorer, you can learn, you can build, you can roleplay, you can care about aesthetics or not, you can care about ecology or not, you can go to caves and catch monsters. Most importantly, you can mix approaches. And when you get bored by it, you change gameplay style and game dont care, there is no penalty.

All that while whole game is remarkably low stress and zen-like. In survival, you will dig for hours for material. And you can also get stress if you want to and you can put yourself in danger if you want to.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#142

I tried to play with my 4 y.o. son to NES classic games. He loved Donkey Kong County, and some other arcades, but I found games affects his behavior in a bad way. He was always asking to play more, refusing to go and play outside, working at home with books, paper, and color pens and water paints. So we're not playing for 6 months or more. He loved plasticine, and makes some really fancy and realistic animals. He lik…

Learning how to put the video game down is just as big a life lesson as many of the things the actual gameplay teaches you.

I think maybe 4 is a little young to ask a kid not to let their emotions drive them. But by the time they get to ages 6-10, video games can be a valuable tool for teaching time / life balance. Better to figure out at a young age that you have cravings to screw around when you should be doing something else, and you have to resist or bad things will happen.

Better they figure it out as a kid when "Bad things will happen" means "Parents will be mad." It's a lot tougher on them if they have to figure it out when they're a young adult, and "Bad things will happen" means "Flunking college" or "Losing a job."

Too many young adults can't deal with managing free time when they're first out on their own, and there are actual consequences to it at that point in their life.

Source: Was a kid once, was a young adult once, saw a couple other young adults wash out of college because nobody'd ever taught them how to stop playing video games when it starts to interfere with what they need to do.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#143
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or someone shows it to you. I heard there's websites with videos demoing game play. (There was this youngster with an ipad that seemed to spend quite a few hours watching them. Perhaps more than playing the game.)

Lol, most kids who play Minecraft actually watch Minecraft videos a lot more then they actually play. So, you would not be out of normal. However, fining good beginner videos is not that easy (how to move, set it on creative at first, look you can fly etc) and watching videos is time consuming for adults. The ratio of noise vs information is very very low.

Kids actually love repetition, and being able to act on it.

The better documented example of this is when Blue's Clues needed to run the same episode multiple times a week. Everyone thought their ratings would tank, but instead they spiked.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#144
post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

I’m constantly encouraging the second, third, and fourth year apprentices at work to be the first stop and series of escalation points for the more junior apprentices and students who come in for week-long work experience sessions as part of their high school requirement. Part of learning is learning to teach, to share the skills and knowledge we have. It isn’t strictly necessary, but we know more is revealed when we…

I'm working on theory that we all desire to be teachers, though definitely not teachers in a school classroom. I think the desire to share what we've learned is part of the process of learning, maybe a validation step. There can be lots of factors affecting one's situation, but for the most part life can be rearranged to accommodate things like teaching. Maybe the reason we don't run out and share what we've learned is because we adults don't feel like we know anything worth sharing.

Lately I'm reading the ancient philosophy texts and thinking about what it was like to learn back then. Plato had Socrates (who didn't believe in writing!) and he had to compete with other younger students for his favor. This meant not only participating in the conversations available but also making himself available to them. Can you imagine how different the learning experience would be if teachers just made themselves available from 9am-3pm every day, and students could choose to fill all or none of their time in their company? Like if spontaneous moments of brilliance came about when something like a high school german instructor bumped into a legendary cognitive science professor and together, they discovered a new idea at the intersection. And teachers and students (who made the effort to be there) could have been there to witness the whole thing. To see the joy of learning something new, on the two faces who only together made it possible. And to themselves learn something new from it. It's amazing stuff when we let it be.

The situation in which we find ourselves today, both ends of the dialogue are confused about what to do. The students aren't sure what to seek out, and they seem to rely more on luck and fate to assemble an understanding of the world for them. This makes me think no one is telling them what they're capable of, or about all of the lifetimes of enjoyment they can find in the world without spending a cent, only their time. There are millenia of human histories to explore and help them find their place, but the teachers on the other end are seeing the lack of interest in their methods and are taking it personally.

We need a much more flexible perspective on education, and I think a big part of that is becoming great teachers in our own lines of work like you're doing. We simply cannot put "learning" in a box and on a store shelf and expect the next generation to just pick it up. This is a life-long journey for all of us, and it can be a life-long joy if we help others see and feel the value of living!

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#146
post #145

I’ve play so many games and had every system that came out up to ps3, Xbox 360 from NES. I still don’t know how to properly play Minecraft. Is one of those game I feel sorry for myself for still now knowing how to play lol!

Every time I start a new Minecraft game, I would start throwing random bricks and beating up chcickens and saying to myself, that’s it?

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+breath+of+fresh+air That phrase is usually used on something that's positive, after something that's negative. Notice that most of the examples use the word "boring" for the former thing they're talking about. The person that replied to you probably just assumed you were using it the same way. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it on 2 things they liked before.

Fair enough. We've played Minecraft for a long time, so it has indeed become somewhat boring - familiarity breeds contempt, that sort of thing. However just because Terraria feels fresh having just discovered it, I'm not going to say it's automatically better. Only long term play would decide that. They're quite different games although they share certain elements.

One of the nice things about newer worlds created with Terraria is the event system. There are cyclical events around phases of the moon and holidays. And there are world changing events like defeating Skeletron that unlock harder modes and access to new materials and crafting abilities.

The full game isn't available all the time and has to be discovered tonit gives you something to work towards.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#148
post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

That’s great. One nitpick: there’s no such thing as step-parenting. For all intents and purposes this is parenting and you’re nailing it.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#149
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very careful about applying lessons from a game to the real world. Lots of games designed by economists, for example, tend to validate the pet theories of the economists, despite not working in the real world. Real world economics is infinitely more complex than the handful of rules in a game.

I think the biggest difference is most games tend to have anything not dead + positive resource stream = a win. People tend to build city's / county's / etc that go through a major such phase to maximize resource collection. In reality you generally don't want to have 40 years of suck to get to some long term gain, because you need to live those 40 years.

You mean some sort of great leap forward produces negative results for your citizens until it's completed? I swear I heard a story similar to that in reality.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#150
post #58

This article reminds me of playing Minecraft with my stepdaughter. When we got her a PS4, I have to admit that I had a bit of a fuddy duddy moment. Games weren't like they were when I was young, blah blah blah, NES, blah blah blah, the damned princess is in a different castle. And, when I firstlooked at Minecraft, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I was supposed to do. Then, my stepdaughter took over and…

That’s great. One nitpick: there’s no such thing as step-parenting. For all intents and purposes this is parenting and you’re nailing it.

That's really kind of you to say. Thank you! :)
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