Minecraft is a worldwide phenomenon. My kids and all the kids they seem to know play it, while some are borderline obsessed with it. To boot, unlike to many other things in this hyper stimulated, easily bored world we live in…it has staying power. Even adults love it. Caleb even plays with with his brother and sister. With the mentality to build just about anything you could possibly imagine and “live/survive” in a quasi real world setting, Minecraft has become a video game many parents can stand behind. Plus, the old school pixelated graphics are pretty sweet, too.
So what’s the big deal and why should you actually support your kids playing Minecraft? Because it actually teaches some real world skills.
Here are some examples:
- Learn to Code – whether or not you are raising the next coding genius, Minecraft can help kids easily learn how to code. With Minecraft PC version, your child can look up coding options to encode various additions into their game while playing.
- How to Garden – Minecraft players must learn to hunt, grow food and tame animals on with the mission to survive in survival mode. Your child will quickly learn how to till soil, plant seeds and create a mini-farm for survival.
- Teaches to Prioritize – as a Minecraft player you will quickly learn to prioritize building a home, gathering food or heading off into the mines as you work to ensure your survival with mobs spawning at night and risks at every turn.
- Learn how to Build – when one firsts starts building in Minecraft you quickly realize that you must create and utilize the proper tools to build a home. Without the proper tools you could take much longer to build a shelter and perhaps not survive in survival mode.
- Promotes Teamwork – with the ability to connect into other services and play in multi-player mode, Minecraft can connect siblings into a teamwork mentality like no other game. Your kids will quickly learn working together makes sense in survival mode.
- Teaches Perseverance – your child will not get everything right in Minecraft the first time around, through trial and error they will learn to master this game and never give up. With the survival theme, Minecraft only works best if your child continues learning game play options.
- Teaches Survival Skills – Minecraft does a great job at mimicking real world survival skills, think about the old days when you had to have a farm to survive and Dad had to go out hunting in order for the family to eat. Minecraft is much like that old-school concept of survival.
Whatever your reasons are for playing or not playing Minecraft, I am sure you all can agree that this simple video game that resembles something from the Atari days is well worth spending some time together with the kids. Minecraft is available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
