Minecraft?
 

My five year old (highly gifted for reference) comes home from school today and asks me to purchase "Minecraft" for him. I'll admit 20 years in IT I have no idea what this and Wikipedia and the authors site are not explaining much, so for anyone who knows:

1. Can you play on a "free" server? And if so, how?

2. Is the "game" benign? Is their unappropriated content for a five year old? I'm looking and I don't see any so far, but MMO's tend to mask some of this.

Parents? Anyone? I can design a hell of a guidance system, but parenting is a major challenge.

Minecraft is an awesome product and a great learning tool.

You can build pretty much anything you can imagine which means the content is what gets built by either your son or a community on a server.

A great introduction to programming through mods and scripting.

You don't need to play collaboratively. And honestly at his age I would strongly encourage he not play on open servers. You'll find just as many jerks as you would in real life.

If he wants to play with friends set up your own server.

Setting up your own server is cake. Download it, install, open the port on your firewall and done.
Only hand out the servers IP to people you approve.


Obviously you can build environments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_OS1E6cj18

This guy built a functional 8 bit CPU in it.
Working CPU with RAM, branching, etc... (save added) - Redstone Discussion and Mechanisms - Minecraft Discussion - Minecraft Forum - Minecraft Forum

Working word processor built inside Minecraft.
Minecraft player creates word processor out of redstone - PC Gamer

One way to think of it is digital LEGO's
200+ Best Minecraft Creations

If you get into it with your son you might actually figure out a way to build guidance systems inside it.

The biggest issue is foul language and asshats that will come along and destroy something someone else spent days building.

That's why my kids have their own server and can control guest access.

My daughter is merciless, you screw around on her server and she boots you without blinking.

My 8-year old daughter loves it, and is always trying out various mods and watching the kid's videos on YouTube. I see it as a creative outlet, digital Legos is a great analogy. Totally benign, especially if they have their own "world" and don't play on a public server. My oldest son used to play and always destroyed my daughter's creations when they played together, that didn't go over well.

Great game, so much so Microsoft bought them and are bringing in into the education area.

My kids play it for HOURS on end. But yes its a great learning and creativity tool for kids. Much better than the games I played as a kid... Still trying to figure out how to apply my Mario Kart skills in real life...

I'll say my forza skills may come in handy...

I setup a server at home so we could play privately and invite friends. It's worked out well to keep them from getting abused by some dork on the internet.

For a 5 year old, keep it on creative and play with them so you understand it. Then let them have a good time.

Our boys play on Xbox, so when they play online its only with those on their friends list, and I moderate that. As of now its only their cousins. They will play for days!

They can play locally without ever signing on to a server. I wouldn't recommend allowing a 5 year old on a server as the language and asshattery is typical of any anonymous internet place.

They can start building or learning survival mode.

..as he/she gets better, they actually build working machines using pseudo code and logical structures represented by blocks, it's quite amazing. They can use physically movers, decisions like and/or/nor gates, you name it. You'd be amazed once you "get it". It's an amazingly deep "game".

Time limits though, my son, unsupervised, would sit there for 8 hours straight if we let him... ...but he was coding at age 7, so it's "his thing"

Ummmm, the potential for addictivness is high. And I dont see any creative benefits.
I would NOT let a five year old play Minecraft. Or Clash of Clans, or anything like that!
My son plays Minecraft sometimes, but he is 13 and he has 1 hour computertime per day, AFTER the chores and school-items are done.

Get the app Monument Valley or something like that.
Or, buy Legos for Gods sake.
I have never understood why small kids have to be glued to a screen for hours other then that the parents wants to "mute" them.

Once you start using apps and computer the social contacts will vanish very fast.
Getting the small kids go out and play football or other things with friends is no option anymore.

Regarding playing online: the comments in the chats and bullying and strange people (pedos!?) contacting the kids is not avoidable.

Adapt or die my friend, it's a different way to exercise the same creative muscles. Just because it's not what you did, doesn't mean it's worse. Btw my daughter that loves Minecraft also plays club soccer, basketball, gymnastics, softball, is in the school chess club, and incredibly social.

All the boys in my son's class, including my son, were obsessed w/ Minecraft about grade 3-4. Now in 5th grade they are less interested in it. The game is pretty much benign. After Minecraft they moved on to a similar game called Terraria, which appears to be equally benign. All normal kids. The game gives me motion sickness though! In Minecraft there are various forms of rock that you mine. As a result my son knows a lot about various ores found in mining and geology, as the game sparked interest and reason for him to research about geology, which is positive IMO.

limit screen time no matter what the game.

agree minecraft is a darn sight better way to spend screen time than call of duty and other crap. we encourage the sports games for screen time as well.

ALL day long, me and my Son

Talked to a Dr about children and devices, she mentioned minecraft as her most concerning. Where she said there were benefits from unstructured play time and the no rules/limits, there were some drawbacks that she thought outweighed any benefit. She mentioned the release of dopamine kids get from accomplishments in the game and they desire more screen time to get that release, kinda like self medicating, but sometimes to the point of blocking out the real world. Some kids have social issues and are ridiculed so they become isolated and go back to the screens where they become even more unsocial.

As with everything, in moderation it's probably fine. My daughter played a bunch until we bought her a tub of old school Legos. She had plenty of the kits for the girls, but she loves the freedom to create with the old style w no instructions.

Look at the TedX talks, I think there was one on ADHD that mentioned minecraft.

Sorry, but that reeks of a doctor with more education than common sense. By that reasoning, any imaginary children's game is harmful. Cowboys and Indians, army, Legos, hot wheels, building forts, etc. That's just stupid. Besides, most kids' lives are FULL of structured activities.

amen

Word.