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A question for the crowd! What’s a good age to show a kid Minecraft? My son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction, I’d be curious to know at
by sharkweek 4y ago
A question for the crowd!
What’s a good age to show a kid Minecraft? My son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction, I’d be curious to know at what age it might be fun to show him Minecraft.
He’s not bad at playing some simple platformers et al on the PlayStation but for some reason Minecraft feels maybe a year or two off. Curious what folks here think.
- EwanToo 4y agoDepends a lot on the child but I'd say 7 or 8 they'll probably be able to play the basic game by themselves. At 5 or 6 they'll likely need a fair bit of support, but that's a lot of fun too.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- reaperducer 4y agoMy son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction Lego is awesome for teaching kids to think in so many different, wonderful ways. If you want to teach your kid how to cope with failure, disappointment, and minor lacerations, get him an Erector set.
- sharkweek 4y agoLol as a child raised in the fire of hell that was erector sets, I didn’t even know they still made those. I’ll have to get some for my son for him to experience the same trauma I did.
- lostlogin 4y agoI’d have called that Meccano but had no idea about the alternative branding. TIL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano
- vinmeister 4y agoMy experience: My son is five and a very big fan. He doesn’t really grasp the mechanics, but he enjoys the exploration. We started off on peaceful mode for the first dozen sessions or so, just until he got the hang of it. The. I built a house with a balcony so he can watch me fight monsters, a favorite activity of his. We’ve been playing for about a month, just an hour or so before bed. He’s starting to get interested in crafting. He loves to smelt, so I built him a dedicated space to grab ore and store the bars. We play whatever he wants, so sometimes we’re playing Mario Kart or the like. But more often than not, he comes back to Minecraft.
- JamisonM 4y agoMy kids each went through a phase when they started Minecraft where they could build & farm and wanted to play in a world with mobs but wanted me to be their "knight" that kept them safe - it was a lot of fun for a few hours a week. Real good quality time that we still joke about years later.
- Phelinofist 4y agoMy daughter is 5 and we play it like once a month together for 30-60mins. Only creative mode. We build houses and such and explore the world.
- kqr 4y agoSimilar question: is Minecraft still as lego-like as it was back in the beta days with a small-ish number of unit cube blocks, or has it evolved past that into multitudes of specialised blocks and items?
- elliotec 4y agoThe latter.
- wingspar 4y agoPerhaps you’ve not used Lego recently? Nowdays there’s multitudes of specialized bricks and items items. Way too many for me to keep organized. :)
- ezfe 4y agoIt's definitely the latter, but mostly by aesthetic variation not functionality. For example, the original 1.0 version had 4 types of wood - now the game has 10 types - but they still all work the same way. This expands to anything made out of wood.
- matt74827289 4y agoIt's an immensely different and more complex game than 5+ years ago (for the better imo), but the base experience is extremely similar. If you don't like the new changes, they have pretty much every version ever released available to download and play in the launcher.
- cridenour 4y agoMy daughter is five and plays creative by herself on PC. It's easier (for her) to control than the tablet version and she asks to watch Minecraft videos before playing to learn more (she corrected me on the minimum size of a nether portal the other day...) Not to mention her keyboard and mouse skills are great now.
- ezfe 4y agoI started playing when I was 13, definitely could've been introduced younger but, you know, the game wasn't widespread back then
- adastra22 4y agoI don’t let my kids use computers, let alone game consoles. But Minecraft is the one exception. That “game” is extremely intellectually stimulating for creative kids that age.
- bmitc 4y agoDo you find them getting addicted to it? Do you set time limits? Do you play with them?
- adastra22 4y agoI set time limits, but no I don't see any addictive behavior. If they ever start acting like that it gets shut down hard and fast, and I make clear playing Minecraft is a privilege. I never play with them, but I often ask them to show me what they built. They play on local worlds, or sometimes with each other, but not on public servers or with friends.
- gonehome 4y agoHow old are they? Feel like I wouldn’t be in software today if I didn’t have computer, game, and later internet access as a kid.
- darkteflon 4y agoI started my son on Minecraft (and BotW) at 4 years old - early, yes, but mainly because he’s part of the pandemic generation. I know there’s a stigma around video games and kids but (for the right games) I don’t regret it one bit. I’ve seen him develop problem-solving and creative skills in Minecraft, not to mention it’s what kickstarted his interest in reading. My personal experience is that they pick it up very quickly - a couple of months - and then quickly go on to blow your mind. Minecraft is so much better than the digicrack that passes for actual “educational” games. The Prodigy products are an abomination, those people should be ashamed of themselves.
- Dalewyn 4y agoOnce upon a time there were actual educational games. The Jumpstart series from Knowledge Adventures, The Cluefinders series from The Learning Company, The Magic School Bus games from Scholastic and Microsoft, the Carmen Sandiego games from Broderbund, and more. And of course, everyone's favorite: The Oregon Trail and subsequent sequels from MECC and later The Learning Company. It's a shame that market simply isn't viable anymore. Those games played a big role in nurturing my love for computers.
- darkteflon 4y agoI remember many of those very fondly, thanks for the memories. As far as explicitly educational games go, the Dragonbox apps are often recommended around these parts. I’ve recently downloaded them, although I have yet to try them. And I also feel like in general the educational value of games like Minecraft, BotW, etc is often undersold - partly out of stigma surrounding the medium as a whole, partly because they’re often teaching skills that are difficult to directly measure. I have no doubt that when he’s a bit older, things like Cities: Skylines, Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, Kerbal, Outer Wilds, Rimworld, etc will continue to entertain and educate.
- s5300 4y agoI started playing RuneScape in 2003 (I’m not yet 25) & it was incredibly beneficial to my development, academically at least. You’re probably more than good to let them play Minecraft in some form, just remember that while what they’re doing will probably look quite foreign to you, it doesn’t mean it’s not intellectually stimulating & beneficial to somebody that young.
- tornato7 4y agoI played a lot of RuneScape. I think it was beneficial to my development to a point, but there are diminishing returns and I played it long after I stopped learning from it.
- Dalewyn 4y agoMy answer is to introduce the option but otherwise leave it be. Have it available to fire up and leave a shortcut on the desktop. I've honestly never taken to most of the things my parents suggested (or god forbid, forced), it just wasn't fun unless I was the one holding the initiative. To explain and demonstrate: My love for computers ultimately stems from my mom and dad's computer just sitting on the desk, ripe for piquing my curiosity. I probably would have gone down another path in life if they instead shoved it in my face.
- MrVitaliy 4y agoProbably 4-5 years old. You can run your own private Bedrock server with backups and all. My daughters and I have been building the same creative world for three years now, lots of memorable structures.