Play Minecraft with your kids

I’ve written about why your kids like Minecraft, and hopefully that’s at least made you consider playing yourself. Now I’m going to tell you specifically why I think you should play with your kids.

1. It’s an opportunity to spend time together. We live in a historical anomaly: each individual family member has an absurd number of personalized options vying for their free time, many of them on-demand and very high quality. On the one hand, this is awesome: we have opportunities to learn, laugh, and play that previous generations never even dreamed of. On the other hand, the results can be isolating: we’re all so busy doing our own things that we might not even interact with each other.
   
   Digital games like Minecraft offer a lot of the same benefits as board games. Both, when well-designed, are enjoyable for a variety of ages and personalities, so they’re a natural opportunity to engage with each other.
2. It’s an opportunity to build rapport. So many of our interactions with our kids are in the imperative mood: we tell them what to do, or what not to do, or what to stop doing immediately. This is the reality of parenting—kids require a lot of guidance (and repetition) to grow into likable, competent adults.
   
   However, that’s not all we do as parents! We snuggle, we read bedtime stories, we listen and hug and make things together. I’d argue that playing games like Minecraft together is in that same category. You get to share challenges, goals, accomplishments, and a secret language.
   
   In my experience, spending this time working together also opens up communication. There are times in the game where you’re working together on a time-consuming but only mildly engaging task. Those turn out to be perfect times to listen to what’s on your kids’ minds.
3. It’s an opportunity for your child to be the expert. If your kids already play Minecraft and you’re just starting, they get to have an experience that is almost unheard of in their world: knowing something an adult doesn’t know.
   
   Think back to your own childhood. How often did that happen? And when it did occasionally happen, didn’t you feel a sense of importance? I’m not talking about being a know-it-all or assuming you know things when you don’t, but the genuine experience of being knowledgeable and having that knowledge appreciated. It feels good.
   
   Kids aren’t always great at handling it appropriately, though, so that brings me to the next point.
4. It’s an opportunity to teach etiquette, social skills, and online safety. No one is born knowing how to interact with others, let alone navigating our hyper-connected online world.
   
   As you play together, there are bound to be “teachable moments.” Playing together means negotiating, compromise, asking for help, and lending a hand. And when the time is right to let your kids play online, having you alongside them will help them learn what appropriate online behavior looks like, how to handle interactions with strangers, and what to do when another player is unkind.
   
   These are all situations your child will need to learn to handle at some point; why not set them up for success by walking alongside them?
5. It’s an opportunity to have fun! Don’t you need more fun in your life‽ You might even find yourself wanting to play when your kids aren’t playing…