The game looks childlike due to its design. Mainly it is about building objects and buildings and exploring the game world. But how child-friendly is Minecraft really? An educational assessment and tips for parents summarized.

For children, despite its simple appearance, Minecraft combines many aspects that fascinate them: they can design their own world, craft items, improve their character, and defend themselves against opponents.

Minecraft became famous mainly through social media such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit, with a third of all Minecraft players, who also connect to Minecraft SMP servers, getting to know the game via online videos, so-called Let’s Plays. There are over 42 million videos about Minecraft on the German YouTube page.

Minecraft: From what age?

Minecraft is released by the entertainment software self-control for six years. The Spieleratgeber-NRW also recommends this age, whereby it depends very much on which mode you play. While creative and adventure modes are relatively harmless, survival and hardcore modes are more focused on attack and attack. The brick look allows distance to the game actions. However, Minecraft does not explain anything and gives little, players need enough experience, capacity, planning, and above all imagination and creativity.

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Tips for Parents

It is important that children do not lose sight of the time of use, which can easily happen with this limitless game. Projects such as the new moat can quickly become hour eaters. The situation is similar to the eponymous occupation of digging tunnels and building gigantic mine networks to find materials. How much time players invest is up to everyone, so you can play Minecraft for half an hour in between.

Especially younger children need the support of experienced players at the beginning. There is no introduction in the game that explains basic mechanisms. Here parents can step in and get into the game with the child.

For younger children, the creative and adventure modes are suitable. Here, the game world can be explored in peace without players having to flee attacks. For older children, it can be a bit more exciting in survival and hardcore mode.

Minecraft encourages creativity

As soon as the basic mechanics of setting up and dismantling the blocks have been understood, the fun and learning potential also unfolds for younger children, because now a giant box of Lego is available, with which you can build to your heart’s content. Depending on the drive, this can promote creative thinking, development of solution strategies, organization, and planning, as well as frustration tolerance.

Thus, Minecraft is also used in educational institutions. In order to give schools access to Minecraft, the organization “MinecraftEdu” was founded in 2011. Companies such as Google are also developing modifications for Minecraft, such as “qCraft” which is compatible with “Minecraft” and “MinecraftEdu”. In a Swedish school, the game is even a compulsory subject.