I spent the entire summer between seventh and eighth grade trying to beat Super Mario Bros. My best friends and I worked together to teach each other the ways to beat every level, from the first castle to the last, from Princess Daisy to Princess Peach, from Bowser Junior to the villain Bowser himself.
When alone, I played Tetris, Dr. Mario — all those puzzle games that challenged my brain to move quickly and fit various shaped blocks into the right formation. That “whoosh” sound that signified a “Tetris” washed over me like a warm ocean wave: a signal of both success and accomplishment, turning my little corner of preteen chaos into order and achievement.
Tetris can be very satisfying.
That’s probably why I was never scared of my kids eventually playing video games. After all, I enjoyed gaming as just another activity among many. It’s hard to separate the parental stigma of screen time and video games with very real lessons my kids learn from their games. I’ve witnessed real-life social, developmental, and educational skills that children learn while playing video games like Minecraft, Roblox, Civilization, and more. Lest you think I’m just trying to soothe my own screentime soul, I also asked teachers and influencers to weigh in on this topic.
Social skills
Taking turns, playing fair, and teamwork: these are constant reminders for anyone playing video games. We don’t use the word sharing as often as we encourage kids to “take turns” and that is exactly what they must do in gameplay. Oftentimes it’s forced on them, but that rhythm of letting go after you make mistakes and lose a turn follows into a child’s daily life.
Persistence
How hard is it to win some of these games? It wasn’t until I tried to play my old standbys twenty years later that I remembered just how hard some parts are. We use their game time to explore how hard it is to stay persistent and try your best, understanding that your best only gets better the more you practice.
Mr. Devreaux Poole, Primary Learning and Teaching Coordinator at Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing), also believes that games “offer a safe environment [for children]to explore and challenge themselves. They’re able to build self-confidence as they are able to ‘reset’ when making mistakes,” and in addition, “Delayed gratification is taught (acquired) as the ‘main reward/goal/prize,’ usually only achieved after completing several levels.”
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Poole also adds that “Many video games require critical thinking and problem-solving skills and also stimulate creativity.” I couldn’t agree more! There’s no counting the number of times when my or another child will explain a secret to beating this level or suggest a different way to tackle an obstacle in a game, and they’re right! Sure, sometimes they learn from watching gamer playthroughs, where you literally watch someone online play through a certain level or part of a game, but more often than not I see them apply the knowledge they saw to a different problem and are able to move ahead in the game on their own merits.
Video games can introduce kids to a career in coding.
Community
Blogger and influencer Sally Tian works in the software industry and sees huge social benefits from gaming through her roommate’s experience, among others. ”He came from a small city in China before getting into a top tier university, and the online gaming community provided a good window and perspective to the outside world that he wasn’t able to find in his town. That’s why I think games are a good way to not only learn factual knowledge about the world but also help kids develop stronger social bonds and create a sense of community.”
Money and Math
Another aspect of Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Party, and many more games is that you must earn a certain number of points, coins, etc before you can purchase items in-game that give you more powers or costumes, whatever the case may be.
I couldn’t get my kids to watch a Zoom math class, yet also couldn’t keep them away from an online course called “Mario Math,” which used characters and concepts from the Super Mario world to help them understand ways of approaching math and problem-solving that make their in-classroom learning better today.
English
Minecraft activity books and Minecraft encyclopedias as well as fictionalized stories of the world are how I kept their attention on English concepts through quarantine, and still do today.
Let kids read what they love and they’ll never stop!
Digital Citizenship
Poole also believes that playing video games can aid in “developing of transferable Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills.” By starting them down the road of playing games within communities and privately, kids are introduced to concepts like keeping your passwords safe, public servers versus private ones, usernames, and how one’s identity online must match behavior offline for people to continue wanting to play with you.
Pranking
Because we watched a lot of Minecraft gamers’ playthroughs, my oldest was introduced to the idea of pranking early in his gaming career. Through Minecraft, he learned quickly that some people don’t want to be pranked, especially when that means your supposed partner in the game hacks down a house you’ve spent hours building inside the game because that’s what he’s seen his favorite gamers do to their friends. We had a pretty serious talk after that incident, explaining the subtleties of pranking and how both parties need to be “in” on it if it is to be a fun prank. I’ve since watched him handle his gaming maturely and remove that pranking concept from offline playtime.
Society
Tian is not a big gamer herself, but has “observed that some of the smartest, most creative people had learned about the world through video games.” One game she does play is Civilization, where a player, through making a series of choices, aims to grow his or her country from a rural nomadic tribe to a futuristic society. “The game is incredibly complex and has taught me so much about how society, technology, economics, and even philosophy can be shaped,” says Tian.
Many teenagers teach themselves how to use technology to be part of their favorite gaming worlds.
Self Expression Through Video Production
It is inevitable that starting a game will lead to watching tutorials and playthroughs of that game. Poole sees gaming playthroughs as an extension of a world we adults might already understand: “Gaming is seen as a sport these days, therefore, watching a playthrough is similar to watching a recorded sporting event such as football, basketball, rugby, tennis etc.” I tend to lean on the website Common Sense Media to learn which gamers are family-friendly and which are more mature, but even more inevitable than watching these is that a child will then want to create their own playthroughs and have their own video channel. We used this curiosity to teach our kids the basics of operating a video camera, and how to apply the presentation skills they learn in show-and-tell towards being an on-camera host. I know older kids who taught themselves camerawork through online tutorials, then researched video and audio editing to create better gaming videos.
Kids can still learn a lot of these skills with LEGO bricks and board games; however, it’s good to see the nuances in how video games help with a child’s development so we can lean into their interests instead of always fighting it.
KEEP READING: Weaning Kids Off Screen Time Post-COVID
Photos: Canva, Cindy Marie Jenkins, Pexels, Unsplash
This article appeared in the beijingkids 2020 November issue
