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Minecraft Question
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Do any of your children play Minecraft? Our children received it for Christmas, I don’t mind it that much. However, there is a lot of violence against animals in it (killing horses, burning dogs on leashes), that honestly, neither DH nor I are okay with. We’re considering taking the game away. Thoughts?
Most of my kids play Minecraft. I’ll share our experience and our rules.
The following kids play: Age 14, 11, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4. They play using Kindle Fires, not online, though they can use a local network to play together with each other in the house. They play for an hour each afternoon while my 4 year old is on the toilet for his daily enema (that would be Mason, he has Spina Bifida and neurogenic bowels among other things). That’s it. No playing other times. (We have enough Kindle Fires for them all to play at the same time).
Our rules:
1. Don’t whine about wanting to play or you lose the next day’s turn.
2. Don’t kill gratuitously. Yes, kill for food or defend your home/villagers. But don’t just spend a day going around killing for fun. Because it’s not fun.
3. What is fun? Building, creating, and crafting worlds. They do this with skill far beyond what I could have imagined 6 months or a year ago when they first were introduced to Minecraft. For example one son is making a replica of a castle right now while a daughter created the Tardis (inside and out) from Doctor Who and a son has created a pyramid and world to go with our ancient Egypt study. Others are farming and raising animals, building armor and outfitting armies for mock battles they’ve read about, etc.
I say each family needs to do what is right for them. So if that is no Minecraft, great. If it is some Minecraft, great. Just find what works for you.
I protested Minecraft for quite a while as we’ve kept Zombies out of our house for a long time. Kids at church/co-op were always talking about it, playing it, ours wanted to. I decided to let one son get it and see how it went, I agree with everything Tristan said, no killing animals/villagers/etc. unnecessarily. I’m still not crazy about it, but my son gets Minecraft design books from the library and has learned a lot about switches/currents even from redstone lighting (or something like that, ask him:) My kids even make friends/siblings Happy Birthday messages in it and then send it to their friends by email.
It has caused the most fights though, or disobedience in not getting off when the timer goes off, etc. It has been taken away a few times when necessary and they’ve learned to obey much better. They can play it on Mondays and Fridays only, and I like that they enjoy playing together (on different devices). If there is fighting about how they spend that time together they lose that as well.
If you don’t have peace about it though, go with what you and your husband decide.
My daughter played Minecraft for a while and I had no idea what you were talking about so I asked her. She is 14 and said that you only kill animals to get the goods that they provide-just like in real life. Each child chooses which animal he kills for goods to survive. Cows are killed for leather and beef for instance.
There is no reason to kill horses or dogs. If my child were taking pleasure in killing horses and dogs while playing Minecraft, that would give me pause. My daughter never killed a horse or dog on purpose, only animals needed for food or goods; Chickens for meat, sheep for wool and meat, rabbits for meat, etc. This is real life. Our kids need to understand that our meat hasn’t always been cleaned and neatly wrapped in plastic waiting for us at the grocery store.
Those are my thoughts. Not only do I have no problem with my daughter playing Minecraft, I vastly prefer it to most other video games. I love the creative and educational value in Minecraft though I don’t really care for video games in general.
I let my kids do Mine Craft and Survival Craft for a while because it gave them something in common with the kids at co-op. I regret it.
Zombies and Werewolves are not things I would have normally allowed. And the fighting and constantly begging to play just made it not worth it.
I regret that I gave in to “peer pressure” and modled compromise for acceptance. But it’s given me the courage to “just say no.” 🙂
I’ve been feeling bad about my post every since I responded to this thread so I wanted to add that I’m sorry if I came across as harsh. I realize that my daughter might not have killed animals just for fun but my son probably would have tried everything he could have on Minecraft when he was little. Boys and girls are so different, aren’t they?
I probably would have been one to ban all video games in my house had my husband shared my ideals.
However, Minecraft is one of the better ones IMO.
My girls have played Minecraft at their dad’s house in the past year, but I’m actually not sure DD18 has played it. I know DD15 has mentioned it. I don’t know much about it.
So, how do you know whether they are actually killing animals just for fun (and other concerns like that) short of watching over their shoulders for the entire hour or however long they are on the device? I know I don’t have that kind of time, so I would be inclined to say, “you’re simply not playing it.” The same issue could arise with other games or with listening to music through earbuds.
I have also found it difficult to keep on top of things like Facebook. They did not have Facebook accounts until they were 15, and then I required them to give me their passwords so I could look at their pages, but it takes sooooo long to check everything that I can’t really keep up with it. Although, since my older daughter has turned 18, I no longer check hers. I do still require her to stay off her tablet until schoolwork and chores are completed.
Great question Sue! For me, knowing what the kids are doing on Minecraft is pretty simple because either
1. They are playing with siblings and everyone knows the rules and keeps each other accountable. (meaning they know we use animals for things we need but don’t just set out to slaughter a herd of cows for fun)
2. They are telling me in detail (far too much detail sometimes!!!!) what they did in their world today. I love that they narrate it to me or daddy or each other, that their words overflow. I do wish that sometimes they didn’t give me quite so many details. However one thing I’ve worked really hard on is listening and learning to enjoy it because I want them to know I care about what matters to them. Even if it is Minecraft.
My kids play Minecraft and our rules are VERY similar to Tristan’s. However, I would have also been one to say “no” if my husband had been of the same mind in this area. My son HAS learned a LOT using minecraft, though and I am pretty sure he would not have learned any of it (mostly programming) if he had not been on minecraft. However, when I was sick, the rules got stomped on and now I am having to retrain in this area so that they are not on screens for so long!
I think part of it is DS (8) still doesn’t know how to do everything yet. He killed a horse for food. Or was trying to I think. The dogs he killed by mistake – something about the least and he didn’t know how to use them properly and in the end, killed them by accident I think. But DH was NOT a fan of that, at all. And he’s since made it clear (since posting this) that if you don’t know how to use the animal properly – you don’t use it at all.
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