Compare Life to Video Games

Teaching your child life lessons can sometimes feel like you are pulling teeth. They either don’t understand what you are saying, or else they are choosing to not listen to what you are saying. They’ll ignore any advice you give them simply because they think you’re trying to hold them back or they only want the things that they want. Whatever the reasoning, it’s often difficult to get through to kids in a meaningful way.

If your child is into video games, try relating life and the lessons you’re trying to teach them to those video games. Use the gameplay from video games and the quests and goals of the game to help them understand real life. This probably sounds somewhat difficult to do, and that’s because it is. However, it may be your best bet in actually getting through to your child in a meaningful way that they actually want to make a change.

In order to effectively use your child’s video games to teach them life lessons, you need to understand the basics of the game play. If your child realizes that you have a decent understanding of how the game works, then they are more likely to actually listen and understand. This goes for most things in life - when you come across confident and accurate, your message will resonate with the audience that you’re addressing. Kids are very quick to sniff out when you’re winging it, and it will only make future attempts less successful.

While this may all sound great, without seeing an actual example of this you may be confused. We’ll use Minecraft, a very popular creative game (known as a sandbox game) that kids all over the world play. This is a game that they let kids play in elementary schools across the country - it’s safe when not played online, and it has a lot of opportunities for kids to be creative and build worlds that they want.

Minecraft is a great game for kids to simply explore and try new things. While it’s possible to die, it’s not something that has to happen and depends on the world you’re in. The idea of the game is that you have a blank slate that you can build whatever you want with. Over time, you gather resources, get better tools, and enhance your character all while building the world that you want to build - there’s no rules on what you can or can’t build.

If your child is into Minecraft, there’s a good chance they like to build the world as they like it. In order to build that world, they must work by mining new resources, and building their character up. They save up in order to get better tools, and they eat food (in the game) to make their character stronger and grow faster.

Talking to your kids about life, and comparing it to parts of Minecraft is easy to do if you have a basic understanding of the game play. You can discuss the importance of eating healthy both in the game and in real life - it allows you to work faster and more effectively. You can talk about using better tools to build in the game, and how the better tools you have in life will help you to more effectively build items or character.

While Minecraft is just one example of a video game where you can use game lessons in life, you can often do the same with other video games as well. What is your child struggling with? Is there something in the game that they are playing that can be related? It doesn’t have to be a perfect comparison, but they’ll be able to relate much easier if you’re using an example from a game they’re really into.

Effectively teaching kids takes work. Using things that they can relate to is a great way to make your job a little bit easier.