Both of my sons hit a Minecraft addiction, hard core, in 6th grade. For my oldest, now a sophomore, it lasted through his 6th grade year and then was over. He occasionally plays a little now and then but he has mainly reverted his gaming to XBox. My youngest son, now in 8th grade, also immersed himself in Minecraft in 6th grade. He emerged at the end of the year, took a little time off to pursue other mainly Lego-related activities, then rejoined the Minecraft world, although much more sanely the second time around.
This obsession with Minecraft is not unusual. Many of my boys' friends' mothers also reported losing their children to Minecraft for a brief period of time. I'm not sure what the appeal of it is to various children, but in the words of my youngest, "I don't know. It's fun." So we can conclude that although Minecraft may teach a variety of things useful for the developing mind, self-expression is not one of them. I did enjoy it when he had cats in his Minecraft world. They kept meowing and I thought it was one of my (real) cats. I looked all over for them to see what was wrong when he came out of the computer room and said "My cats are driving me crazy! They keep meowing!" He named them Blockhead, Blockhead, Blockhead, and Phil.
Our teen librarian has game nights every now and then.I've always thought this was a great idea to get teens involved in library programs and keep them occupied. I think in the world of gaming Minecraft is a great bet. It's clean, teaches a lot of computer skills, and is great fun. When you think of all the things kids can get involved with that are not good for them, it's great to be able to provide safe alternatives.
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