The use of smart gadgets is common in most families today. Be it owning a smart phone by the age of 11 or spending more than 3 hours a day on the screens, today’s children are exposed to more gadgets and screen time than any generation in the past. As the advance of technology seeps into our lives, a number of things change in our daily routine. One such change is also visible in the types of games that children are able to play on their screens.
More Control and More Freedom
From the basic screen games of pac-man on Atari, to constructing whole worlds in Minecraft. The gaming revolution has gone from allowing the user basic controls, to allowing the user to dictate what they want to play with and construct it. Games found today are more than endless loops that mindlessly repeat themselves. It may be a good idea to take a look at the games in the market today to see what tactics, skills and strategies a homeschool student can learn from playing them.
Interaction and Socialization
The ability to chat with online friends while playing the same game in multi user mode is an innovation which can be made good use of by homeschool families. Find age appropriate games, then schedule play time so that it coincides with the play time of known friends of your homeschool student. Your child can maintain relationships with other members of the family or their own friends by playing with them online. This works great for people who have had to move away and can’t be visited locally.
Fixed Intentions and Flexible Time Limits
There’s always going to be the situation where the homeschool student wants to spend more time on the video games than what the homeschool teacher thinks is appropriate. Here it is important to remember that the intention of keeping screen time limited for educational purposes is to be balanced with the child’s need to simply explore the games online. Pairing screen time limits with other responsibilities of the child is a good way to ensure that the time limits are maintained.
