What Can Game Development Teach My Kid?
My kid is making games!!!!
We know, right?? You probably already know that this is an amazing opportunity for fun, creativity and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) experience. Here’s some stuff you might not know about what your kids are doing and how it’s benefiting them:
They’re learning to collaborate.
Most people don’t make games alone. Your kid is likely working every day with others to come up with ideas, plan their execution, and produce. These are critical skills that even a lot of adults need to work on! Making games will improve their social skills, their conflict resolution, their communication skills and boost their confidence working and collaborating with others.
They’re increasing their ability to think critically and problem solve.
Making games is all about coming up with a concept and then figuring out how to make that concept a reality. Kids will ask “how should this look and feel,” and “how can I do this?” Then they ask “did that work?” And finally “This isn’t working, how do I fix it?”
They’re learning resilience and persistence.
Very little in game development works right the first time. Game developers quickly learn things like rapid prototyping and iteration, which basically boil down to “try this,” “it didn’t work,” “okay try this instead” over and over. This teaches that failure is an expected part of progress, and that instead of getting discouraged or quitting, we see failure as a challenge to examine the process and do it again, better, until we get it right!
Want to know more? This is a great Forbes article on how kids benefit from making games!
What can I do to help my kid get the most out of this learning experience?
So much!
Listen, play, be enthusiastic. Ask your kid all about what they’re doing. Play their games, share their enthusiasm.
Make games with them! Get them to show you the tools they’re working with and make a great game together. Remember it’s not about perfection, but doing something cool together and collaborating.
Play games with them! Don’t worry if you’ve never played a video game before. Kids love it when we are humble, so just embrace it and go for it. Your kids have learned about a lot of new games and will probably really enjoy showing you some. Look for new games based on what you discover you both like!
People and process over product, always. Focus less on what a great game they made (although that too), but more so the effort they put in, the things they learned, the friends they made. This teaches kids to value themselves and their experiences over what they produce, and lets them know they are valued as people more than by how they perform, or what they achieve.
What if they never get off the computer?
It’s important for everyone to learn to balance their time. Encourage off-screens collaborating, flow charting, making art, playing board games and taking outside breaks.
We encourage you as a parent to value the creative, playful and technical time your kids spend on computers and devices -- they’re enjoying it, learning and growing. We all played a lot of games and made a lot of games and still grew up to be cool people who can mostly function as adults, so don’t panic!
That said, helping kids understand and value breaks to interact socially, to spend time with family and pets, to be outdoors and to not work obsessively -- we call it “crunch” in the game industry -- is important.
Enforcing screen time rules is one method, but you may find that simply modeling and providing opportunities for other activities gets better results. Ask your kid to go with you to pick out a board game to play as a family, go somewhere fun, take up an outdoor activity together. Find out if your kid wants to learn archery, or join a D&D group, or do martial arts. Talk to your kid about ways to take care of themselves and enjoy a variety of pursuits, including but not limited to games.
I have more questions!
No problem! You can ask us anytime! Just click the “contact” link in the website footer below
Can I support what you’re doing?
Yes! Rad Magpie is a nonprofit dedicated to bringing diversity to the game industry. Find out more and donate here.