BY TINA WILD, CPA
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BUILDING SKILLS WITHOUT LEAVIN Normally, parents worry about limiting their kids’ screen time – to ensure lifestyle balance and encourage active play and recreation. But with coronavirus creating a new normal, where parents are juggling working from home with keeping kids occupied, entertained, and homeschooled, the reality is that screen time will likely increase significantly and remain high for the foreseeable future. While the negatives of gaming have been well documented, in the present climate of staying home and limiting physical contact, we thought you’d like to hear the glass-half-full approach and look at the benefits of gaming. We also recommend some great games that won’t make you feel bad about allocating screen time.
BENEFITS OF GAMING
video games allow players to interact in ways not possible with more passive forms of entertainment such as movies or television, they can also be played alone, with others, or in competition with other online players.
Creativity Kids are naturally creative. Gaming helps children to be curious and explore new environments, concepts and ideas online.
According to Isabela Granic and her fellow researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands, recent media stories relating to the video game phenomenon largely ignore how video games have changed to become more complex, realistic, and social in nature.
Social interaction
Researchers at Radboud University suggest newer interactive video games, developed in the last five years, provide young people with compelling social, cognitive, and emotional experiences, while also potentially boosting mental health and well-being.
Problem solving
Here’s a snapshot of some of the key benefits:
Increase technology fluency Gaming helps introduce children to the language of technology. As our social and workplace interactions increasingly move to digital platforms, it’s essential for children to become digitally fluent in order to function successfully.
Play Children need play in order to learn, and research has shown it’s much easier to learn if they’re engaged and enjoying what they’re doing. There is no question that ordinary play can provide a wide range of benefits for young people. Granic and her co-researchers argue that playing interactive video games produces the same benefits. Not only do 12
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Some games allow parents to play too, and many involve engaging with the global online community, playing in teams, testing out different social scenarios and forming new friendships.
Social games can also teach kids to handle the kinds of problems and conflicts they might face in the real world. This allows children to develop social experiences that can be valuable as they mature. Themes such as power and dominance, aggression, pain, and separation can be rehearsed under non-threatening conditions. This allows children to learn to cooperate and accept their peers.
there are games specifically designed to make therapy fun, such as Lusio (detailed below).
Neuroplasticity – training the brain Researchers have demonstrated that just one hour spent playing video games has an effect on the brain. The research team found changes in brain activity and increased performance on tests of visual selective activity in subjects who had spent one hour playing the League of Legends video game. Their results are published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. “The potential therapeutic applications of gaming is massive! But in order to really leverage the motor and cognitive benefits, it’s key that games are selected and matched according to a person’s individual goal, at the right level of difficulty yet challenging enough to progress their skills… this is where I see our clinicians really come to the forefront when it comes to harnessing the therapeutic benefits of gaming,” says Natasha Langford, Therapy and Innovation Manager, CPA.
WHICH GAMES ARE SUITABLE?
Games such as MinecraftTM help children to learn how to manage money and resources, an essential skill to learn as they mature.
The good news is gaming is affordable and there’s a lot of choice out there. To help parents navigate the minefield of options and decide which games are appropriate, positive, relevant and educational, here are some recommendations for various age groups:
Therapeutic application – cognition and movement
Minecraft™ - building block game for children and adults
Although gaming is seen as a largely sedentary activity, many games involve and encourage physical movement. In fact, for children and adults with physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy,
Both children and adults are easily captivated by the world of Minecraft™ – an open-world buildingblock game for PC and console. Minecraft™ has been rated for people ages seven and up by Pan
Resource management
www.sourcekids.com.au
