Videogames, how to educate playing
Video games have become a form of entertainment for millions of children and many are the ones who point out the negative effects of spending long hours isolated from reality. However, video games can also help children in their intellectual and emotional development while they can be a fun way for parents and children to experience new technologies together.
10 educational aspects of videogames
1. Source of imagination and creativity. Most of the time, video games recreate a fictional world in which the characters, the story and the scenarios do not exist in the real world. This fiction allows children to improve the development of imagination and creativity while encouraging memory and stimulating attention.
2. Fosters social skills. The very interaction between the characters and the implicit obligation of many video games to participate two or more players, can turn "the console time" into a good time to spend with friends with whom you share a hobby and with which children They will have the opportunity to develop their social skills.
3. Increase the skill. The increase in difficulty in a video game increases in parallel to the skill needed to overcome it. Thus, in addition to being a good way to develop various skills, it is a way to increase the confidence and self-esteem of the child who sees how he is able to overcome little by little.
4. Develop the reasoning. Strategy games, for example, force children to develop reasoning to solve problems and find solutions. It is a way, outside the academic environment, to develop in children the ability to think.
5. Increase spatial orientation. The presence of the three dimensions in some games implies acquiring a domain of orientation in space that will allow the child to improve his spatial vision in a simple, effective and practically unconscious way.
6. Improve the attention capacity. The time that children spend in front of the console is a time of absolute concentration that can favor that, later, that acquired capacity is extrapolated to other situations, such as, for example, attending at home. Obviously, we must not forget that overexposure will generate precisely the opposite effect in the child, reducing his attention to the rest of the stimuli.
7. Increase visual-motor coordination. Video games allow players to coordinate between what they see and what they must do, that is, improve visual-motor coordination. Thus, apart from the exercises that children will normally do in school to improve it, video games are presented as an effective way to increase it.
8. Contributes to conflict resolution and decision making. Many times, children, in a real situation, are unable to make decisions because of the fear of consequences in case of error. Thus, although differentiating fiction and reality, video games are shown as an excellent platform to promote the ability to solve everyday problems and the search for possible solutions or answers.
9. Video games as leisure time. Video games should be understood as a moment of dispersion for the child and understood as a time for digital leisure. Thus, introducing videogames as a leisure time in which one also learns, and in which, obviously, one can not invest all of the time, will be a way at the same time to educate the children in a correct distribution of their free time.
10. Oblige to comply with some rules. In addition to the rules of use contained in each video game that will make the child assume certain limits, the rules established by the parents regarding their use will encourage the child the value of responsibility and teach him that not all the time is of leisure nor all leisure are video games.
5 practical tips that parents should follow with video games
1. A moment to spend time with your child. Playing with your child, in addition to being a good excuse to spend your time together, is a way to control the content of the video games with which your child spends his time.
2. Establishes rules and limits. Instead of prohibiting the use of video games to your child, it is necessary to define standards, explain the consequences of non-compliance and be consistent in its application. In this way, progressively the child will acquire self-control.
3. Use parental control.If you are concerned about inappropriate content, such as violent video games, ask the experts and, if the console allows it, restrict them to Parental Control.
4. Play with your child. Playing is much simpler than it seems. Turn on the console and let the game guide you: so you can share that experience with your children.
5. Familiarize yourself with new technologies. Video games can be a fun way for parents and children to take on new technologies together.
Patricia Núñez de Arenas
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