I think OP that speaks more about your child than Minecraft. My 7 and 9 year olds have created elaborate worlds in Minecraft. They don't discuss killing animals though.

We don't do XBox/Playstation type games in our home (went to school with too many people who went from promising student to barely there wash-outs because of video game addiction) but we do allow Minecraft and a few kid friendly Ipad games. If the homework is done and academics are on track, there can be time for a little fun. The kids lose iPad privileges if they start getting too worked up when it's time to shut 'er down.

Anonymous wrote:To all the people who swear it is the greatest learning tool ever- Be honest how much are you using it as a babysitter and just justifying that it is any different than sitting your kid in front of a video game?

Minecraft is a video game. My kid likes it and as long as he does everything else he is suppose to do, he can play as much Minecraft as he wants.

I don't think everything a child does has to be educational although my DS learned to read and type on Minecraft.

-signed, the middle aged mom who knows more about Minecraft than she should.

Anonymous wrote:To all the people who swear it is the greatest learning tool ever- Be honest how much are you using it as a babysitter and just justifying that it is any different than sitting your kid in front of a video game?

11.29 here. I believe I said that it's a tool, and any tool can be misused.

I don't use it as a babysitter at all. I'm a live-in nanny, and I make sure that there are no screens while I am with the kids unless it is required for school or balances more towards education than fun (Khan Academy and the like). When they are with their parents, it's up to the parents. One former employer allowed 1 hour per week, another allowed two non-consecutive hours per week, and I'm not sure how many youtube videos they were allowed, but it came out of their weekly television time.

I view looking online with me for articles and walk-throughs for Minecraft as weighing more towards education, because none of them have been easy reads for my charges, and they're learning to research. They are learning to advocate for what they want and present a compelling argument. They are reading non-fiction informational pieces, and they are learning to pull the information they need while ignoring what they don't need. And most important to me: they want to read, they want to research and they've found something that holds their interest enough that they want to learn anything and everything about it.

Anonymous wrote:To all the people who swear it is the greatest learning tool ever- Be honest how much are you using it as a babysitter and just justifying that it is any different than sitting your kid in front of a video game?

People claimed that it's the greatest learning tool ever? Hmm... I missed that. And why do you care about other people "using" it or allowing their kids to play it? Are you that insecure?

To all the people who swear it is the greatest learning tool ever- Be honest how much are you using it as a babysitter and just justifying that it is any different than sitting your kid in front of a video game?

My daughter's (9) behavior is atrocious after she plays minecraft. So we say no.

My 9 year old kid is not interested in the zombie mode, but she's enjoyed building houses and gardens notwithstanding the time she built a hole, fell in and couldn't get out. She's taking a minecraft class afterschool that supposedly helps introduce kids to coding.

Anonymous wrote:My son likes the Youtube videos as well. I have been hesitant to give him the Apple TV remote to skim for these unsupervised because there are a lot of gamers that don't use appropriate language for kids.

This is my problem. I'm fine on the computer but the youtube "tutorials" are atrocious! I can't be there all the time to monitor the good from the bad. He is smart and he starts off with the mild ones when I'm around and before I know it bang, I hear the foul language. some of these youtube ones are over the top.

My son likes the Youtube videos as well. I have been hesitant to give him the Apple TV remote to skim for these unsupervised because there are a lot of gamers that don't use appropriate language for kids.

Anonymous wrote:Well, now I am interested. My kids have been asking for minecraft, but I thought it was just an xbox game and said no. Where is a good place to start learning about it?

You can download minecraft here:

https://minecraft.net/

It costs $26.95 but all the mods and adventure maps are FREE! Learning how to find, download and install mods are part of the learning process. Some kids will go on to writing their own mods if they are interested.

If your kids want to play against each other in computer minecraft on a LAN/server, you will need to buy each of them their own game.

Like pp said, youtube is a great resource for all things Minecraft as are the tons of minecraft forums devoted to minecraft.

Enjoy!

Anonymous wrote:Well, now I am interested. My kids have been asking for minecraft, but I thought it was just an xbox game and said no. Where is a good place to start learning about it?

My kids led my education on PC Minecraft by watching youtube and asking me to download mods. I was okay with them watching youtube videos of certain people, including DanTDM (as I knew they would be okay - no bad words). Maybe others can suggest different Minecraft "youtubers"!

Initially, though, just download the game on your PC and let your kids at it. I soon had to get it on the laptop as well, since they both wanted to play together. Then let them have playdates and learn from their friends. It's very organic! They'll pick stuff up by talking about it at school.

When it comes time to download mods, I found this helpful:
http://minemum.com/installing-mods

Well, now I am interested. My kids have been asking for minecraft, but I thought it was just an xbox game and said no. Where is a good place to start learning about it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:anyone know how the PC game compares to the Xbox game? We have Xbox and iPad versions. Wondering if I should get the PC game if it has more capabilities.

On the computer version, you can add mods - "modifications". Minecraft is open source so anyone, anywhere can write mods for it. There are literally thousands of mods like Pokemon, Star Wars, Zelda... adding capabilities, blocks, weapons, different types of animals, genetic experiments, I can go on and on.

The mods are what makes Minecraft so popular bc it is a game that can be anything you want it to be.

The computer game is nothing like the ipad or xbox versions because there are thousands of mods you can add to minecraft on the computer version.

There are also modpacks (compilations of popular mods that are made compatible with each other) like voidlaucher. Check them out.

Aside from mods there are "adventure maps" which can also be added to minecraft. Adventure maps are basically premade worlds that you can play in such as Zelda, Star Wars, rain forests, outer space, haunted houses, etc. Some of them have quests or goals to attain.

Adventure maps can be used in conjunction with mods.

Anonymous wrote:I admit I have not paid enough attention to what my kids are doing on Minecraft. It's on my to-do list.
But my son did comment that he was going to let the peasants live, for the moment, and I was like "Whaaaat? Is there some reason you would kill mindless peasants wandering around?" It was explained to me that the random wandering peasants consume resources that could otherwise be used for building. I may have that wrong, as I was a little confused by the whole thing.

Can someone more knowledgeable explain to me? Is there some incentive built into the game to kill off living things? If so, it reminds me of some dystopian robot future, where the machines are so set on building for the sake of building, and view the sentient beings as hindrances to their mission.

Although it also reminds me of Sim City, which folks used to play in the 80's....I had friends that regularly let the city go to hell and all the folks would die. But none of those friends turned out to be psychopathic city planners, so that's encouraging.

There are sim city minecraft mods Minecraft is NOT sim city but if you add a sim city mod, you can make it into sim city.

Peasants can be good/bad/neutral - depends. You can barter/trade with them. Kill them all off and take over their village. Ignore them completely.... Whatever. Depends on what you want to accomplish.