Can games teach money values to children?
Can computer games teach money values to children?
In my generation, our parents will be annoyed at children for playing computer games. They view computer games as addictive, un-educational and mildly dangerous. They may have gave us time limits to play games so that we can focus on our education instead.
Bold Statement: Computer games can teach money values to children
Addiction is a common worry. For example, some people are addicted to food and this will lead to consequences such as being obese. Strangely, most parents are more afraid of their child being addicted to food than computer games. Both of which may have consequences in the long run.
I believe that computer games when played in balance with the other demands of life can teach money values to children. This may be one of the most controversial parenting tips there can be.
Resources Management
It is important to start young. Computer games are usually a game on resources. I will describe a typical game and share with you how it may be able to teach your children money values.
Imagine you are playing multiplayer game called Maplestory. This game allows you to build up a character and exploring caves and dungeons. The main objective to the game to level your character up, get items to boost your attack and defenses, get gold to buy items that will help you in your journey. These items are typical finite in nature and you will need to spend time to grind more resources.
Money Values children can learn from computer games
The first thing you will learn in the game is to gather resources. When you defeat a slime in the game, you collect a certain amount of gold. The more slimes you defeat, the more gold you collect. However, this is an incredibly slow ordeal. As you progress in your level, you are able to defeat dragons and they will drop more gold.
Just like money, if you do less value adding work (maybe as a cashier), you will not be able to earn a lot of money. If you were to complete a higher value adding work (complete a negotiation), you will be able to earn more money. This is intuitive by itself.
The second thing you will learn is to manage your resources. With the gold that you have collected, you will make decision on what item will help you in your quest. This may be buying a better equipment.
Just like money, with the finite amount of money, the child will learn how to make decisions on what instruments can help them to accelerate their wealth. The key point here is the making of decision instead of the instruments. Some child cannot make decision well because they were never really given the power to make decision. In games, they can make the full decision themselves and learn from the consequence whether good or not.
The last thing is delayed gratification. Computers typically allows a person to do a certain amount of actions in a day. This is because they want to encourage users to pay daily. Hence, there is waiting involved in the game.
Just like money, the child will understand that somethings will take time. For example, saving for a goal or even waiting for an asset to appreciate.
But wait…
It is all about balance. Addiction is real and if your children becomes addicted to a computer game, it could post a serious problem
While controversial, we believe that computer games can help parents to teach money values to your children. What do you feel?
In any case, you will get free ideas from our resources guide for parenting tips on money values to help give your children a headstart. Thereafter, you can consider other more comprehensive guides to push it to the next level.
We are here to give you the resource. We are here to give you the confidence. We are here to watch them grow.
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