Game design for kids is more than just a technical skill; it is a powerful tool for fostering resilience, teaching perseverance and gaining the ability to overcome failure. In today’s ever-changing world, it is important for parents to guide children on how to handle setbacks. Fortunately, game design provides the ideal platform to teach kids about failure and resilience.
When children study game design, they learn valuable skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity. As with anything we try to learn, children naturally face challenges and failures along the way, whether it is debugging their code, refining game mechanics, or creating balanced challenges. These failures can be hard to overcome and can even get overwhelming. With the guidance of parents, these failures will not discourage them, but rather serve as opportunities for growth.
In addition, this process of trial and error helps children develop resilience. It teaches them that setbacks are a natural part of any creative endeavor. As they constantly work through problems in their games, they build the mental fortitude needed to tackle life’s challenges with confidence and adaptability.
Games as Teaching Aids
Games, by their very nature, are centered around challenges, achievements, and rewards. From simple board games like ‘Snakes and Ladders’ to more intricate video games, the underlying theme remains the same: there are obstacles to overcome, and success is not guaranteed. This framework is a microcosm of life’s larger challenges. For young children, navigating these game-related challenges provides an excellent platform to learn about both success and failure in a controlled, safe environment.
Structured Failure in Game Design
Structured failure is a term used in game design to refer to the intentional embedding of challenges that players are likely to fail initially. As children play games and encounter these structured failures, they are encouraged to explore alternate strategies, fostering adaptability.
Key components of structured failure include:
- Incremental Challenges: Start with simpler tasks and progressively increase the difficulty. This eases children into the game without overwhelming them.
- Feedback Loops: After each failure, offer feedback. This could be in the form of an animated character expressing sadness or a simple text-based message suggesting a different approach. Feedback loops help children understand the reason behind their failure and guide them towards finding a solution.
Building a Safe Environment Through Game Design
Let us first take a look at why games offer such an ideal instrument to teach our children the importance of embracing failures as learning opportunities, fostering resiliences, and persevering in the face of daunting obstacles. Games provide a unique environment where failure does not have real-world repercussions. This safety net ensures that children can take risks, experiment with different strategies, and fail without any significant consequences. Though it is equally critical to teach our kids about the difference between the gaming environment and the real-world, over time, this can cultivate a mindset where failure is viewed as a learning opportunity rather than a dead-end.
Resilience Through Game Design
Repetition in Game Design
Repetition is a core feature and a fundamental aspect of game design. When children encounter a challenge they cannot overcome initially, repeated play allows them to hone their skills, understand the nuances of the challenge, and build resilience. This repetitive cycle teaches children that persistence can lead to success.
Collaborative Design and Team Resilience
Games offer a wonderful opportunity for children to work together, introducing another layer of resilience building. As kids work collaboratively to clear levels, children learn the value of teamwork, learning on one another when in need, and embracing diverse thinking to collectively come up with innovative solutions. Furthermore, shared failures in a team setting can teach children that setbacks are universal; they should not view failure as an individual, isolated fault. As they come to understand this sentiment, the stigma around failing is reduced significantly.
Perseverance Through Game Design
Emotional Engagement and Empathy
Games where players control an avatar or a character, can naturally foster emotional engagement. As children progress through levels, faces obstacles, and overcome challenges with this character, they come to feel a sense of empathy. This emotional bond with their game avatar can be a powerful motivator for children to persevere. They gain self-confidence and self-affirmation to keep going as they watch their game proxy progressively grow and accomplish so much in the game.
Game Design for Reflection
Games afford children with a powerful reflective tools that encourage children to look back on their growth journey. Many games have progress trackers that visually depict how far your child has come. This visually tool can be a powerful reminder for your children of all the hurdles and challenges they have overcome. They are allowed the time to positively reflect on all the progressive they have made, reinforcing the idea that setbacks are only temporary and can be overcome with perseverance.
Game Design and Parenting
Parents play a critical role in contextualizing failures and successes within the game design. By participating or observing, parents can offer real-time encouragement, celebrate small victories, and provide perspective during challenging moments. Their involvement can amplify the lessons of resilience and perseverance that games teach.
Let’s delve deeper into how parents can help their children build their resilience and nurture perseverance.
1. Choose Appropriate Coding Tools and Platforms
As parents, perhaps the most logical place to start is choosing suitable coding tools and platforms for your child. It is important to consider your child’s age and skill level when determining the right platform. There are various kid-friendly coding platforms to introduce like Scratch, CampusTop, and Code.org, which offer user-friendly interfaces and tutorials designed specifically for children. These platforms provide an excellent starting point for learning both coding and game design.
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2. Provide Guidance and Resources
Ensure you provide guidance and resources to help your child learn. You can sit down with them to explore the coding platform, read through tutorials, and solve problems together. You can find numerous online resources, books, and video tutorials available to support both coding and game design education. Learning alongside their game design journey improves a child’s willingness to learn, positively impacting their educational performance.
3. Celebrating Small Wins
To promote resilience, parents, as well as games, should celebrate small victories. Whether it’s through animations, rewarding sounds, or points, game design that acknowledges progress can motivate children to push through challenges. Similarly, parents should celebrate even the smallest achievements and cherish in the joys of their accomplishments. These celebrations serve as positive reinforcement, emphasizing effort and progress over the end result.
4. Real-World Application and Discussions
One of the most potent ways to ensure that the lessons of failure and resilience from games translate to real-world scenarios is through discussions. Parents and educators can facilitate conversations about the challenges faced in games, drawing parallels with real-life situations. This bridges the gap between virtual experiences and real-world applications, solidifying the lessons learned.
5. Keep Learning Fun
Lastly, keep the learning process enjoyable. Gamify their coding and game design education by creating challenges and rewards. Most kids will enjoy learning when you involve fun factors like coding games.
Conclusion
Teaching your kids about failure and resilience in game design may take a while, especially for who won’t understand the concept of it. One of the best and most effective ways for parents to teach them about failing and being resilient is through guidance. Children may take it the hard way when they mess up a code, and that’s where parents come in to explain why making mistakes is important in learning about coding and game design.
