7 Ways Video Games Can Educate Children ...

If you’ve ever wondered if there are any ways video games can educate children, or whether they’re just a nuisance that can actually damage your child’s mind, there are a few important facts you need to realize about these bastions of modern technology. Not only is it a fact that well-chosen games can be very beneficial, but they help in a manner that is not always easy to pin down - and thus some parents might find it difficult to realize their potential from the start. Check out just 7 of the ways video games can educate children.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Please subscribe for your personalized newsletter:

A Better Interaction with Their Environment

One of the simplest ways video games can educate children is by putting them in touch with their environment. Many video games pose real world problems for kids to solve, promoting information and skills they can later use to interact with their surrounding environment.

Visual and Audio Stimulation for Children

There are many ways video games can educate children to recognize and adapt to various visual and audio stimuli, themes, events, and concepts. For example, toddlers can learn to respond to an alarm, recognizing it as a sign of danger, or to a green or red light.

Problem Solving and Better Brain Skills

Some games are very good at developing cognitive skills, as well as researching capabilities and problem solving. Strategy and building games, as well as time management games can be excellent for this purpose, pushing kids to plan, challenge their minds, use quick thinking, as well as patience, and think twice before acting.

Improved Creativity

There are games that use an advanced, yet natural learning curve to add new dimensions to problem solving, encouraging kids to use their creativity in coming up with a solution. Stimulating and fun, these games will allow your child to shape the gaming experience to fit their style.

Social and Verbal Development

One great way video games can teach children some valuable lessons is through multiplayer interaction. Video games are an amazing medium for kids from different cities or even cultures to interact and make friends, being much easier for them to come out of their shell and even learn exciting things about other parts of the world.

Famous Quotes

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

Laozi

Health and Exercise

Not everyone would agree that video games can educate children to regard healthy exercise as important. Nevertheless, the newest gaming consoles using advanced gesture recognition and other interactive technologies will require kids to jump, move around, dance, and perform all kinds of dynamic and healthy movements to earn their points in a game. Such games can make working out a lot more fun than sitting on the couch and watching TV all day!

Games for Children with Special Needs

Finally, some video games provide the basic storylines, patterns, activities, and speed required by children with special needs to find solutions required for basic life problems and learn anything from language and social skills to simple math, physics, or reading. There are even special games developed for autistic kids that have proven to have great therapeutic effects.

Today we can use far more resources to help our kids reach their true potential much earlier in life and provide them with the best tools they will later need as adults. And I think video games - if well-chosen - can play a major role in all this. How about you? Do you think children can really benefit from video games?

Sources:
apartmenttherapy.com
sheu.org.uk
scientificamerican.com
parents.com
education.com

Feedback Junction

Where Thoughts and Opinions Converge

I grew up in the '80s when Nintendo and arcade games were popular. I was a big fan of Tetris and I feel like it really helped to develop my visual-spatial skills. There were also a Sesame Street games that used letters, numbers and puzzles to encourage learning.

I think that puzzle games would be particularly beneficial, and then introduce other types of games for variety. Allow minimal time for them to play as a treat, can't be something they do for all hours of the day!

Categories