Minecraft and Nicole

I would like to share my experience with Minecraft and how it has been in our lives since it came out.


My oldest daughter discovered minecraft when she was 12. That would have been 5 years ago. And both of my daughters fell in love with it. That first summer they would spend days on it. I never got the whole pixel block building thing. ( I am a gamer but not for minecraft). Fast forward 5 years later, Nicole is now 12 and still will sit for HOURS playing minecraft. She now has the online version, as well as the xbox and PS3 versions. This is her hyper focus area. She can get so absorbed in this game that she is unaware of the time, of what is going on around her and who is with her. My husband and I must limit her exposure to her game play for several reasons.


1. She will ignore everyone and everything once she is involved. She has had friends go home from sleepovers and just hanging out because she is so involved with her game and online friends.


2. She will not get school work done. This is a huge problem with her. She detests homework. To keep homework going good in this household small amounts done in increments works best. Then she is rewarded with 30 minutes of Minecraft. This reward system works good for room cleaning and any other tedious activity that needs to get done. We learned this system through the Strongest families institute which is run through the IWK in Halifax.( this will be covered in a separate post).


3. Nicole struggles with insomnia because of anxiety. So any screen time past 8pm(during school times) is a big no no. Even myself i will notice if I am on my ipad before going to bed it is harder to get to sleep.


To limit the meltdowns, at least when it comes to amount of time on minecraft, these strategies have helped immensely. Knowing that there are ways of letting her get her minecraft and that she knows this has helped a lot in getting her homework done. She knows that before she can go on minecraft there are things that need to be done. And doing them in small increments is a huge thing for her. She has this adaptation in school as well and has helped her succeed more in school. Luckily her marks have never been a problem. For Nicole it has been more of a social struggle and being made to sit still.

Thanks for reading,
Julia