Seeing children recklessly cracking down on virtual monsters, most parents rush to drive their offspring away from the computer. But the mother of a 9-year-old boy is an exception to the rule: the woman in every possible way encourages her son's enthusiasm for the game "Minecraft".
The computer game "Minecraft", created by the Swedish programmer Markus Persson, interested a 9-year-old boy suffering from Asperger's Syndrome, a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social interaction. Patients with this disease prefer to protect themselves from the influences of the outside world, focusing on a particular occupation or subject.
Anna Stam, trying to instill social skills in her 9-year-old, noticed her son's passion for computer games and decided to use Minecraft as a teaching program.
The woman who had learned the game modes joined the young gamer to challenge him with new challenges that would further the boy's gradual learning.
“I got acquainted with the four modes of“Minecraft”and chose the creative one: in it you can create any designs from the proposed blocks. During the game, I use the chat function, in which I inform my son about the task. He reads my directions and then gives an answer in writing. At first, my initiative irritated him, but over time the child mastered the whole keyboard, if only the virtual adventures continued.
"Minecraft" is a rather difficult game, in which you cannot learn everything overnight, so my son learned to search for the necessary information using sources such as Google and Wikipedia. In addition, he began to record videos of his achievements and post them on YouTube, "- emotionally Anna Stam shares her impressions.
According to the mother of the 9-year-old boy, the main thing in the game is the absence of bloody battles and constant interaction with the outside world, which is so important for children with Asperger's Syndrome. Creative Anna even created a personal blog in which she shares her observations and gives advice to parents raising children with this disease.
“My child, like any other, is amazing and unique, but he has weaknesses that we are trying to eliminate with the help of a computer game. I dare say that Minecraft is one of the most powerful digital tools out there, surpassing many print publications and how-tos.
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This visual assistant taught my son to read, write and other important social skills,”the resourceful woman writes in a blog post.