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Comment by milesf | Hacker News Reader

My kids are huge Minecraft fanatics. I set them up their own server with a whitelist, and now they have over 40 of their friends on it building incredible things.

Not wanting to waste this opportunity, I'm using Purugin (https://github.com/enebo/Purugin) and helping them learn to write plugins in Ruby for their server. I'm writing a book with my son and daughter about the experience in hopes other parents out there can channel their kid's passion into learning a skill that will serve them the rest of their lives, no matter what occupation they choose.

Minecraft has been a life changing event in our home. My kids would rather create than consume. That's something I can get behind as a parent.

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Thank you for giving me hope about what being a parent can be. I see all my friends who've started having kids over the past few years just plunking junior down in front of the tv to keep her occupied. I want to believe that there are others out there who are willing to try and find another way, but my immediate circles were seeming otherwise.

It's great to hear they have so many friends engaging with them. You can try alternate forms of entertainment like this, but if all the friends just watch tv, you're either ostrisizing your own child or becoming the "bad parent" in their eye because everyone else gets to watch tv.

I don't have TV, but I let my son watch TV. It's just stuff I've checked out, like "Curious George" on Netflix, or the 1960s "Batman" TV show that I have on Plex.

Sure, he's heard about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from his friends at pre-school, but his mother and I think it's too intense for him right now.

I don't let my life be ruled by what other people think is popular, I'm certainly not going to let my child be raised according to that standard.

I feel a little bad doing this plug, but I strongly recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender when you feel he's old enough. (Seven seems to be a reasonable time to introduce it.) If you haven't seen it, see it for yourself first. It is perhaps the deepest and most nuanced "made for kids" thing I've seen at all: it provides a lot of discussion fodder.

I've tried watching it. It seems that I fall asleep whenever I start watching the first episode. The same thing happens to me when I watch "Fringe." Both are shows I'm fairly certain I would like.

I'll give it another try when I'm well-rested.

The first season is a bit slow, introducing the characters, but it picks up :)

I second that. Avatar: The Last Airbender deals with a lot of potentially serious material deftly, with humor and grace to match. All three season are on Netflix's Instant Streaming.

Unfortunately, the series is no longer available on Netflix due to contract expiration.

How do you find out about this stuff? :(

Welll. I just did some light searching and was unable to find a way to purchase all 3 books at once except via TheHut.com. Hope it's okay to link it:

http://www.thehut.com/dvd/avatar-the-last-airbender-the-comp...

> "How do you find out about this stuff? :("

There were tools...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57584518-93/netflix-cuts-ba...

Since when? I just watched Sokka's Master with my son yesterday.

He's right :( just checked, and it's available until 5/22/13.

I can recommend "Jane and the Dragon", both my 3 and 6 year old love it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_and_the_Dragon_(TV_series)

I know a lot of families where parents discourage internet usage (one shared computer, time limits, use only with parent sitting next to you, etc) but have no problem with excessive TV. Glad to see someone is getting it right :).

I think I agree with your main point here, but it seems you're associating the idea of putting constraints on internet usage with the idea of discouraging internet usage.

I think you were making the point that parents should be just as attentive to the TV shows their children are watching as they are to the internet their children are exploring, but I just wanted to be sure. ;-)

Surveillance has a chilling effect, even if you're not doing anything wrong. For the same reason I wouldn't develop the same socially if my parents had forced me to wear a wire in the school cafeteria, I wouldn't be nearly as freely curious if my parents were watching and questioning my web browsing. I'd probably have become an entirely different person.

Personally I think parents should look out for Very Bad Things like sharing phone numbers and addresses or meeting with strangers, children living on /b/, people advocating real-world violence, etc. but if the internet is a family-only activity, children will never learn to use it to its full potential.

Time limits on the order of a couple hours are pretty reasonable, but I'm talking about people who set a limit of 15 minutes/day, or wealthy families that deliberately have one computer shared with 6+ people because they don't want it to become significant in anyone's life.

Also you are probably not going to become a programmer if your parents are nontechnical and installing software on the shared computer requires extensive justification/begging that usually leads to "no."

I could just be biased by the kids I knew, however. Their parents saw the internet primarily as a strange and foreign threat to be mitigated, and so all internet activity was bad until justified by "legitimate" need, rather than encouraged unless dangerous.

Where are you located? We have a videogame museum in Oakland, where we are CONSTANTLY asked if we have classes in how to write Minecraft mods... We'd love to offer a class on this, possibly using your materials when they're ready! http://www.themade.org

I go to school at Cal. I haven't written any mods yet, but if you're looking for people to help teach, I'd love to offer my services, both teaching and helping to develop material.

We'd love to have yer help! Email alex@themade.org

I'm in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. I used to work for Engine Yard across the bay in SF, so I'm familiar with the city and have ties there.

I'm sure I could come up with a flimsy excuse to come down to Oakland when we're done :)

My wife's signed on to help with the book as well. She's never really played Minecraft, so she's the perfect person to help vet the material to make sure non-techies can understand it as well.

Let me know when yer in town and we'll roll out the red carpet. alex@themade.org

My kids would rather create than consume. That's something I can get behind as a parent.

In other words, it's the new Lego.

(largely) free Lego, over the internet with all your friends and mods and plugins and such.

So: kind of, but so much more.

Yes, however I don't remember playing with Lego for hours everyday, week after week, month after month. There's something qualitatively different about Minecraft that makes it even more engaging than Lego.

In fact, today's modern Lego is nothing like it used to be. Today kids get a kit, which they build from the instructions, then put it on a shelf. They _consume_ Lego now, whereas when I was a kid I _created_ with Lego.

When my kids have kids, they may very well show their children some Lego, and their kids may say "oh, you mean it's sort of like Minecraft".

Hm, that is an interesting point, I never fully realized it, but you're right - over the recent years, I only remember seeing themed Lego sets like you describe in shops, not the all-purpose "box of blocks" I remember from my childhood.

I will stop by a toy store I have on my way to lunch today, and check out their offer of Lego (Legos? Legoes?).

OK, I went to two toy stores, and they both only had one box of around 200 "generic" lego blocks, marketed as "supplementary". Rest of Lego products were of the above mentioned build&forget variety. Quite sad.

You are awesome :)

edit: if/when I have kids, I had been thinking of giving them a Linux box and a prepaid debit card, telling them, "you can do, install, buy, or do whatever you want with this machine, the internet connection, and the money, as long as it's legal". This fits in nicely with the kind of thoughts and attitudes I'd like to instill.

Aren't you afraid they could waste all the money on some farmville (or some other game's) $50 crop growth booster?

I'd hope that by limiting the amount of money given to them and giving them ownership, that they would research and intelligently decide what to buy. Poor decisions would be a good learning experience too so it wouldn't be for naught.

If I were a child though, my measure of a good purchase decision would probably be how much entertainment I got for my money. In that case, blasting $50 on a freemium game might not seem like a bad purchase at all. What will you teach your kids to use as a measure of a good purchase? For an adult, you have all kinds of financial responsibilities to account for, so frivolous purchases can screw you over. As a kid, you have no financial responsibility and no consequence for spending all your cash on frivolous stuff.

Would you have, as a kid?

Can't say for sure, when I was a kid, there was no farmville and no credit cards. It is more popular here to pay via SMS short numbers and there are a lot of kids spending their parents' money to boost levels of their cows.

Although it might be entirely different matter, when you are responsible for your decisions and when it's your money. Only one way to find out.

I'm not a parent yet, but I suppose I'd be more afraid they end up blowing 50k on a toaster in their adulthood because I didn't teach them the value of money early on. A $50 mistake when you're a kid is nowhere near as much of a problem as a 50k mistake when you're 30.

The money part is brave and will likely work out. However, its also a great opportunity to teach cash flow rather then balance sheet.

My dad did something really great when I was young: He paid me my entire allowance in bulk once a year. Of course the first year it failed and I bought all sorts of crap and was out within weeks. That was the idea. The year afterwards I was too afraid to spend anything because it was so painful having nothing. The year afterwards he introduced me to bonds and some stocks to help build some income.

That's pretty interesting. What age did that start and, if you don't mind telling, how much was given? Willing to try that with my future kids.

How old were you the first year, out of curiosity?

10. He gave me adjusted for inflation ( and converted from DM to EUR to USD ) it would be 200. Essentially age * 20.

You know, some Asian cultures (including my own - Japan) inadvertently does this through the New Years' Money Gifts given to you from your older relatives (uncles, aunts, grandparents). The amount differs from family to family, but it's not rare at all to get a couple hundred bucks worth from one person. This can add up to ~$1k easily.

So kids in these countries learn (well at least some of them) to ration this big annual pay day over the year, deciding whether they want to buy comics or that hot new game that came out, etc.

I once refused my grandma's money.

This turned into a lesson on always accepting gifts. It was awkward.

Just FYI a checking account and associated debit card from your bank are often free, while standalone prepaid credit card has hefty fees.

I'd love it if you blogged the book as you write it. I'm always looking for new ways to engage my 4yo daughter with this stuff as she grows up.

Here's a mother and her young child (4? 5?) playing around with Minecraft.

(http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAA32A313F61AFBBB)

It's cute and fun, and it can expand in all sorts of different ways. Arts and crafts, or programming, or design, or real world play.

All this kid wants to do is make zombies. That's adorable.

My 4 year old son started playing Minecraft in creative mode when he was 3. He's become quite adept with the mouse and keyboard.

Here's a video of him building a train, ahem, minecart track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYt3-kihNE

My husband wrote out a cheat-sheet for him to copy letter-by-letter into the command line to switch between creative and survival mode. He remains in creative mode except when he wants to use the crafting table.

I've tried introducing him to Scratch, however, since it is so word-based, it is quite difficult to teach to a non-reader. In Minecraft, even though he can't read, he can tell me what almost every piece of material is in his inventory.

Anyway, long story short, we're always looking for G-rated Minecraft Youtube videos to learn from.

My husband hosts a server world for us (and sometimes his cousins join us). I would love for him to have the opportunity to play Minecraft with kids his own age, but I don't know of any others, does your daughter play or is she just getting started with it?

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