Activitate

A family Minecraft policy

April 13 15th, 2015

Minecraft is a global phenomenon. Kids love it , and parents and educators appreciate the way it encourages creativity and learning. Downwithdestruction We’ve resisted introducing Minecraft to our family because of the conflict and compulsive behaviour it can trigger in many families.

After much discussion and consideration We’re finally prepared to let our children use Minecraft. We first asked them five questions about our Minecraft obsession, and then came up with an official family policy based on their responses. Here’s the policy that both of our children required to sign up for before they could obtain Minecraft accounts.

Our Family Minecraft Policy

Principles

1. Minecraft is an experiment. 2. Playing Minecraft is a PRIVILEGE, not an absolute right. 3. Mum and Dad must know what you’re doing on Minecraft. We will also establish limitations on the amount and time you can play. 4. We encourage you to use Minecraft to CREATE, BUILD, LEARN and CODE. 5. We will regularly discuss and analyze the impact of Minecraft on our families as well as on your personal learning and development. We would love to hear your opinions on how Minecraft can be rewarding for you, and we want you to listen to any concerns we might have and come up with solutions that address them.

Rules

1. You can only play Minecraft during game time. As a reminder, this means 30 minutes per day on weekdays (Monday through Friday) between 4-6:30 pm – 1 hour per day on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) between 10-6:30pm – holidays and pro-d days count as weekdays

2. Each child can choose their username. Each child will be assigned a password to Minecraft by their parents. We will create your password for you, but you won’t have it. This allows us to manage your usage. 3. Only Survival mode and Creative mode are allowed. We cannot allow you to play Survival mode if it causes problems during the game. 4. Only servers you have signed up for are allowed to play. 5. No stealing from friends or family members’ chests. 6. In Minecraft (or elsewhere) you aren’t allowed to harm your friends or siblings. 7. There is no trapping unless you’re in a specifically-designed trapping environment. You must have a plan in place to handle any trapping that might happen when you accidentally caught or killed. 8. No mods for downloading or maps, texture packs or anything else. If you wish to download something you will need to ask us for help downloading to your computer so we can be sure the files are safe to download. 9. If you can show us what you’ve created or learned, coded or constructed, you will be able to EARN mods and texture packs. We’ll be more inclined to help you expand Minecraft the more we see what you are creating. This applies to free downloads as well as paid mods/maps/expansions. 10. If we ask you to show us your Minecraft screen at any given moment, you will display it. 11. It is your obligation to save your game, progress or creations before the game is over. You will lose your progress if do not save. 12. It is your responsibility to ensure a smooth transition to Minecraft at the conclusion of your session without yelling, whining, or asking for more time. Before you begin playing, you’ll have to create a plan for how you’ll move from Minecraft to your next activity after game time ends, and tell us your plan before you start playing. You could think about taking three deep breaths before going for an easy walk around the block – Getting out your favorite book and having it waiting for you – requesting an appropriate board game to play after you’re done with Minecraft

13. Infractions to this policy could cause Minecraft privileges being revoked for up to one week. These violations include but are not limited to: – Asking for an extra hour – requesting to play before the game time – arguing when Minecraft is over – Changing or snooping into Minecraft Downloading filesBlock your screen or delay the display until we request it –

14. If we experience ongoing problems with Minecraft, we will remove Minecraft from all of our devices and we will not have Minecraft in our home for at least 3 months. This will apply to both kids, even if just one of you is having trouble managing Minecraft.

* These rules were modified by Caryn Talty’s Minecraft rules on Health-Family.org. Rule #6 is taken verbatim.