6 yr old wants to play Minecraft. He is smart, but possibly ASD sensitive to scary stuff. Advice please.

[Ishmae1]

Agree with everyone saying creative mode here. Sandbox experience: No death, non-aggressive monsters, flying, unlimited blocks to work with, and console & mobile versions have all the recipes exposed, so you don't have to memorize anything, just gather the resources to make stuff.

My son at 3 learned 3d navigation via Minecraft on iPad, and then 360 controller with Minecraft on that. He couldn't read words yet, and that didn't get in his way. If your kid is like mine, they'll have the icons memorized and doing everything in a week or so, even if they can't read yet. It may be frustrating or a lot of "what's this do?" until it clicks. =)

 

[vestan]

console & mobile versions have all the recipes exposed,

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This here is such a great mechanic. Kinda wish it was available when I was playing Minecraft, lol.

 

[Inkvoterad]

Our children only use youtube under strict supervision. YT is poison for kids

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God i wish my dad and his wife had this mentality for my 5 year old sister. Everytime i'm there i'm basically hovering over her to see what kinda weird shit she might be accidentally clicking on, or what the algorithm plays in the next video. I want to explain it in some capacity why i don't think it's a good idea to my dad but they're so digitally inept that i don't think they'd even care to listen.

 

[Noaloha]

With regards to the not-being-able-to-save thing (if you've not solved the issue yet), I believe another possibility is that you own the game but you selected one of the theme-packs (Festive, Halloween, etc) upon world creation -- if I remember rightly, you can play around in those as long as you like but the save function is disabled unless it's been purchased.

 

[Deleted member 8118]

Our children only use youtube under strict supervision. YT is poison for kids

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Nothing but good from this. Even I find myself questioning what the fuck I'm watching on YouTube.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

I've had time to go online, and yes, it seems that when my wife downloaded it some time ago (years?) she thought she'd bought it on my account. She had, in fact, downloaded the trial. So that's the "why can't we save or change modes" mystery solved.

As for the "Scary monsters" issue, I'll just get him to play offline, probably in split screen with me. He's smart, like, REALLY smart (i guess they would have called his condition Aspergers some years ago, but many experts are moving away from that diagnosis, as it's a bit of a "binary" way to describe a spectrum), but he seemed really overwhelmed by the menus. I'm going to buy it, and play it with him to see if I can help him wrap his head around it a bit more. He's been repeatedly talking about Minecraft lately. Like I say, no diagnosis, but he sure is obsessed with it right now, even though he's only really played around in the tutorial for 3 one hour sessions.

Oh, and to whoever mentioned their autistic child not liking story mode - my wife played story mode with him on Netflix, and when a certain character dies, he was inconsolable for an hour, poor kid.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

As for the "Scary monsters" issue, I'll just get him to play offline, probably in split screen with me. He's smart, like, REALLY smart (i guess they would have called his condition Aspergers some years ago, but many experts are moving away from that diagnosis, as it's a bit of a "binary" way to describe a spectrum), but he seemed really overwhelmed by the menus. I'm going to buy it, and play it with him to see if I can help him wrap his head around it a bit more. He's been repeatedly talking about Minecraft lately. Like I say, no diagnosis, but he sure is obsessed with it right now, even though he's only really played around in the tutorial for 3 one hour sessions.

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Thing with being 'smart', both on the spectrum and otherwise, is that it comes down to how well you process given information. An unfamiliar system with unfamiliar rules can be quite a daunting thing.

Still, good on you for helping him with it, and for encouraging his interest. You'd be surprised how uncommon that can be.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

Thing with being 'smart', both on the spectrum and otherwise, is that it comes down to how well you process given information. An unfamiliar system with unfamiliar rules can be quite a daunting thing.

Still, good on you for helping him with it, and for encouraging his interest. You'd be surprised how uncommon that can be.

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Thank you. We are in the process of discovering where his strengths can be really used to get the best life for him. While i have loved playing games for over 30 years, I am hoping that he can include them in his interests rather than make them his main obsession, as just lately he's been a little fixated.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Thank you. We are in the process of discovering where his strengths can be really used to get the best life for him. While i have loved playing games for over 30 years, I am hoping that he can include them in his interests rather than make them his main obsession, as just lately he's been a little fixated.

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Depends on how he channels it, really. Also worth exploring what specifically about it appeals; whether it's strictly the game in and of itself, the mechanics as enabling construction, what he's seen other people put together, so forth. That can help provide a template going forward.