You've Reached "Armor Upgrade"

Spent some time last night with a few of the male gamers as they resolved a pretty intense conflict. There were hurt feelings, tears-to-Mom, text messages about leaving the server, and (on my part) anxiety over (what's becoming) a regular occurrence of drama.

Because we have such an increasingly active group of gamers, (Yay!) many who are new to gaming with others; these events occur a few times a month. We have lost some gamers in the past, over game-play conflict that went straight from the game to the parent and that was the end of it. Thankfully in this case the Mother let me know about the major upset prior to just leaving the group/server. I quickly popped on and read the chat logs, saw that there was indeed some teaming-up on one player and logged on to address the conflict.

In a very rare turn of events, the gamer who was offended came back onto discord to talk with one of the boys who upset him. For the next half hour we collectively hashed out what had happened, how feelings had gotten hurt, how this could have been avoided, what bullying looks like, and how much everyone likes to play with each other. It was intense than magical. In the end everyone was cracking up, talking strategy, pranks, friendships, and off we all went to play mini-games together. I went from thinking "Not again! This has become a full time job of drama with no pay!", to "Oh My gosh; I love this, these kids, and what we are doing here!"

My point in sharing this? I really want to encourage parents to use any conflict their gamer experiences on the server as a teaching tool and a chance to learn about conflict resolution. All to often we as mothers have a knee-jerk reaction to pull our gamers off the server and off the computers. We don't want to teach them that when things get intense, feelings get hurt, and there is a disagreement you just quit. We need to teach them to work in teams. In compromise, in apologies, in communication, and in perseverance. I'm not trying to step on toes here - we all have our parenting styles and our Mama-bear-quick-to-protect and defend behavior. Many of us grew up in a generation where we ran crying to our parents because we fell off a bike, a bigger kid pushed us, or we had a really bad day at school and our parents showed very little sympathy but rather told us to 'get over it', 'shake it off', 'suck it up', learn from it, or find something else to do. I think we need to find a middle ground with our children but not go to the other extreme.

Everyone should study Conflict Resolution. It's good for work, relationships, family dynamics, and parenting. Minecrafting with others is a wonderful opportunity to learn how to handle conflict. Don't be like the Senate and shut down because there is a disagreement. Communicate, talk things out, express the feelings, expectations, perspectives, and come up with a plan to move forward together.

Not only could we have lost a wonderful gamer yesterday but there would have been a great friendship lost among that gamer and another. These are real friendships being made in a virtual world. Please encourage your child to work things out on the server, take a breather if needed, look at it from a gaming aspect, and come back to have fun.

Remember I am here to aid in these learning experiences and to help peaceful negotiations. =) I am grateful that gamer came back to work things out. Not all do.

A win for Discord too. Had it only been conducted through chat, I think the outcome would have been far longer and not as playful. Tone is hard to gauge in type.

Here is another interesting observation; out of all the players on the server it has been only male gamers who's parents have messaged me extremely upset. I've never had a parent of a female gamer text me upset over conflict on the server. It's as if we are seeing a switch in gender sensitivity. The female gamers seem to have a humorous, creative approach to Minecraft where the males seem far more attached and literal. I love psychology and sociologically so I find this fascinating.

Like I told these boys at the end of our peace-talks 'Now let us get back to gaming because in the end we all want to have the same kind of fun!"

May your weekend be filled with fun, family, and some relaxation,

Many Blessings ~ Sara (aka: Serve Mom)