What My Six Year Old Has Learned From CoX
By
2Negative,
Posted on: 2008-02-19 08:05 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Nice post. I'm glad you and your daughter have a common bond and enjoy your recreation time.
Last week I had a parent send me a tell asking if his daughter could join our team. It was a PB but a different name then what you stated above and she was 5. I was tanking and she was in Nova form and just had me on follow. She did a good job and died a couple times when things got intense. My lowbie tank couldn't do much aggro management at that time. Long story short, she learned and the parent thanked me for being a "decent person."
Anyways, I play on Freedom and Flame is welcome anytime on my teams.
Glad to see she is enjoying the game and learning to read and devolop and inquisitive mind.
@Blood Beret(2)Twitter
I am a bad speeler, use poorer grammar, and am a frequent typoist.
MA ArcID: 1197
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
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"How come the Clockworks don't attack cars or make nasty cars to attack people?"
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She should be lead dev for this game.
That's awesome. 
Nice post brought me a smile.
CoH: The educational MMO. 
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
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"How come the Clockworks don't attack cars or make nasty cars to attack people?"
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She should be lead dev for this game.
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The cars con grey?
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
Wonderful story. 
After the really crummy week I just had, this thread made me smile and feel a little bit better. Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Shadowy Presence - Absolutely, positively worse than playing a Kheldian... --Myrmydon
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Wonderful story.
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I love stories like this. After all, this is indeed a game! Although, I never thought of it as an educational game.
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(1) Flame Learned To Read
At the tender age of five, I let Flame play on my second account on my laptop beside me. For a while, I had to tell her what the train destiantions were, what the NPCs were saying and what the villains name were.
It was only mere months before Flame didn't need my help anymore. We were playing one summer evening and I noticed that she wasn't asking me to read things. I looked over at her screen and watched her for a bit. I was intrigued she knew where to go.
"Need any help reading, honey?" I asked.
"Nope. I can read nope. That says Atlas Park and that says Steel Canyon. Those are Clockworks, but I like calling them Clickey Clacks." she replied quite happilly.
Her teacher was quite surprised at the headstart she had on her reading skills. When I informed the teacher that Flame's headstart was the result of playing a superhero online game, I got the weirdest look. Oh well.
Now, at six, I can hear Flame reading slowly over the mission text and the NPC dialogue. She cannot type yet, but if we get on a team together, I usually do the talking for both of us.
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Great story - my son is six and he seems to pick up most of his education from things that interest him and from things that he actively wants to learn...
- he started writing a lot more when my wife and I stopped taking notes for his birthday / Christmas lists. We'd go into a store with a lot of paper and let him take all the time he needed to write out what he wanted. Yesterday he was on giant microbe's website and created a literal book (folded pages, front cover, etc) of the other stuffed microbes 'friends' his current set of stuffed microbes would like to have join their family.
- he started writing out math problems long hand (addition & subtraction at this stage) when he was trying to add up some numbers in a computer game. Now he knows how to write a problem in column format, the difference between 1's, 10's, 100's, 1,000's etc, and about carrying numbers when you add.
So you never know when education is going to strike; it doesn't have to be in a formal school environment.
Awhhh, I loved reading that!
"... Those are Clockworks, but I like calling them Clickey Clacks." she replied quite happilly.
That part and the attacking clockwork-made attack cars? Best. Lines. Evar.
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
I play with my 9 year old daugther and my 4 year old son. My daughter has had her own account for almost two years. My son, however, is a CoH animal.
My son and I duo with a WP/Axe tank (me) and a Fire/Fire blaster (Shaneferno). We're just now up to lvl 22. I used to hear, "video games stifle creativity" all the time when I was a kid. My son will take thirty minutes making a character, an hour playing him, an hour drawing pictures of the battles, and an hour running around the house and back yard role playing him. Not particularly creatively stifling.
The emergent literacy aspect of the game is great too. When he started I'd tell him letters of the selections he'd have to make for yellow line tram and contacts. "Go to Kings Row. It's the one that starts with a 'K'". He gets around fine now. I came home from work late the other day. My daughter had logged him on (presumably to get her little brother out of her hair). He was stuck because he'd done enough radio missions by himself to get the safeguard mission and couldn't figure out where to go. So my four year old soloed five radio missions set on tenacious with a fire/fire blaster.
We were doing the V day event missions and picked up a couple of villains to get the girdle. I couldn't get anybody on the team to believe Shaneferno was being run by a four year old. Sure, he sometimes hits rain of fire when the spawn is almost all arrested. Sure, he doesn't always clear out his inspiration tray to make room. Sure, he pops off fire sword circle when he's not in the middle of the bad guys sometimes. He's still better than many of the people you'll find on your average PUG.
It's good daddy/son bonding time.
Nice post.
I think you just gave me the kick I needed to crank up my second account.
I've been pushing myself to spend more time playing with my son, but honestly never even considered CoH/V as a possible time sink for the two of us. (Probably due to CoH/V being the sometimes necessary escape from my son. )
Think I might change my tune on that.
Be well, people of CoH.
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Wonderful story.
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I love stories like this. After all, this is indeed a game! Although, I never thought of it as an educational game.
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Thanks all for the kind replies. Flame is a little emarrassed, but happy.
On the note of educational, being a parent and a occasional teacher, I can find education in just about anything, but CoX has a lot of opprotunities for all ages if you just look for it.
Since Flame is only 6 (soon to be 7), I keep to small math problems. For instance, I ask how many bubbles she has to go until she levels. Say she replies "3", I ask her what 10-7 is and she says "3?". Now, I can say that "I am 10-4 bubbles from levelling" and after a quick finger check (which is rare), Flame says "You got 6 to go.". With older children, you could have them figure out Enhancement cost totals or XP to Level totals.
I even started my little one on "CoH education". I click on an enemy and Princess S (her handle-in-progress) will tell me what color the enemy's name is. Pretty clever for jsut 4.
too bad there isn't any metric of I could add that as well.
Reading, Writing And "Arresting" enemies. CoH has it all.
The Elementals - Brother Frost and Sister Flame
Who Is Sister Flame?
Arc 118690 - Sibling Rivalry (Sister Flame) Tweaked 09/15/09
I wish my 5 year old would learn to play herself.. she just forces me to make tons of bizarre lookin characters with embarrassing names (skywalkr? puuke? meowgirl?) and then I have to run around and actually play them for her. *shiver*
8 foot tall neon green/red/purple/blue/yellow zombie catgirl archery blasters named rosabelle ftl. FTL!!
Now she is all set for when I build a city to mirror Paragon City in real life. You see, my superhero friends and I would like a place to live that is more accepting of our kind. We will elect her mayor.
I'm a nucular engineerer, not an Anglish Proffesseur. I don't have to no how to spell.
This thread gives me baby fever...
... please don't tell my fiancé.
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8 foot tall neon green/red/purple/blue/yellow zombie catgirl archery blasters named rosabelle ftl. FTL!!
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This made me smile.
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I wish my 5 year old would learn to play herself.. she just forces me to make tons of bizarre lookin characters with embarrassing names (skywalkr? puuke? meowgirl?) and then I have to run around and actually play them for her. *shiver*
8 foot tall neon green/red/purple/blue/yellow zombie catgirl archery blasters named rosabelle ftl. FTL!!
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Flame is kind of like that, but she lets me roll whatever I want to roll.
My eldest is another story. Being 10, she has a bit more creativity and being a tween, she's into pop culture. So I have had to make tribute toons based upon Kim Possible and Jem. Yes, playing Kid Stoppable and being my daughter's sidekick is just what I always wanted to do. I just hope she doesn't get the idea of roleplaying or I am in real trouble.
On a sidenote, I have been playing on Flame's account to get a level 50 heroside. She would like to play a PB, but I only have one 50 on my main account... and I would like to play on that more often because of all my rockin' vet rewards.
42 levels down. 8 to go.
The Elementals - Brother Frost and Sister Flame
Who Is Sister Flame?
Arc 118690 - Sibling Rivalry (Sister Flame) Tweaked 09/15/09
Very nice thread. Sometimes after all the flame posts and pointless debates on why A is better than Z it's nice to read something like this.
I can relate to the learning aspect that entertainment can have on children. I was an avid comic book fan as a child and i used to amaze my dad with words and concepts that i had picked up from comics that were way above the average reading comprehension for my age group.
I think a lot of times people simply underestimate what children are capable of learning.
This is a nice reminder to all of us why it's in our best interest to act decent to other players and help them learn the game. That other player may be someones child who could learn a great deal from the compassion, understanding, and patience you display while teaching them the ropes.
Clickey Clacks! I gotta remember that!
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Cute story. Tales like that always put a smile on my face Which is good, since I'm about to read Positron's explanation about why I'll never do another TF in this game...
Snarkiness aside, I've always found games and TV to be a strong educational tool, despite all the vitriol they receive from Victorian parents looking for a scapegoat. It doesn't matter how dedicated to studying you are (or aren't), things that grab your interest and require you to acquire and develop a specific set of skills and knowledge will always yield better results in the end. That's why most people, both young and old, are full of self-professed "worthless" information, like obscure movie quotes from 20 years ago, the names of places no-one else knows and so forth. It's because those are the things that made an impression on us, and we remembered them for years ahead, whereas things we are REQUIRED to know (such as who has right of way when), we keep forgetting.
Video games that required you to read is what taught me to read and comprehend English as a foreign language. This game taught me to speak and write it. I consider that a great boon. I've no doubt that a game as captivating as this will serve as a good education tool. Stats and numbers notwithstanding, this is the kind of game all children dream about, and the kind of game we grew up wishing we could play - a game where we can play the coolest super heroes we could imagine
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Thank you for a great post. Reading it made my day and has put a smile on my face. I'm especially happy to see that helping to learn to read as a by-product.
Some good can come from pc's.
* Freedom -
PlanetStar - 26 Earth/Kin
Mary GoldThorne 18 Corr
* Infinity -
BoltStar - 28 Blaster
PlanetStar - 24 Earth/Kin
Tempest Howl - 30 Def Son/Son
LOL Thanks for posting this! What a great read. I recently had a similar conversation with a sg mate. She had invited her son to our sg and asked if we could keep an eye out for him. I responded with how great I thought it was to be able to play with your kids and how I hope COX is around long enough for me to get the chance. She laughed and said by then the game would probably be virtual reality where they get bruises for messing up. I was debating about what a good age to start a game like this would be.... I was thinking 8-10ish but who am I to stand in the way of reading?!
Thanks again for your post! If you're ever on Protector feel free to look me up.
As I sit here to wait for the servers to come back up, it struck me that I could write a little post about Sister Flame.
Sister Flame is the online handle of my middle daughter, currently six years old. She's been playing City of Heroes since she was 4 and 1/2. It was only over the last year we began to team together with my two accounts and have a lot of fun. I thought I let you know what Sister Flame has learned from CoX.
(1) Flame Learned To Read
At the tender age of five, I let Flame play on my second account on my laptop beside me. For a while, I had to tell her what the train destiantions were, what the NPCs were saying and what the villains name were.
It was only mere months before Flame didn't need my help anymore. We were playing one summer evening and I noticed that she wasn't asking me to read things. I looked over at her screen and watched her for a bit. I was intrigued she knew where to go.
"Need any help reading, honey?" I asked.
"Nope. I can read nope. That says Atlas Park and that says Steel Canyon. Those are Clockworks, but I like calling them Clickey Clacks." she replied quite happilly.
Her teacher was quite surprised at the headstart she had on her reading skills. When I informed the teacher that Flame's headstart was the result of playing a superhero online game, I got the weirdest look. Oh well.
Now, at six, I can hear Flame reading slowly over the mission text and the NPC dialogue. She cannot type yet, but if we get on a team together, I usually do the talking for both of us.
(2) Attitude Matters; Not Age.
From time to time, I get a little impatient with my daughters. I do recall the one evening I was unwell, but Flame wanted to play CoH and wanted to get on a big team.
"I'm too sick to play, so you'll have to do it by yourself." I told her, thinking that she'd never figure it out or get booted quickly if she did get invited to a team.
I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes to rest. Twenty minutes later, I stretched and asked Flame how she was doing.
"Good. I am in a big team." she told me.
"Oh yeah?" I asked.
"Yep. People keep joinging, but I think they're playing soccer." she says.
"Why is that?"
"I keep seeing the word 'kick'."
I rolled off the bed and scrolled back through the chat. Apart from several comments about Flame's excellent control and attack with her Fire Blaster, I see several conversations/arguments with some idiots who joined the team and did something really stupid. Most of them wound up being kicked by the leader. I also notice that every so often, Flame has written 'ty'.
"What's the 'ty' for?" I asked.
"Thank you. You type it sometimes. Everytime I see 'Flame', I type it. They like it."
I watched Flame play for another twenty minutes. No one in the group had a clue to her age and she played her role as any good team member should: waiting for 'Go' or 'Ready' before attacking, saving her Rain of Fire for large groups and giving inspirations to thoes that needed it.
Finally, I had to type a message for Flame.
"Thank you all for the team. This is Flame's dad. She has to get up for Grade 1 tomorrow and needs to go to bed. She says you were all great."
I still love typing that message and watching the responses. Most are 'lol' or 'what?!'. One time, a player typed 'Wow. I wonder if my poodle could play.'. All in good fun.
(3) Playing Coh Is Just Like Playing House a.k.a Imagination Is Power.
Flame has always had a decent imagination, but it has improved a lot since she has been playing Coh. She likes to spin stories about her toons and give them a backstory. This has translated well to her schoolwork when she has been asked to do creative writing assignments. She has also developed a healthy curiousity into some of the groups in CoH. Some of the things she has asked me are:
"Why do Skulls hang out in Perez Park?"
"How come the Clockworks don't attack cars or make nasty cars to attack people?"
"Why are Trolls green?"
"Where do the Outcasts get their power?"
Now, she makes up toons with funny names (to us anyways), but good backgrounds. Among some of her mains are Takes Care Of Pets (A MM with two mercenaries: Cat, Dog), Takes Care Of Bats (A PB with Bat Wings) and of course, Sister Flame (a Fire Blaster with her partner, Brother Frost [me]).
So, if you ever run across a Fire Blaster named Sister Flame on Freedom, chances are its my daughter havign fun, but learning many things at the same time. Feel free to team with her, but don't be a "poopyhead" (her words, not mind).
Ciao!
P.S. She is working on her typing skills, so if you see her say "Go", "Go", "Go" about twenty times, don't worry. It's only 1 of about 100 words she can spell.
The Elementals - Brother Frost and Sister Flame
Who Is Sister Flame?
Arc 118690 - Sibling Rivalry (Sister Flame) Tweaked 09/15/09