10 mobile games for child development during social distancing

[harlan4096]

Ten smart mobile games and educational apps for your child to enjoy and benefit from.

My Sunday morning began with a message from a Kaspersky Daily editor: “Denis, a while back you wrote about developmental games for children. That post of yours is a bit out of date now, but the topic is more relevant than ever, with millions of families trying to coexist in self-isolation. How about a new one?”

One of the surprises of social distancing * for my family has been the blurring of certain boundaries. Workdays and weekends look about the same, but something new has emerged: a sort of hybrid time. We maintain our learning and working duties, but we also have a lot of time that used to get eaten by commuting and other travel-related tasks.

More than four years have elapsed since my last list of what I’ll call games with benefits. Educators have developed new theories and methods of instruction, and developers have released new apps. My kids have grown up some, and we have some new ones as well.

But my attitude toward computer games hasn’t changed. Electronic games are here to stay, so to disavow them would be to deny reality — and to saddle our children with a real strategic disadvantage for the future.

When it comes to games, I think resistance is futile, but it’s better to take the lead and manage the process than to throw up our hands. We can use fun apps and games to help kids learn what computers are for, demonstrating that technology serves us — and not the other way around).

Of course, any parent will tell you that forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. How you choose to introduce and manage your kids’ gaming is, well, your choice. We have found, however, that kids’ digital activities need some measure of control. As in the adult world, issues of addiction, asociality, and potential stranger danger abound. So, taste that fruit together, but keep in mind time and other limits! Some elements to consider are game genres, person-to-person interaction, and of course the basics of our relationships with smart devices (including cybersecurity rules).

In busy times, giving your digital natives free rein can be a major temptation — you get time to relax, they get privacy and freedom in a terrain that’s deceptively welcoming to them. This current period of social distancing is your chance to spend some time blending your knowledge with theirs — safely.

Submitted for your approval are some of my kids’ favorite smart mobile games and really interesting educational apps that we’re all having a great time exploring together.
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