Environments with the following factors help human beings thrive:

• Being Inspired
• Being Safe
• Being Challenged
• Being Accepted
• Being Known
• Being Empowered

. . . And how does a this apply to a Minecraft Server?

What makes a supportive community?  All too often we ask a child to commit to a group, or an activity, or an ideal. This is a safe place where the community commits to the child. We do ask for the child to commit to the ideals and rules of the community, This place is one where we find safe, interactive places to grow, question, and develop.

1. Many factors are essential to a supportive community. These qualities help people explore and define their sense of self, their ego; the ineffable attributes that make them who they are. That, in turn, allows people to understand themselves, their motivations and values, and find their interests and passions. This allows them to intentionally pursue experiences in life that are relevant, connected, and enriching. This is the basis of the expression “Stand for something or fall for anything.”  Know yourself. Examine and challenge your values. Pay attention to what you learn.

These factors allow people to explore with their mind, their emotions, and their memories; to learn, in effect, what it means to feel safe. Being known as yourself has an impact. Knowing others has an impact. Humans are empathetic and social creatures. Modeling acceptance and encouragement teaches acceptance and encouragement. When these factors are present, people can tune in with their awareness to explore and understand what it feels like, what you think, when you’re accepted; how it feels when you accept someone else and watch them grow.

Individuals who are exposed to these concepts from early stages of life tend to have greater resiliency, make healthier decisions and have better self-understanding. This is a simplistic model, of course, but we are trying to distill a message, here.

What we espouse is a slowing down, a more measured pace that allows empathy and patience. The internet, electronic games, and distracting texts and communication are fast, impersonal, and limit the communication of intentions. Experiences and environments where people learn to express themselves, learn what it feels like to be heard, and build trust and relationships can foster the humility that emerges when a person feels safe enough to grow. Lack of humility is an overcompensation for not having these factors, resulting in intolerance and privilege that limits others and creates unnecessary hierarchy. That inhibits connectedness in a community and is divisive. It keeps people from hearing each other and listening to others’ messages.

2. Cutting-edge brain scientists have demonstrated that connection is shown to result in enhanced executive function. Interactive games are actually an effective way to process stressors. Most single-person games are isolating and don’t encourage connection, and some games masquerading as multi-player games can be isolating too. Playing games with other people is recognized as a connection if they involve common goals, planning, communication, and cooperation. Minecraft also involves spatial reasoning and planning, and logic and programming, and sequential thinking as well. Survival depends on creativity. Understanding the challenges and planning for remediation and cooperative activities increases the chances of game survival dramatically.  Games like Minecraft allow someone to express themselves in ways other traditional games do not, and in more than one mode. (visual, kinesthetic, auditory)

Some game genres that are single player can remove empathy for other people, reducing them to targets, points, or reasons to reload. Games that promote cooperation and collaboration enhance and encourage empathy, which is a building block of resilience and connection. Casual games definitely have their place. We think social games do, as well.

3. Positive Intervention: Parents and caregivers see more success, we have noticed, when they “front load” the way they interact with the people in their care. What does this mean?

Some of our most profound parenting successes have come from investing in communication of an idea or philosophy that leads to an “a-ha!” moment. We have found that the nagging and constant enervation of reactive parenting is exhausting. It leads to more of the same. When people are locked in a power dynamic with their child, it’s tough to see the solution. We have to shift the dynamic a bit, so the natural learning can occur. How do we do this? It may be simple; it’s not always easy.

First off, don’t be invested in a specific outcome. If success looks like a range of things offer a range of choices. When we limit the definition of success, we suddenly have to hit a much narrower target, often under duress.

Secondly involve nature. Hikes. Playing outside. Bring nature in, in whatever way is appropriate for your home. It helps us regulate so many things as humans.

Third, embrace the nonsensical. Sing a silly song when you’re frustrated. Announce that you are re-starting the conversation. Actually leave the room, come back in, and introduce yourself.

Fourth, do projects. Build something, Write something. Make or design something. Give them a purpose. Have a goal, and work on it together. Let them have control over some of the details or the outcome. Again, if success is a smaller bulls-eye, it’s harder to hit.

Then, allow for down time. If you structure every minute of the day in your home, people will rely on that, instead of learning how to be internally motivated to understand the dynamics of a project or activity. Plant a seed, watch it grow.

Have a self care plan for each person. It can be private, general knowledge, or a combination of the two. A self care plan involves resting and waking. It involves activity and downtime. It involves eating and playing. They are both logical and creative. They don’t always make sense. Make sure it feels right. If someone says that something is important to them, allow space for that and encourage it. It doesn’t have to make sense to you. This makes room for people.

4. Consent is a complicated concept in our society. How much control should we give our children? A child can’t make some decisions about their life, and that’s just a fact. Let’s examine age appropriate decisions that any given person can make to ensure maximum autonomy and appropriate support.

This is how children explore what boundaries are for themselves, and what they feel like. What they should do when they feel those feelings, how to interpret them. How to know when to leave when you are supposed to. Feelings are a conversation we don’t have with words. We want our children to be literate in this language of emotion.

In order to explore this, kids need some autonomy to say no, and some autonomy to say yes. This is an aspect of their need for control. They need to be allowed some control over their every day, or else they will just look for others to control them until they learn it. How big does a child have to get in order to be heard? What do you do with your child’s messages?

We need to give them the capacity and capability to learn these skills. If they don’t, just like reading or writing, we have to give them tools and situations to learn the level of independence that develops their voice and boundaries. Not every kid will learn this at the same rate, just as they don’t all learn to read at the same time. Some have other difficulties, like social blindness, or anxiety. How do we give them the tools and situations to learn what their boundaries are? How do we teach them “to boundary”?

Defiance is a natural reaction. We can learn to soften the message we send to others, we can learn to recognize the cause. This is learned; it’s not inherent. If a message is big in its delivery, then it may be important. It may also be important just to have it be heard and then it can get “regular sized” again. It is important to have experiences that allow people to explore these concepts. It is important to be around people who understand the journey. For example, a person who IS CAKE.

Your child is not deliberately trying to make you uncomfortable. They are examining themselves to find out what’s “driving the bus”. Own your own discomfort, and process that for yourself. They just need you to listen.

5. Discovering Why?

Discovering why your child might be resistant or excessively enthusiastic is not as complicated as people may think. It really relies on a simple premise. Your child is telling you what their world is like and what they need. Your challenge is to accept that that is real for them, and help them find out why.

Once you have proceeded on the premise that your child is not trying to be intentionally and purposefully difficult, the next step is then to take a deep breath, accept that that’s your child’s reality, and help them write their narrative in a positive way. If they dislike mealtime, framing it as being a picky eater is real, and may well be the rule for mealtimes at your house. If you accommodate what your child can tolerate, and then help them to explore what else they can do based on those presumptions, your world becomes a fact finding mission and activity. Rather than being stopped by an obstacle, you can show your child that life is the search for ways to cope with and work around obstacles. Taking responsibility for facing challenges then becomes the narrative, rather than being stumped at every turn. If you believe it’s possible, you will show them that it’s possible.

It’s not peeling back the onion for the inner layers. It’s teaching them to peel back the layers. Their layers may or may not be our business. Respecting their boundaries means giving them the tools to continue their journey and supporting them as they go, rather than insisting on journeying for them, or with them if they want to do it themself. This respect builds trust, which will create an environment where they are more likely to share who they are with you. That’s trust. That’s being safe. That IS CAKE.

To summarize, we believe that people function best when they have tools to learn at their level and pace. We are building this space for kids to do that with people who are like minded.

Come play with us!