With young children of our own (6 year old girl and 4 year old boy) I thought it was important to give you our perspective on online games for kids, especially as we are stockists of Moshi Monster Toys and Webkinz Pets, and promote these virtual worlds to many mums and dads.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with these games. Moshi Monsters is a social networking online game and virtual pet site for children. The player adopts and cares for a pet monster, solving puzzles which leads to rewards called ‘Rox’. Rox can be used as currency to buy items for the adopted monster, such as clothes, food and home decorations. Moshi Monsters was launched in April 2008 and this month it announced there are now 50 million users. Moshi Monsters has sometimes been referred to as “Facebook for kids”.
Webkinz Pets are a collection of very special (and cute) plush toys. Every Webkinz pet wears a tag with a Secret Code that can only be read after purchase. This code is the password into Webkinz World, a safe online world for kids. After they log in, kids can name and adopt their new pet, print out an adoption certificate, learn all about it, feed it and take it to the vet. There is also a virtual store – the W Shop where they can buy food for their pet and buy items to decorate their pet’s room. Kids earn Kinzcash by playing fun games and looking after their pet.
Our children are great fans of Moshi Monsters and Webkinz World, we have one account for the family that they share and on Webkinz World they have adopted a few pets that they really enjoy looking after. Webkinz World also offers the benefit of owning the soft toy that they can play with. ‘Fangs the Bat’ and ‘Rosie the Rabbit’ have also had the pleasure of going to school and being part of ‘Show and Tell’.
Moshi Monster ‘Luvli’ has been adopted by our family and the kids look after her and play the educational games that earns them ‘Rox’ to buy ‘Luvli’ food and decorations for her house. The daily games are educational and fun and kids have a great time exploring the different locations in ‘MonstroCity’.
In your own child’s school, they may have a strong ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Program which integrates computers into the classroom curriculum. This may include educational maths and literacy games or research for projects using search engines such as Google or Yahoo. In many schools, each classroom is equipped with their own ‘computer hub’ and the teacher may have an iPad or laptop (or both) that is interfaced with an electronic whiteboard where again, the kids can play educational games or the teacher can display classroom instructions.
It is therefore not surprising that kids have ‘no fear’ of computers and want to play games at home too. Of course there needs to be a balance between computer time, outside play time, reading books, drawing and writing etc, so as parents this is what we need to manage and enforce. I have no doubt that some computer games help with strategic thinking, creativity, cooperation, innovative thinking and even reading of online instructions. There are of course computer games of a more violent nature that I personally don’t allow my children to play and am not promoting here in this Blog.
There is also a serious side to online communities and both Moshi Monsters and Webkinz have a ‘For Parents’ page which outlines the rules and restrictions they have in place to keep their online community safe for kids. These include filtering systems, approval processes and in Webkinz World, members can only send messages using the phrases or words Webkinz have created. When playing these games, kids will love to show you their Monsters, Pets, the food they have bought or their room decorations, so it’s also an opportunity to check their page and profile on a regular basis. On Moshi Monsters, they offer ‘Internet Safety Tips for Parents’, a really useful guide to use when chatting to your child about the importance of not sharing passwords or personal information with others.
Finally, I would like to share with you my 6 year old daughter’s responses when I asked her ‘What’s the Best Thing about Moshi Monsters and Webkinz World’.
“Moshi Monsters is fun and exciting and I love getting Rox when I play the games so I can buy food and presents for my Monster ‘Luvli’.”
“Webkinz World is fun because I love Rosie my rabbit and I can visit different places and find interesting things. Thanks for giving Rosie a bath mum – she’s cute and fluffy again.”
www.moshimonsters.com and www.webkinz.com
