Internet games for kids and their parents can provide hours of recreation for them both. Even parents who themselves play online games and video games may be at a loss of where to start with their child. There is no one right way or place to begin, but here are a few suggestions.
One great way to begin is to view your child's television programs with them and look at the toys or foods that are marketed to kids. Then go to the web and look up the sites that represent those programs and products. Often they will have kid-friendly games. These kinds of websites can be trusted by parents. The companies have a family-friendly offline presence, and their websites typically have no outside advertising links to divert a child into the vast World Wide Web.
Some categories of games for kids that a parent may want to explore are educational games or learning games, including math games, reading games and typing games. I suggest that you do not disparage the kids games intended just for fun. Puzzle games and mazes can be great exercise for the brain. Also very simple but fun games that may seem to the parent to be a great challenge for the child may help a child to learn mouse control and keyboard skills.
With the child comfortably seated on the parent's lap, the child and parent will both be able to see the monitor clearly. The child's first interactions with the game will be pointing at the screen and answering questions while the parent plays. A child may be satisfied with that much involvement to begin with. After a while a child may begin to operate a spacebar or rest their hand on the parent's mouse hand. A parent may need to give encouragement if frustration with the controls discourages the child.
At first a child may require a great deal of intervention to begin and continue play. After some time with the parent's assistance the child will be able to play alone and even initiate a start-over of a familiar game. Perhaps one will not be surprised to see how quickly a child will learn where the play button is, even without knowing how to read. In very little time the child will be entertaining themselves. Reviews and updates of learning games, reading games, fun games and more kids' games online can be found at kidsgamesonline.org.
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Great article. My grandchildren want to get on my computer and play on-line games quite often; but I had never thought about finding games through tv commerical products---great idea. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Sandra. My daughter's first and favorite internet games were at the Sesame Street website and the PBS Kids website. We later discovered that Fisher Price, Nick Jr, Barbie, and the Nabisco websites have great games for kids. Thanks for commenting.
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