My daughter spent a bit of time this morning playing Skylanders Imagninators. For those uninitiated in the Skylanders brand, the idea is that you have a number of characters you can play (all of which you somehow have to purchase), who, through an included portal, transfer into the game when you place them on it. It’s a really cool idea, and you seem to be able to switch characters at your leisure (we’ve only seen the first level so far).
Each of the characters has their own specialty, and, apparently, at some points in each of the levels, different characters have more (or less) power than others.
What’s also interesting about this game is the opportunity to create your own character. My daughter spent about thirty minutes building a character of her own, and it was really cool to watch.
Where she struggled, and it might be her, or it might be six year olds in general, was when the game got difficult. So far, there seems to be a fair amount of thought that goes into solving each level. And, my daughter, after making a series of mistakes, got frustrated and didn’t want to play anymore.
And that’s fair. We certainly weren’t going to force her to play if she didn’t want to. But, the fact that the difficulty made her frustrated, and she couldn’t see the value in working through the struggle, was upsetting.
We have always tried to show to our daughters that hard work and effort are the keys to success. So, it is disappointing when our children somehow develop a mindset that what doesn’t come easy isn’t always worth the struggle.
Clearly, we have to do a better job of showing the need for hard work, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we aren’t sure how.
Happily, she decided to continue playing and ended up completing the level she was working on. But, the amount of complaining and frustration is something that we will have to work at moving forward.