World of Warcraft – life skills for you and your kids

Posted by Dad on Mar 20, 2008 in Family, The Blog | 1 comment

I came across a story I find hilarious and thought I should share it.

Many of you will be familiar with World of Warcraft, the hugely popular MMORPG. Honestly, it’s a heck of a lot of fun and somewhat additing. Your kids, if they’re pre-teens and older, do or have played it at some point.

You, on the other hand, probably told them to stop wasting so much time on the computer and get outside and play.  “For goodness sake, these kids can’t live their lives stuck to a computer screen. That’s not healthy! What are you going to learn from that?”  Sound familiar?  Well, they are learning.  Here’s a case in point that saved the life of a 12 year old and his younger sister.

Hans Jørgen Olsen of Norway was playing outside with his sister (obviously following his parent’s well-meaning advice) when they came upon a “renegade” moose!  Who knew!

The quick thinking Hans, cursing he didn’t have his virtual epic bow to arcane shot the mob, gave a bellowing scream to taunt the moose off of his sister.  Once he had gained the mob’s aggro, he used the skill he learned from hours of playing World of Warcraft as a hunter, specifically “fiegn death“.  He immediately dropped to the ground and played dead.  It worked. The moose lost aggro and continued his rampage elsewhere.

The moral of the story? Video games are teaching our children to think on their feet, problem solve and be courageous.

Well done, young Hans. You gain 20,250 experience points…

All the best.

Related posts:

1. To my dearest daughter, the world can be tough
2. Caught pulling a fast one…
3. Traveling back
4. Kids, next year you’re going to a new school…
5. Flying again…feels like the first time