this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Parenting

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[–] [email protected] 171 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Sounds like the perfect opportunity to have the adult conversation about what constitutes a socially acceptable number of cows to have in your house. It's a very important conversation.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

My dad used to live in the country, and a single cow got into a semi-abandoned old ranch hand house. (We assume some one left the door open. It was in there for a day or so.

That cow absolutely wrecked the place. Walls kicked in, windows smashed (frame and all), floors ripped up, table in 2 pieces, just an absolute disaster. Also, the poop.

So. ONE COW. If unsupervised.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Indoor cows obviously require more supervision than outdoor cows. That's just common sense.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

That dog knows the donkey is in charge

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Not every cow is suitable to be an indoor cow. They all have different temperaments like any other pet. Most cows do better outside or in a barn.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I'm sure we all remember when our parents had the talk with us about this.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That's why we all check for creepers hiding on our roof before we go outside...

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 month ago (4 children)

This is where you have a talk about griefing and consent before the 5yo turns into an open world PvP advocate

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The 5-year-old probably thought it was hilarious. I think the answer is to fill the 5-year-old's house with 80 chickens.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He'd probably think that'd be hilarious too. Win-win.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

And it's just fun to throw stacks of eggs at everything in sight. Makes you feel rich these days.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Set up a trap that starts a massive chicken farm with egg dispensers that causes the game to lag whenever the chicken chunk is loaded.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Lmao this has the same energy as me learning about the concept of loaning money for interest at the same age and deciding to put it in action by lending my brother bells in Animal Crossing and deciding that he needed to pay me back twice what I had lent him, a fact that I only informed him of after I gave him the money. We had a big fight about it and our mom had to get involved. Good times lol.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

With fees capped at 14% and interest capped at 35% APR, a doubling could still be legal if they have 2 years to repay, especially with frequent compounding.

Not that children have the patience to wait 2 years for a return on their investment, though.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What was the loan period?

Sounds more like you were a loan shark.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I hadn't learned about repayment periods or anything I just said he had to pay me back double, I didn't think about interest rates or anything but yeah I definitely was a loan shark.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Assuming the cows are causing a lot of lag, so he's upset that he can't clear them out and play the game

The obvious solution then is just using a command to kill the cows.. and probably tell the other kid not to do that again x3

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I remember when alpha 1.8 was released and mobs would drop enchanting XP as multiple orbs worth one point each. It was fine for cows, but killing even a moderately high level player would drop thousands of orbs and basically implode reality in a radius of several chunks. Good times.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That ultra-amplified TINK, I can still hear it echo along with the gut-drop of anxiety wondering if my cheap laptop was going to keep up or crash out... Good times, genuinely.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

This is an opportunity to teach them about the command line, so they can use their powers for revenge.

80 cows? Ha! How about 8,000 cows!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

I read that in the cadence of "500 cigarettes" from the orville

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Make a pen outside the house, cut a hole in the house to let the cows out, free farm.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Assuming they're playing on a device that can handle 80 cows yes :3

If they're playing bedrock on a tablet or something it may need to be downscaled a bit

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The obvious solution then is just using a command to kill the cows.. and probably tell the other kid not to do that again x3

Ohhh, I thought the obvious solution was to just keep throwing more server resources at it in Proxmox LMAO

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (4 children)

TIL: 5 year old kids play Minecraft.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

I guess they need a break from all that GTA griefing

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Even younger. The touch screen version is easy enough for a 4 year old or maybe younger, depending on what you constitute "playing".

Now I think about it, I'm certain I've had this conversation, except it was cats not cows.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's a whole business, selling skins and other "resource packs" aimed to kids.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My oldest and his buddies used to dig extensive tunnels under their friends "houses" (more like gigantic palaces of the flashy kind), filled those tunnels to the brim with explosives and just for shit and giggles blew up the estates above.

Medieval war tactics rediscovered by preteens. My inner historian held several celebrations.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Okay, I am the only one thinking that a 5 and a 7 yo shouldn't play Minecraft alone?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

My 10-year-old and 8-year-old have been playing Minecraft, both alone and with me, since they were 5 and 7. I don't see a problem with it. As long as they're not on public servers, there's really no harm that can come of it.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

I haven't played Minecraft really since the alpha, but I can't imagine why they shouldn't. What am I missing?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For what it's worth I'd agree but just like on Reddit the hive mind opinion on this around here will get you downvoted to oblivion.

Kids that age shouldn't just be able to use a computer unsupervised or have free access to a computer/console like that. Screentime is a thing and its important.

That said, maybe this dude has such regulation and it just doesn't come out in the post.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What could possibly threaten children by playing Minecraft?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

It's not Minecraft especially, it's the computer. I never played Minecraft so it may be suitable for a 7 yo (depending on the child), but at 5 no child should in my opinion play video games alone, only for small periods of time and always accompanied by an adult as their brain is not mature enough to grasp the concept of virtuality.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

You're getting a lot of downvotes, which I think is related to the audience you're talking to (computer and game affine) and the fact that Minecraft is generally considered a kid friendly game, so what's the harm?

That being said, it has zombies, creepers etc. and a 5yo can definitely get scared by it. I've seen it happen.

However, I believe any unattended screen time at age 5 to be a much bigger issue in general. The AAP / AACAP recommends a maximum of 60 minutes a day of screen time at that age, and that includes the combined total including TV etc. Many European institutions advocate for a limit of 30 minutes (the AAP recently increased the limit in their recommendations).

Minecraft is a game suitable for kids, but unsupervised media consumption is definitely not a thing at age 5.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I'm not convinced that a 5 year old can't grasp the concept of virtuality. Minecraft on peaceful mode is just giant blocks being picked up and placed. Even if it were true they don't get that it's virtual (that I don't really understand how that could be true), I can't imagine what long term damage could possibly be done by believing the blocks are real.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I played video games since I was 3. They had to put a milk crate for me to stand on in front of the TMNT Arcade game. Mine craft teaches creativity and design and works as virtual Lego. It's fine.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I played some games at 5 years old; mainly Pac-In-Time and Mario Teaches Typing on MacOS, and Super Mario Bros on the NES with my grandpa helping me on the hard parts. My own kids when they were 5 played curated video games like Minecraft, Lego Worlds, and the other various Lego titles. Screen time limits are important until kids learn time management, at one point I had some software I found to give warnings and lock them out once their account time was up.

Once kids are old enough to understand the need to prioritize other aspects of life it's beneficial to have had some base level of computer experience. One example, my now older kid asked me the other day about how to set up an autoclicker and we walked through choosing a keyboard shortcut to trigger an Autohotkey script to spam clicks, and how to add other hotstrings and functions. I truly don't know shit about programming, but functional versus object oriented programming seems both more approachable and more of a practical tool for kids of the next gen who will likely need some understanding of how programs work to sort out good advice from hallucinations in whatever AI tool their employer uses.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Uhhh ..yes?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

/kill @e

That should fix it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

My 5yo would have put them there then set them on fire

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Free meat and leather

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