Should parents police their children more aggressively?
The National Institute on Media and the Family, a media watchdog group that has spent considerable time taking the gaming industry to task for continually churning out violent titles, turned its attention to parents recently. It gave parents an "Incomplete" grade in its annual report card Tuesday. According to the group, parents aren't paying enough attention to ESRB ratings and don't have any interest in using parental controls.
The study poses an interesting question: "Are parents doing enough to protect their children from violent video games?" The answer, though, isn't simple.
On one hand, we can say that parents haven't done enough to educate themselves about video games since Mortal Kombat and Doom became household names on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have focused their attention on monitoring retailers and imposing strict regulations on developers, in the hope that these actions will help parents who want to keep their children away from violent titles.
But how much control does a parent really have? They can't be expected to watch their children 24 hours each day, nor can they control a child's activity when he or she is at a friend's house where the parents do allow violent video games to be played.
For years, I've seen watchdog groups attack the video game industry for "intentionally marketing to children" and "not doing enough to stop the sale of violent video games to children." And yet, during all those years when the industry was getting hit from all sides, I never heard one group specifically target parents until now.
Now that the NIMF has finally set its sights on parents, does this mean it's time for more parents to take notice and realize that the decisions they make related to violent video games in the home have a major impact on the development of their child?
Absolutely.
I'll be the first to tell you that allowing kids to play video games can be good for their development and shouldn't be categorically taboo. But if this study tells us anything, it's that simply giving kids any game they ask for isn't what's best for any of us.
It's incumbent upon all parents to take notice of ESRB ratings and realize that although they're not as easy to understand as "PG" and "R", they help us gauge whether or not a title is suitable for our children. And although lawmakers have tried to force developers and retailers to police the sale of games, only a child's parents know their individual child's personality, and only those parents can decide if a game is suitable or not.
In order to make the most informed decision, parents need to be more proactive in learning about video games and determining whether or not a specific title is OK for their child. I realize it's easier for parents to hear what their kids say about a game, ask the sales clerk quickly what it's about, and buy the game for the child without any more questions asked, but that's not doing any of us any favors. Lazy parenting is one of the things that spurs the creation of draconian policies on the part of lawmakers.
I can't count the number of times I've been at a local Gamestop when a child and his parent walk through the door asking for a mature-rated game. On most occasions, the parents asked their child what the game was about, the child gave them a brief and generic answer to avoid discussing the gore, and the parents bought the game.
In a world where children are more connected and more informed than ever before, it's incumbent upon parents to be just as connected (to other parents), perform the due diligence, read GameSpot, and know at least as much about video games as their children. Just as we read the synopses of movies, we need to do the same with video games.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Seriously - television, movies, books, whatever - loaded to the gunwales with violence, among other things you need to be mindful about when there's kids present. It's a more holistic approach than you think, and even if parents totally burned every video game the kid has, when said kid can still see violent television, violent movies, hear violent music, etc etc etc - seriously - there's more to it than the narrow scope that your article's group covers.
The "study" is by a group with an axe to grind (what that axe is, dunno, don't care. Suffice it to say that there's an axe and a grinding wheel there judging by their ultra-narrow focus, and thus their pronouncements will be obviously biased).
IOW - so what? Parents are already held responsible for what their kids do - in the legal realm and often otherwise.
Hell, even in the Columbine massacre, it was PROVEN that video games had nothing to do with those crimes, period and done with. PROVEN, beyond ANY doubt.
I take my frustrations out on my mattress (having put my fist through one when I was really pissed off about something) or on a boxing dummy.
Never on another person, unless they have seriously instigated me AND attacked me first.
Anyway, I don't think there's really a problem here. Games are just for fun. Like 99.9 percent of the people that play them get that. If everyone that played Doom or GTA went buck wild crazy every McDonald's in America would have been shot up with some nut with an AK by now. But video game violence is fake. Real fake. And if nobody is going buck wild crazy then really what's the problem with having violence in video games? Can anyone even justify saying that's a real problem to begin with? I played DOOM, MK, and Quake. Contrary to popular belief I am not a serial killer. Heck, I haven't even killed one person. Seriously, what's the problem? What else would you of had me done? What would have been better about me had I not played those games? Heck, it's games that got me into learning how computers to work with to begin with. Without games I probably wouldn't even have a job right now.
You know what? This is just a wedge issue used to distract us from real issues and politicians definitely have no interest in actually solving the problem. If they actually solved all of our wedge issues like violence in video games and abortion and poverty what the heck issues would they run their next election on? They'd be clueless. That's why no matter how much they talk the games just get more violent every year.
So, lets stop asking the false question of what effect do violent video games cause and start asking the real question. Why do violent video games sell so well in the first place? What's wrong with these kids in the first place that they would even want to play such a thing? Isn't that the real root issue we should be getting to?
The REAL problem is the people out there who think that there is something 'wrong' with children who wish to play violent video games. I, for one, ENCOURAGED my children to play violent video games as a way to let out their impulses towards violent and frustrations in a non-destructive way.
That's better than denying the impulses, letting them build, and then snapping and killing someone!
Well what I was really trying to do is to get people to ask the question what's wrong with the children? Because I know what the answer will be. It will always be well there's nothing wrong with the children! Once we realize there's nothing wrong with the kid wanting to play it then perhaps people will realize there's nothing wrong with the game either.
Once we realize that if the kids desire to play them is completely natural then we see that the games are just a natural extension of that. That the games are in fact not the Devil incarnate after all.
There's nothing wrong with the kids. It's perfectly natural. Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, and however many hours I spent wrestling around and rough housing. Simulated violence is a perfectly natural form of entertainment. I logged just as many hours playing Tetris. Heck, you ever get Tetris eyes when you play it too long and dream about the blocks? Tetris gave me more nightmares than Doom ever did! Actually the most common cause of me wanting to kill another human being is talking to another human being. Not playing video games.
Gamespot is a horrible site ... is it a cnet site? maybe that's why you picked it. Try this:
www.whattheyplay.com
it's actually intended FOR parents with full reviews not only whether or not the game is good, but also describing the type of violence, language or sexual material in it. - none of which gamespot does.
We had another rule (that even my parents followed), that there was no computers, no televisions, no videogames of any kind in the bedroom. I think that is a lot of the problem these days, where you have kids up until all hours of the night playing games. With the computer or videogame out in plain sight, they could see what I was playing, and how I was reacting to that game. On a few occasions I found myself very frustrated with a videogame, enough so that my parents could see it, and told me to turn it off and go outside. Even without getting frustrated they knew when enough was enough, and it was time for some exercise.
As time moved on, my parents started getting a little more relaxed about what games I was allowed to play. They could see I was capable of handling it, and was able to regulate my game time on my own. Would you believe that I even went as far as turning on parental controls myself? I can remember turning them on in Duke Nukem 3D, as I knew full well my parents would not appreciate it... and would probably tell me I was not allowed to play it. I did it obviously for selfish reasons (so I could play the game, in some form at least) but also out of respect for my parents rules. Maybe we all need to revisit respect in the home?
If you've actually read through all this, I'm impressed. It may be a bold or blanket statement, but I personally put all the blame on the parents. Don't let the TV or the videogame do YOUR job, play an active role in your childs life, take interest in these games, play with them, watch them play, whatever, just don't pass the buck! Growing up, my parents knew next to nothing about technology, and still know very little, but they were there to regulate something COMPLETELY foreign to them... so please don't try and hide behind your ignorance.
What exactly is 100% their fault? What have they done that's so wrong? Look, some kids end up on drugs or commit suicide or in some very very rare cases we get something like Columbine. But that's not the majority. That's the minority and ever since the beginning of time it's been that way. Long before video games we've had kids that got screwed by their home life.
However, look at how many kids there are in the world? Let's look at how many turn out right for a change. We're freaking out about this small percentage of people. However, from what I've noticed the majority of the kids are perfectly ok. Everybody acts like we have this epidemic of evil Devil worshiping children. That's just not the case. Most kids turn out completely loving and normal and fun to be around and grow up to be perfectly normal adults. If we can't see how awesome the newest generations of children and teens are then I think that it is us that has the problem. Not the kids. But you don't see that on TV. Normal kids are boring. They don't end up on Intervention so nobody cares about that right?
Where's the epidemic of screwed up kids from these video games? Aren't most turning out just fine and going to college and growing up and all that just like normal people? However, we let the media convince us that we even have a problem to begin with. Yeah when kids grow up with worthless parents we have problems, but even a few of them turn out alright, but it's not caused by video games. It's caused by the screwed up parents like you said, but most parents aren't like that.
Most kids turn out just fine and most parents are doing just fine as well. Are video games really the moral decay of society that people make it out to be? As a whole are we really doing that bad of a job? No! Jesus for the most part we're doing it right and everyone is complaining about it.
Yea, because "Mature" "Teen", etc. are much harder to understand. (I laughed).
Seriously though, its good that these watchdog groups are finally coming to terms with reality. If a parent has some distorted belief that violent video games are corrupting their children, then let them be the ones to deal with it. The ratings are there just like any other media. Raise little Johnny to be that weenie who thinks wars are won by politicians and not blood.; That bad people will leave you alone if you turn the other cheek. That's their prerogative. We have that luxury, for now.
The rest of us who live in the real world (or at least, peaceful countries) will be thankful that our children aren't traumatized by exposure to real violence. That their biggest issue with violence in their childhood will most likely be from a school bully and not from fighting a war or watching their parents get murdered in front of them for their land.
I'll use the Big D as an example. I was 10 and it was thrilling, scary like Jurassic Park, to be wandering around with big (pixelated) monsters jumping out at me that I had to shoot in Doom. But it was nothing like the fear I had when my parents had a dispute, or when I got into a fight at school. That's the difference between real life and story time. You got to be one messed up or just plain stupid person to confuse the two.
So when I hear and read about all these mothers and fathers who point their fingers at video games because some kid shot up another school, I get to wondering if they've ever experienced REAL fear and violence in their sheltered existence. Its easy to blame, but it seems hard for people to bother trying to understand how things actually work for themselves. They'd rather be told how it works by some useless study.
However, I don't think that means you need to shelter your kids from everything violent. I played loads of those games when I was little. I still do. What you need are parents to teach kids "this is make believe, in the real world you don't behave like that."
And you know what? The world hasn't succumbed to violent angry video game nerds boiling out of their parents' basements running around shooting people. You know why? We're not frigging idiots.
Poverty is proven to be the cause of violent crimes, and prosperity is where you find white collar crimes. Why don't we spend more time worrying about that, and less time worrying about what color the blood spatters are in Mortal Kombat?
Why should kids be policed more? if they are chemically imbalance or like megan meir just dumb, more parental stuff will have 0 effect on violence.
There are just too many parents who do not pay attention (for what ever reasons) and too many kids that suffer for it. Parents expect people like teachers to teach what should be taught at home. I say way to go now that someone has pointed out the parents really need to pay a bit of attention.
It's a choice to be a parent, but if one chooses to, it's essential to give it 100%.
- by findconsolegames December 1, 2008 12:28 PM PST
- The parents do need educating, I agree with that. However, they also need a bit of comon sense don't you think?
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(19 Comments)Dave
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