Parenting and Violent Video Games: How to Keep Your Kids Safe

When I was a child, I grew up on video-games. The arcade. Pong. My father's Tandy computer. Apple 2e in the elementary schools. I'm of the generation that was brought up on electronic entertainment. It's nothing mysterious or foreign to anyone of 'Gen X' or even Gen Y as they call it.

Remember Doom? Remember Duke Nukem? Remember, even, Frogger and the little pixilated froggy becoming road-kill One of my favorite things to do was play Winter Olympics and send my long-jump skier splatting into the snow or watching my ice-skater face-plant onto the rink.

Nowadays you hear parent groups and media activists like Jack Thompson raising a hue and cry against the level of violence that exists in video-games. Oh noes, it's Grand Theft Auto. It's games where you play a soldier and live through horrific battles against (Insert foe of specific genre here) and shoot things! There's, gasp, sex and violence!

In a Mature Rated Game.

Do you go to the movies and get upset when a PG-13 film has a bad word in it? Or when a rated R movie has violence in it? Or, horrors, even sexual content? If you allow your kids to see a R rated movie and are shocked to later learn that someone slept with someone else and there was a shooting, who's to blame? You for dropping them off at the movies and giving them 10 bucks for a ticket without knowing what was in the film they're about to see - or the movie producers who are clearly aiming this film at an older audience?

Same thing happens with Video Games. Where did the kids get the money for the game system? Mom and dad? Grandma and grandpa? If your kid is under 16, their finances are dependent on someone other than themselves. Where did they get the money for this particular game? You? Your spouse? Your family? A friend? Again - under 16 means someone else gave them that money...

Who got them to the store where they bought it? Did they take a bus? Find a shop near your home? Did you drive them to the mall yourself? Take them to an electronics store? Again - under 16 limits their means of transportation. They can't drive themselves. Someone else has to do that. Who is responsible for that?

You can't blame the game-maker. They have no control over who buys their MATURE rated game. Games designed for adults and teenagers with a grasp of what is real and what is not. Shooting someone in a game? Cool. Shooting someone in the Real World? Not cool. Adults enjoy these games. It comes as no surprise that kids do too.

If your kid ends up with one of these games, who's at fault? You control your child's cash-flow and transportation for the most part. You should be aware of what your kids are playing and doing. If you object, tell them why it's offensive to you and offer alternatives.

Don't blame the media. The media is the servant to the consumer. People will want to play these games. As long as there's a market there will be games the 'up the ante' as the term goes. More violence. More sex. (And, you want a comparison between American games and foreign ones? Look up a Japanese 'Dating Sim'. Talk about sex! Hot Coffee is nothing.)

Your personal responsibility is to ensure that these games are played by those its' intended for. If you don't like it, don't play it. Don't let them play it. Don't let your kids buy it with your money. Watch what they play. Be aware of what games they have for their system.

Let the rest of us mature types enjoy our games.