I'm having something of a dilemma. My nine-year-old son has a growing interest in lots of console video games, including some that seem pretty inappropriate. However, defining "inappropriate" (especially given his lawyerly, argumentative nature to bend, stretch, and challenge every rule) is proving to be fairly difficult.
The game that brought me to question his choices in games was "Bad Fur Day". In addition to characters cursing at the player ("Didn't work the first time, ain't gonna work the second time, dipshit!"), the main character apparently gets drunk and pisses on opponents. As for violence, there's apparently a head-to-head mode in which characters behead each other. ("But it's just teddy bears, Dad!" my son retorts...) Since the recent civilian beheadings in the Middle East, I'm a little more sensitive to that sort of thing... even so, it just doesn't seem like a good game for a nine-year-old. (FWIW, he was spending the night at a similarly-aged friend whose parents could not have cared less.)
That one seems obviously inappropriate. But what about other games? How much violence is too much? Does realism play a part, i.e., is cartoonish violence any different from realistic violence? What about mysticism? I played D&D for years growing up and watched all of my friends drop out of high school for this "fantasy" game... is it a slippery slope down which my son could foreseeably slide if introduced to it at an early age? And how do my own gaming habits play into things--doesn't the Bible say to "think about...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable"? How does Deathmatch UT2k3 (as a completely random example) play into that?
Is there a difference between video games and movies? Movies tend to be more passive, yet my son occasionally gets a little freaked at particularly action-filled movies, like LotR. If movies can affect him in that way, will they affect him when they portray violence, spew vulgarities, demonstrate poor family dynamics, or condone (encourage, even!) relationships that clash with our family's Christian beliefs?
I know that, for an abstract example, when my son spends all day playing video games (of any sort), he comes home noticably antisocial, defiant, and disrespectful. I generally confront him when he acts this way, only to have him confess to having plopped his butt in front of a TV at a friend's house for the majority of the day. (I guess it's something that he's still confessing and not trying to lie his way out of it... like I used to...) Is part of his behavior due to the content of the video games, in addition to the sheer time spent playing them?
It seems improbable that he, or anyone, would remain wholly unaffected by the things with which he fills his mind. So where is the moral meridian, that line that invisibly divides acceptable from unacceptable? And how does one go about enforcing that boundary until such a time as self-enforcement kicks in?
(As an aside: ESRB ratings are a pretty poor indicator. Two examples: he has a Digimon game that was rated T(een) for (some unstated) reasons I am completely unable to fathom. Perhaps it's because the Digimon he raises actually has to poop occasionally and it makes a discrete farting sound when it does defecate. It hardly seems like teen material; on the contrary it seems far too childish for teens. On the other end of the spectrum, ESPN recently ran a story about a video game (the name escapes me) where baseball players were encouraged to build up some sort of rage points, fly into a type of beserk mode, and beat the everliving crap out of the opponent, if only to gain an extra base. This game received an E(veryone) rating, but hardly sends the message I want my son to receive about this country's greatest game, competition, etc.)
As with anything, I suppose it is largely sheer vigilance. I'm just finding that my efforts to define that boundary in a clear way (and without self-conflicting rules!) are not quite effective enough, nor do they leave me very satisfied. I'm likely a fool for even casually soliciting advice from you, my three readers... but I'm feeling a bit foolish these days.
Posted by pcg at July 21, 2004 9:53 PMIf you're pondering these issues, you might take a good look at _Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Superheroes, and Make-Believe Violence_. VERY good read. And a big challenge to what everyone thinks they know about these things.
For what it's worth, I played RPGs most of my childhood and young adulthood, and never knew of anyone dropping out of school or doing anything else antisocial in connection with them; on the contrary, the gamers I know are extraordinarily intelligent, creative people (mostly married now) with their lives pretty much exactly where they want them to be. (I did know one gamer who went "bad" in the sense that he screwed up his life really good, but you know, some people do that, gaming or no gaming. In his case, as far as I know, the event that landed him in jail for several years on an armed robbery charge had nothing to do with games, and probably something to do with alcohol.)
Just another data point.
Thanks for the comment, Ed. In looking at _Killing Monsters_ I'm a little skeptical that it would treat the subject objectively. The author is someone who stands to gain from the acceptance of the theory that media violence is a good thing, being that he's creates children's cartoons. Maybe I'd be a little less skeptical if he weren't the only one saying it (that I've heard of), but I'm fully aware that there's PLENTY of junk science out there, especially in the soft sciences. Perhaps the whole media violence thing is just another scare.
The RPG stuff was largely secondary to my arguments. Most of the gamers I've met since growing up are, as you mention, highly intelligent, well-adjusted, etc. A lot of the problems I saw growing up could easily be attributed to family values, involvement in other contraband, and so on. The RPG thing was just one more focus of their rebellion. Indeed, I seem to have turned out okay, and I have always enjoyed gaming tremendously. However, as children have to *grow* into the ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality, it seems that too much escape (in video games, movies, RPGs, or whatever) would be detrimental. But maybe that's a poor assumption.
For those who have kids: surely you have to deal with this at some point. :-) How would you handle some of the example movies and games I mention in the post?
Posted by: pcg on July 22, 2004 8:41 AMDiscreet or discrete? Both definitions lend childishness that allow me to snicker softly.
Posted by: Adam on July 22, 2004 8:57 AMI, of course, meant "distinct" ("3. Clearly defined; unquestionable"), which can be used as a synonym for "discrete" ("1. Constituting a separate thing.") but not really in the way I used it.
Posted by: pcg on July 22, 2004 9:04 AMInteresting post! And what a difficult parenting challenge.
No doubt you will be thrilled to hear some parenting advice from me, a non-parent. But you asked... so, on with the worthless advice:
I will join Ed in recommending the "Killing Monsters" book; it's worth reading, even if you disagree with it--although I suspect that the book is addressing a slightly different question than the one you are facing.
Speaking as somebody who's played an awful lot of games in his life, and as someone who has read up on the issue in the past, I would suggest that *you* are by far the most qualified to tell if playing these games is negatively influencing *your* kid's behavior. There are countless people who can convincingly tell you that games do or don't affect child behavior, but none of those opinions should take priority over evidence that you, yourself, are seeing with your own eyes. If the experts say that these sorts of "mildly inappropriate" games don't affect your kid's behavior, but you see that they *are* affecting your kid's behavior... well, forget the experts; go with your own experience and instinct. And vice versa--if the experts say that playing games is going to screw up your kid, but you know that isn't happening, then I say feel free to ignore the experts. As always, both sides of the argument can make some pretty good points; we do tend to underestimate childrens' ability to separate what is allowed in fantasy from what is acceptable in reality, but IMHO it's also pretty naive to think that a kid can absorb hours and hours of media input (of any type) without being affected by it in some way.
I don't know--I'm definitely influenced by my own upbringing, which was highly restrictive as far as games, movies, and cartoons went (until I hit high school or thereabouts). It was aggravating at the time to not be able to watch certain things (even when I was at friends' houses), but in retrospect, being denied access to things like D&D and the like certainly didn't prevent me from growing to appreciate them on my own once I hit a (more or less) discerning age. My parents usually did tell me specifically why I wasn't allowed to watch/play certain things, so while at the time I thought they were hideously out-of-touch, I came to understand the method to their madness, and ended up incorporating most of those methods into my own decision-making process as I grew older. I may be on my way to becoming a crotchety old man, but there are worse fates for children than to be denied access to edgy games, even if the child is probably mature enough to handle it.
Hmmm. None of my ramblings, of course, are much help in answering your basic question, which is "how do you define and enforce the boundary of appropriateness"? The answer is probably continual monitoring and adjusting of the rules based on experience and observation of how your kid seems to be affected. Which sounds like an awful lot of work...
Posted by: jrau on July 22, 2004 11:01 AMI may be single, but having worked for an International missions group that specifically focuses on children, combined that with my personal experience with playing computer games of all kinds (from text-based to graphical to MMORPGs - at one point spending as much as half of a week playing a single game), and I feel that I have a worthwhile opinion to share :)
I could probably digress on this for a LONG time, but I will shorten my comments to this for now:
While a game that promotes swearing and violence may not result in your child swearing and committing random acts of violence in your home - it will (over time) definitely alter the way they think and feel about such acts (their acceptance and attitude about such), and it will change what they feel is both "Good" and "Right", if only in the avenues of language and reactions to certain types of situations.
Just like anything else that captures a large portion of your emotional focus, time and energy, computer games can and will shape your attitude about life in general. If you do well with the activity or task you enjoy (such as a game), then you are pleased with yourself, having achieved a sense of personal accomplishment, and can show the world a happy face - irregardless of the actual lasting value of the success. Conversely, when you do poorly, you become unhappy, surly, or even outright angry over the situation. In my experience, people who fall into this category usually have a (large or small) martyr's complex, feeling as if they are the victim (whether in truth or not), which causes them to react either defensively or offensively to others.
The solution? Moderation. As with anything else, force a limit on the amount of time that your child is allowed to play computer related games, and feel free to limit the types of games that they are allowed to play (I'd recommend backing this up with a Biblical reason & verse[s]). As most of our parents probably did, force your child to play outside for a while - or find a hobby that you can both enjoy (collecting bugs, stamps, go hiking, learn woodburning - whatever).
The bottom line is that we all want to do well at things and be recognized for our successes - this is human nature. The challenge is to recognize this and provide ways for your child to "succeed" at something that will hopefully have a more lasting value than winning at a computer game.
FWIW!