OK, let's start with a meme:
Before you get the pitchforks and torches, let me explain. My four-year-old likes to watch me play video games. Normally, I try to stick with kid-friendly games while he's around; Minecraft, Hearthstone, Epic Mickey, etc. Although, sometimes I'll be playing Call of Duty or Borderlands 2 when he comes in to the room. He's at the age where, if he sees daddy doing something, he wants to try it too. This is how he got into Minecraft (creative mode; he's actually really good at building stuff), and he's become proficient with keyboard-and-mouse navigation (more so than he is at holding a crayon).
Anyways, I'm playing CoD Blops II multiplayer, and he watches me for a bit, then declares it's his turn. I think, OK, this will be funny, and set him up in a private game on Nuketown 2025, with easiest difficulty bots. He figures out both shooting and ADS pretty quickly, although he's not so good at picking out the enemies. I've been trying to explain to him green letters = friend, red letters = bad guy, but generally he relies on me to tell him who to shoot. His aim is pretty good, though. However, mostly he just like to run around and "pop" the cars (shoot at them until they blow up). He thinks that's hilarious.
So anyways, there's this whole "violence" aspect to the game, or something? And something controversial about exposing children to murder? So I figured I'd share this hear to solicit opinions from the internet, because that's totally a great place for getting non-judgmental and polite feedback, right?
Now, before we get into all the reasons why letting a four-year-old play CoD is such a terrible idea, let me just speak in my defense. He's four. He really has no clue about murder, death, guns, violence, etc. In the game, when he gets shot he comes right back, so it's all perfectly "safe" to him. To him, it's not that different from "popping" the villagers or cows or sheep or monsters in Minecraft ("popping" is his general term for killing something, due to the animation in Minecraft, where killing something causes it to bounce into the air, then disappear in a puff). He's simply too young to understand or become desensitized to the violence in the game. Perhaps when he's older and does understand violence, then I'll put the foot down.
I can think of a few objections still, however, and I wanted to solicit people's opinions to see if there may be any other angles to this that I haven't considered. The objections I can think of are:
Objection #1: He may not know about violence or guns yet, but this is how he'll learn. He'll think guns are funny and you come right back to life after being shot. His formative images of bleeding corpses will be in the context of a harmless game, confusing him about how really, truly terrible real violence is.
Objection #2: I may intend to stop him from playing when he becomes old enough to understand, but how will I recognize that point? What if it comes subtly? Also, will he understand why he's no longer allowed to play the game? Wasn't it just harmless fun?
Objection #3: When he starts Kindergarten next year, I don't want to be That Parent. You know "No, Johnny, you can't play with that little boy; his parents let him play those murder-simulators and he runs around pretending to be killing people with guns!" (He does do this now: holds his toy sword like an assault rifle and pretends to shoot it, then falls over dead; his two-year-old brother has also picked up on that, too, and they pretend to shoot and kill each other.) Honestly, if you found out that one of the other kids in your child's Kindergarten class plays CoD, what would you think of his parents?
So I turn this over to you, dear internet, to tell me why I'm such a terrible parent, should have my parenting license revoked, my children taken away, and my genitals cut off. Or tell me how awesome I am, how my son will be grow up to be totally normal and well adjusted, will understand the difference between games and real life, how my objections are overblown and I'm being a worrywart, and give me a pat on the back. I'm interested in opinions of parents and non-parents alike.
Also on-topic for this thread: comments about how the typical CoD player has the intellectual maturity level of a four-year-old.
TL;DR: Would you let a four-year-old play Call of Duty?
Before you get the pitchforks and torches, let me explain. My four-year-old likes to watch me play video games. Normally, I try to stick with kid-friendly games while he's around; Minecraft, Hearthstone, Epic Mickey, etc. Although, sometimes I'll be playing Call of Duty or Borderlands 2 when he comes in to the room. He's at the age where, if he sees daddy doing something, he wants to try it too. This is how he got into Minecraft (creative mode; he's actually really good at building stuff), and he's become proficient with keyboard-and-mouse navigation (more so than he is at holding a crayon).
Anyways, I'm playing CoD Blops II multiplayer, and he watches me for a bit, then declares it's his turn. I think, OK, this will be funny, and set him up in a private game on Nuketown 2025, with easiest difficulty bots. He figures out both shooting and ADS pretty quickly, although he's not so good at picking out the enemies. I've been trying to explain to him green letters = friend, red letters = bad guy, but generally he relies on me to tell him who to shoot. His aim is pretty good, though. However, mostly he just like to run around and "pop" the cars (shoot at them until they blow up). He thinks that's hilarious.
So anyways, there's this whole "violence" aspect to the game, or something? And something controversial about exposing children to murder? So I figured I'd share this hear to solicit opinions from the internet, because that's totally a great place for getting non-judgmental and polite feedback, right?
Now, before we get into all the reasons why letting a four-year-old play CoD is such a terrible idea, let me just speak in my defense. He's four. He really has no clue about murder, death, guns, violence, etc. In the game, when he gets shot he comes right back, so it's all perfectly "safe" to him. To him, it's not that different from "popping" the villagers or cows or sheep or monsters in Minecraft ("popping" is his general term for killing something, due to the animation in Minecraft, where killing something causes it to bounce into the air, then disappear in a puff). He's simply too young to understand or become desensitized to the violence in the game. Perhaps when he's older and does understand violence, then I'll put the foot down.
I can think of a few objections still, however, and I wanted to solicit people's opinions to see if there may be any other angles to this that I haven't considered. The objections I can think of are:
Objection #1: He may not know about violence or guns yet, but this is how he'll learn. He'll think guns are funny and you come right back to life after being shot. His formative images of bleeding corpses will be in the context of a harmless game, confusing him about how really, truly terrible real violence is.
Objection #2: I may intend to stop him from playing when he becomes old enough to understand, but how will I recognize that point? What if it comes subtly? Also, will he understand why he's no longer allowed to play the game? Wasn't it just harmless fun?
Objection #3: When he starts Kindergarten next year, I don't want to be That Parent. You know "No, Johnny, you can't play with that little boy; his parents let him play those murder-simulators and he runs around pretending to be killing people with guns!" (He does do this now: holds his toy sword like an assault rifle and pretends to shoot it, then falls over dead; his two-year-old brother has also picked up on that, too, and they pretend to shoot and kill each other.) Honestly, if you found out that one of the other kids in your child's Kindergarten class plays CoD, what would you think of his parents?
So I turn this over to you, dear internet, to tell me why I'm such a terrible parent, should have my parenting license revoked, my children taken away, and my genitals cut off. Or tell me how awesome I am, how my son will be grow up to be totally normal and well adjusted, will understand the difference between games and real life, how my objections are overblown and I'm being a worrywart, and give me a pat on the back. I'm interested in opinions of parents and non-parents alike.
Also on-topic for this thread: comments about how the typical CoD player has the intellectual maturity level of a four-year-old.
TL;DR: Would you let a four-year-old play Call of Duty?
) and I very fondly remember watching my dad playing Half-life. I also used to ask my dad how he was doing in Diablo every night before I went to bed. Video games kind of brought my dad and I together, and if you can do that in a way that won't mess up your kid, I'd say go for it.