Parenting as a gamer.
- Thread starter DrgoFx
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Well I certainly won't be handing my child mature games until they're mature enough to handle it. I mean take things like No Russian: it was an impacting and difficult scene for someone mature enough to understand the horror of what they were doing, but I know teenagers who just went on a rampage. I don't want my kid playing things like that until they are old enough to understand it in its proper context.
That said, video games are an important part of my life and an art medium just as valuable as film and books, so just as I will be encouraging my children to read and watch movies, I will introduce them to video games as a beneficial part of their growing up. Even from early on, I will be encouraging them to look at the stories and such instead of just the gameplay, and giving them all sorts of different types of games, because I will not have my children be the kind of idiot teenagers raised by ignorant parents who only enjoys a game if there's blood and violence. Then, when they're mature enough to handle them (not based on age so much as maturity), I will give them more mature games to play.
That said, video games are an important part of my life and an art medium just as valuable as film and books, so just as I will be encouraging my children to read and watch movies, I will introduce them to video games as a beneficial part of their growing up. Even from early on, I will be encouraging them to look at the stories and such instead of just the gameplay, and giving them all sorts of different types of games, because I will not have my children be the kind of idiot teenagers raised by ignorant parents who only enjoys a game if there's blood and violence. Then, when they're mature enough to handle them (not based on age so much as maturity), I will give them more mature games to play.
I played Unreal Tournament and Rune with my dad when I was like, eight. All the time. He took me to see war movies when I was in elementary school as well, and seriously, I didn't become violence-obsessed or anything like that. It all depends on how you treat the game, I guess. And, of course, you would know your kids best, etc.
Now that I'm thinking about it, being a girl might've made a difference. Girls (in my experience) didn't talk about flak cannons or rocket launchers, or how you could beat someone to death with their arm/leg in Rune, so I didn't. Games were things I talked about with my family pretty exclusively. I definitely do not remember being like some of these manicky kids I hear on xbox live.
Now that I'm thinking about it, being a girl might've made a difference. Girls (in my experience) didn't talk about flak cannons or rocket launchers, or how you could beat someone to death with their arm/leg in Rune, so I didn't. Games were things I talked about with my family pretty exclusively. I definitely do not remember being like some of these manicky kids I hear on xbox live.