What do you think about younger children (6-12) playing games online?

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

My girlfriend and I are in a bit of a debate. We agreed we need some third party opinions on this.

She shared with me today a post by someone talking about their 6 year old sister playing Overwatch. It was a kind of cute story. Just the girl telling Hanzo he should go home and take care of his brother. Nothing profane.

My girlfriend thinks it's wrong for this young girl (or any young kids) to play games online. Her reasoning is not the violence, but rather the possibility of negative interactions with other people online.

I agree that the kid shouldn't be using the voice channel. THAT will almost guarantee negative interaction.

My solution was to actually be a parent, who also plays video games and knows what to look out for, to watch and or check in on the kid playing online once and awhile, and they can only play the game online when I'm around.

She claims that's not enough (she seems to refuse to elaborate on this) and that if someone found out she was 6 (or whatever young age) that creepy or harmful people would try to do...things online? (also didn't elaborate on what she's afraid would happen. Maybe pedos trying to contact her? Again, this is why I said you need to keep an eye on the kid playing online)

Again, as an adult who plays tons of video games, I know people can be rather toxic online, but games like Overwatch do have language filters and you can block the voice channel, as well as a player who is being particularly toxic. Yes, this may mean blocking multiple people, but that's also part of being the parent.

Also, I refuse to accept "She would be bad at the game" as an excuse, because you don't tell someone who owns a game they can't play just because they're not as good as you are. I'm not saying the kid should be playing competitive here.

Now, I realize that most online games do have age ratings at T or above (or your equivalent where you live), but I grew up with violent, gory games as a kid, and while I'm not exactly the pinnacle of society, I'm not a rampaging, murdering, psychopath. My parents knew what I could handle and let me play based off that. There were some limitations, such as GTA, but even those were broken pretty quickly. I'd like to think I could extend that same courtesy to my children and learn what they could handle.

But I do want some opinions on this. Do you think they should, and would you let your children play online? If not, when do you personally think it's acceptable, and why do you think younger children shouldn't?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Speaking personally, I would not let me kids play online games while they are that young (I don't actually have kids, but...). I wouldn't allow it until they were well into their teens, for the very reasons your girlfriend is saying. I would not want my kids exposed to the toxic community that comes with so many online games, because just because you disable voice chat does not mean people won't send them angry messages.

That being said, what you are saying sounds perfectly acceptable. If the kid really wants to play online, I would be there watching them, and I would limit their playtime, and the moment someone sends them anything I don't approve of, that person would be blocked.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

6 year olds shouldn't be playing games much at all, let alone online. Actual interaction with other real humans is far better for them.

If they absolutly MUST play video games their time playing them should be limited to 1-2 hours a day and even then preferably with an actual friend sitting in the same room to interact with, but I would much rather keep my kids off video games until they were 12+ years old.

This isn't really about what they can "handle" its about how they grow up. Though I find the idea of a 6 year old playing Overwatch hilarious at best and abhorrant at worst.

 

[Tarcolt]

Teacher's opinion. There is nothing wrong with kids playing games, online or otherwise. But like almost anything with young children, there needs to be rules and boundaries set.

1. Parents/Guardians should ALWAYS know the content of the game children are playing. If a parent can't tell you about the game their kids are playing (name, what sort of game, maybe the characters) then they aren't paying enough attention.

2. No voice comms. No headsets for kids, not until maybe 14-15 (for the rest of our sanity) and if at all possible, no voice comms from anyone else either (I know overwatch gives you that option)

3. Most important, use the ESRB ratings. It doesn't meant you have to ban all children from anything M rated. But it does mean that those games aren't made for children.

Honestly, this new generation of parents, who have grown up with games, are far better at dealing with these things. But the older parents, of mybe even only 5 years ago, were often unnaware of what was happening. When those parents step in, they do it both too late and in the worst way possible (Usualy unpluging the system and telling children to go outside. Thinking that they will suddenly stop liking games.)

 

[Nuuu]

As someone who grew up playing online around age 7 or 8, i'd agree with your girlfriend to an extent.

Let them play online games if they are catered to their age range. At age 9 and under choose Disney MMOs, and stuff like Club Penguin (which shut down so bad example). People will still occasionally be mean on there of course, but it's the equivalent of a schoolyard argument that they can take on the chin. You typically don't have to worry about adults coming on and trolling them when it's mostly filled with players of the same age.

Definitely keep being a parent of course. Monitor your child's activity (to an extent).

Take off the leash when you feel they're responsible enough to handle themselves on the internet, though don't give them voice comms for a while after that.
I had voice comms a little to early and still mostly used chat until my voice deepened.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Again, as an adult who plays tons of video games, I know people can be rather toxic online, but games like Overwatch do have language filters and you can block the voice channel, as well as a player who is being particularly toxic. Yes, this may mean blocking multiple people, but that's also part of being the parent.


But I do want some opinions on this. Do you think they should, and would you let your children play online? If not, when do you personally think it's acceptable, and why do you think younger children shouldn't?

now this applies to more than just video games for me, I pretty much make the same opinion across the board, not just video games.

completely depends on the child and their maturity, but with an open mind and walking your child through it, this is a perfect time to put the training wheels on for this thing called "life". I laugh at the completely blissful ignorance your girlfriend *maybe has* if you think a child won't be exposed to teen/adult shit all the time at school/through other kids/adults/in public, unless you are a boeing helicopter parent supreme, you will not be able to shield your child from the outside worlds exposure/influence, might as well walk them through it so they should know how to respond and how to deal with things while it's merely over voice/text chat, that way they are ready if things come up in real life. The amount of shit I was exposed to as a child would make most christian parents shit their pants and have a heart attack at the same time, and most of it was at school from other kids, good luck preventing that, uptight parents.

Now for my personal tid bit? I have younger brothers, the youngest being 10 right now, and I didn't start him on online stuff until he was 7-8, but that also had to do with overwatch not being out yet and there wasn't really anything he was too interested online at this point that would expose him to random shit beyond playing COD with friends/brothers occasionally. Now that he's 10, we play overwatch and rocket league all the time together, and there are tons of random shit being said/texted that he's learned to ignore/not repeat/realize it's bad and shouldn't be said to someone, which in the long run will make him wise for his age and hopefully he'll follow in my footsteps in not being the complete dipshit in high school who is in for a world of hurt when they don't know how to react with the real world.

 

[Zhukov]

What kids encounter in online games isn't significantly worse that what they'll encounter in the schoolyard.

That said, I'd make damn sure they understood how to use the mute function in any games they did play.

 

[Elijin]

Children dont come off an assembly line. A parent with a healthy relationship with their child will know the lines necessary for that child.


As such, while this topic has some excellent guiding points on ways to approach things with your child, the broad question is moot.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

Six year olds definitely shouldn't be playing Overwatch. Playing games for that age group is probably okay (in moderation), but they shouldn't be playing games targeted to older audiences due to what they might get exposed to in chat.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

What kids encounter in online games isn't significantly worse that what they'll encounter in the schoolyard.

That said, I'd make damn sure they understood how to use the mute function in any games they did play.

Maybe I'm just old and out of touch (the internet wasn't a thing when I was a kid) but when I was at school we didn't say anything close to what you hear online now.

 

[Dalisclock]

As someone who doesn't have kids(at least not for a few more weeks), I'm not against kids playing games, but the games should be age appropriate(or the kid should be mature enough to handle it). Which basically goes down to being a parent and setting those limits.

 

[lionsprey]

generally i would say it depends on what game it is. whilst there are things like profanity filters and such they are in no way comprehensive enough that i would let a young child play for example overwatch. however a few hours of minecraft a day with friends would probably not be to harmfull.

 

[Zhukov]

What kids encounter in online games isn't significantly worse that what they'll encounter in the schoolyard.

That said, I'd make damn sure they understood how to use the mute function in any games they did play.

Maybe I'm just old and out of touch (the internet wasn't a thing when I was a kid) but when I was at school we didn't say anything close to what you hear online now.

*shrug*

Maybe you went to a posher school than me.

My primary school was a relatively well behaved one with responsible teachers and I'd still heard enough by age 12 that the angry arseholes who play online games didn't have any surprises for me.

 

[Nuuu]

What kids encounter in online games isn't significantly worse that what they'll encounter in the schoolyard.

That said, I'd make damn sure they understood how to use the mute function in any games they did play.

Maybe I'm just old and out of touch (the internet wasn't a thing when I was a kid) but when I was at school we didn't say anything close to what you hear online now.

Actually I was hearing worse things at school compared to what I heard online. It was a good neighborhood too, but there were still 4th grade kids swearing when the adults weren't near.
Games made for young age ranges usually have automatic filters, block functions, and proper administration. Some restrict unnapproved players to a set of pre-made lines.
Despite all my online play, I was pretty naive and sheltered until I got into games like World of Warcraft and TF2.

 

[CritialGaming]

I don't see any problem with a kid playing a game online so long as there are some restrictions. For example, no public chat or voice comms enabled. Something like Overwatch I feel is fine as there aren't a lot of people using the chat interface (especially on console) and witht he voice disabled, there is nothing to worry about really.

If Dark Souls wasn't so fucking hard, that would be a perfect game too. Player interactions are very limited message wise, and there is no problem really.

Journey was another game with safe for kids online play. Players can only communicate with beeps and shit.

So yes, kids can play games online without trouble, but it has to be the RIGHT game, with the right limitations in place.

 

[Erttheking]

What kids encounter in online games isn't significantly worse that what they'll encounter in the schoolyard.

That said, I'd make damn sure they understood how to use the mute function in any games they did play.

Maybe I'm just old and out of touch (the internet wasn't a thing when I was a kid) but when I was at school we didn't say anything close to what you hear online now.

*shrug*

Maybe you went to a posher school than me.

My primary school was a relatively well behaved one with responsible teachers and I'd still heard enough by age 12 that the angry arseholes who play online games didn't have any surprises for me.

Have to second this. Went to a private catholic school. Still had a full vocabulary of cusses developed by the time I went to a public high school.

 

[CritialGaming]

What kids encounter in online games isn't significantly worse that what they'll encounter in the schoolyard.

That said, I'd make damn sure they understood how to use the mute function in any games they did play.

Maybe I'm just old and out of touch (the internet wasn't a thing when I was a kid) but when I was at school we didn't say anything close to what you hear online now.

*shrug*

Maybe you went to a posher school than me.

My primary school was a relatively well behaved one with responsible teachers and I'd still heard enough by age 12 that the angry arseholes who play online games didn't have any surprises for me.

Have to second this. Went to a private catholic school. Still had a full vocabulary of cusses developed by the time I went to a public high school.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we go to school to learn how to cuss? I feel like that's the only thing I still use from my k-12 education.

 

[BarkBarker]

A unrestricted system of interaction between what are really children and prepubescents with people of all manner has a lot of fucking risk to it. I'd say avoid it or have a very well curated and designed means to keep the shit out your life. People can handle basic human interactions and shitty behavior at different levels, the younger they are the more it seems it leans towards struggling to do so.

 

[CaitSeith]

I say: not unsupervised. Games aren't babysitters, and the other players aren't there to take care of kid's safety. It's not necessary to go as far as pedo-threats to see the risks. Just mere cyberbullying or getting their username and password stolen is enough reason to at least check how they are doing every once in a while.

 

[Neverhoodian]

It depends on a variety of factors (what the game's ESRB rating is, what kind of players frequent it, the maturity level of your child, etc.), but I'd say a few solid rules apply:

-Don't let your child play online games unsupervised, especially if they're under the age of 10.

-ALWAYS disable voice/text chat if the game will allow it.


-Try to learn about the game they're playing by engaging with them. Be curious, ask questions about the characters, gameplay, maps, etc. Play with them if possible. Kids that age tend to love it when their parents show interest in the games they play.

-Everything in moderation. Don't allow them to park their keester in front of a screen for half the day. I'd say no more than 2 straight hours tops.