mamavegg

I don't think I've posted here yet, but I've been lurking about for a
couple of months. You guys are great.

My question is in regards to video game ratings. My son is eight and
a half, and an avid Star Wars fan. He's seen all the movies many
times each, and pores through the visual dictionaries and books he's
gotten on a daily basis. He's had a Gameboy for about a year, and we
got an Xbox last fall. And he is an AVID computer guy! He's at that
age where the Sonic and Spyro etc. type games don't hold his interest
anymore - high action kind of guy. So his dad bought him some Star
Wars games for Xbox that are rated for teens. He loves them and
plays them a lot.

Now, I am the mom that wanted no guns or violent toys in the house
(long before unschooling days!), and I'm really sensitive to violent
movies. I have eased up on forcing any of my *stuff* on him long
ago, my husband is great on talking with me about this. And my son
is a very peaceful kind of person (even takes care of flies in the
house, feeds them, and won't put them outside if it's too cold.....)
But I struggle with this issue lately.

What do other families do with regards to ratings on games? He
doesnt really want any other games than the Star Wars in the teen
range, still likes some of his Gameboy Scooby-Doo and Metroid and
AstroBoy. We talk about my concerns as a family. But sometimes I
get wiggy about the whole deal.

Is this simply my *stuff*?


Deanna (who is listening to my DS and DH playing and enjoying
themselves immensely right this minute!)

Ren Allen

"What do other families do with regards to ratings on games?"

We ignore them.:) Ok, not totally....I warn the younger ones about
certain features of a game if I think it will bother them. At this
point, all four children LOVE GTA, which would have horrified me a few
years ago. Ok, I still cringe when the guy yells "shit" while my 5y.o.
is playing. ack...

But, what I have learned over the years, is video game violence is a
fantasy world. It's pretend and doesn't have anything to do with real
violence.
Real violence is encouraged and fostered by violence, neglect and
abuse. Those are things my children have never been around, so they
aren't actually drawn to violence, just pretending with it.

I was talking to my boys about that whole "desensitization" issue a
couple months ago. The conversation was triggered by a comment by dh,
which I was argueing.:)
They said "but Mom, we ARE desensitized". I said "yeah, you're
desensitized to pretend violence. But what if you saw someone hurting
another human being in real life, or someone getting hurt in another
way, are you desensitized to THAT?"
Well, they immediately agreed that it would bother them deeply.

Trevor was in downtown Pensacola before the war started, waving
protest signs and standing up for his belief in a peaceful solution.
He can't stand the Bush admin. and is deeply bothered by war and other
human issues that are harmful.
He's my biggest video gamer. I think he'll probably be making money at
it one day.....but if not, he's having a lot of fun and learning all
sorts of cool things now.

Ren
learninginfreedom.com

April Morris

We ignore them, just as we do movie ratings. I'm more interested in why it's
rated a certain way, but even then, it's just information. When we first
got a game cube, then an x-box (after years of saying, 'we'll never have one
of those in my house'....) I was concerned about what kind of games my son
wanted to play. I heard and read all the hullabaloo around the halo games a
while back and was concerned, but he really, really wanted to play them. So
we rented it and I watched him play. And I watched and watched and watched
and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about.
We decide what movies to watch, what games to play, what books to read based
on interest, content, comfort level of different family members, our values
and beliefs.....but we totally ignore the arbitrary ratings on these things.
We talk about the games they play and we live a life that reflects our
attitude on respecting and caring about people and I've yet to see my kids
or any of their friends want to act out what they play. Last week there was
a lot in the news regarding some new game coming out, "25 years to Life" I
think. The local police and schools are up in arms about, telling parents to
ban it, it will cause kids to do terrible things, etc. My kids don't tend to
like those kind of games, but I wouldn't disallow it. Karl was dumbfounded
that people would be so upset, he just couldn't believe people thought video
games caused violence. He asked if they didn't realize that the kids who act
out those games are seeing real life violence, not video game violence? He
though they were focusing on the wrong problem, as though getting rid of
violent games would get rid of juvenile violence.

It goes right along with all the fuss about Myspace lately. Every single day
there are news reports and newspaper articles about the evils of Myspace and
how parents should make their kids take down their sites. As soon as our
kids were on the computer we talked about safe computer use. They've know
how to do these things safely from an early age. They've never tried to hide
what they do and in fact, they made me a Myspace page so I could be their
"Friend" and read their stuff. I've never asked them to do this. And many
of their friends 'added' me and they love to send me messages. My husband
works at a school and ended up in a dialog about all this. A teacher asked
him if he had ever heard of my space and was shocked at his reply of "yes, I
have a page there". These were teachers that were going to make their kids
stop using Myspace if they were using it (they often are never sure, they
don't know what their kids are doing). Chuck asked them if they had ever
gone to Myspace and looked around. Not one of them had done so. Most of the
worries and concerns the media discusses are what I think are just common
sense issues that parents and kids should discuss together right from the
start. It's a different world and I want my kids to be able to safely
navigate the cyber world, not be banned from it until they are 'free'. And
I know without a doubt that many of these kids in the paper and on the news
who have been forced to take down their myspace page, have another one they
set up at a friends house or the library or somewhere and now they aren't
going to breathe a word of it to their parents. And no way would they ask
for advice or express concern about something, because as soon as they do,
down goes the page again. How are they going to learn to exist in this world
today?

~April
Mom to Kate-19, Lisa-17, Karl-14, & Ben-10.
*REACH Homeschool Grp, an inclusive group in Oakland County
http://www.reachhomeschool.com
* Michigan Unschoolers
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michigan_unschoolers/
*Check out Chuck's art www.artkunst23.com
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
Gandalf the Grey

On 3/10/06, mamavegg <pstujo@...> wrote:
>
> I don't think I've posted here yet, but I've been lurking about for a
> couple of months. You guys are great.
>
> My question is in regards to video game ratings. My son is eight and
> a half, and an avid Star Wars fan. He's seen all the movies many
> times each, and pores through the visual dictionaries and books he's
> gotten on a daily basis. He's had a Gameboy for about a year, and we
> got an Xbox last fall. And he is an AVID computer guy! He's at that
> age where the Sonic and Spyro etc. type games don't hold his interest
> anymore - high action kind of guy. So his dad bought him some Star
> Wars games for Xbox that are rated for teens. He loves them and
> plays them a lot.
>
> Now, I am the mom that wanted no guns or violent toys in the house
> (long before unschooling days!), and I'm really sensitive to violent
> movies. I have eased up on forcing any of my *stuff* on him long
> ago, my husband is great on talking with me about this. And my son
> is a very peaceful kind of person (even takes care of flies in the
> house, feeds them, and won't put them outside if it's too cold.....)
> But I struggle with this issue lately.
>
> What do other families do with regards to ratings on games? He
> doesnt really want any other games than the Star Wars in the teen
> range, still likes some of his Gameboy Scooby-Doo and Metroid and
> AstroBoy. We talk about my concerns as a family. But sometimes I
> get wiggy about the whole deal.
>
> Is this simply my *stuff*?
>
>
> Deanna (who is listening to my DS and DH playing and enjoying
> themselves immensely right this minute!)
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

>>And my son
is a very peaceful kind of person (even takes care of flies in the
house, feeds them, and won't put them outside if it's too cold.....)
But I struggle with this issue lately.

What do other families do with regards to ratings on games?>>

Your son sounds a lot like mine. He has a catch and release program for spiders. <g>

Conor is almost 17 now and still a basically peaceful soul. He has his teen moments but has a deeply spiritual side and is a total pacifist who openly stands up for gay rights. However he LOVES to play Halo2 online with his friends. He likes any kind of first person shooter in fact, even those (especially those?) with the lovely blood and gore. I have always talked with him about it and felt comfortable that he understood that the violence was not real and not appropriate in real life. I used those ratings as a rough guideline for which games I needed to look at and talk with him about.

Only once did I freak out about a game. It was Grand Theft Auto 2 and his dad and I had bought it and given it to him without realizing the content when he turned 13. After I saw it and heard the hype I panicked and took it back in trade for another game. (It had a small part with hookers that upset me.) Even though I explained to him my conerns and told him it was *my* issue not his, I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. He was bummed but I didn't do this kind of thing often, if at all. So he agreed to go with my comfort level and return the game. Later on I thought more about it and watched what was in the game rather than just relying on the rumor. Looking back, I don't think I was giving Conor enough credit. But our relationship was strong and he valued my opinion. I wasn't wrong to take it back but it probably would have been fine for him to keep it.

He has a saying about violence only belonging in the virtual world and that's how he lives. So I haven't seen any effect of his shooting up pixilated bad guys flowing into his real life activities. But as with any parenting issue, I've been involved the whole way, talking and watching and sharing.

--
~Mary

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the
green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly
alive."
~Thich Nhat Hanh

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "mamavegg" <pstujo@...>

nrskay

> My question is in regards to video game ratings.


Hi: My 11 yo dd is a major gamer on her PS2 and computer. For us we
don't limit games. She has "everyone to adult ratings." We do
discuss the violence, bad language, etc on the adult games.

She has told me it's not the violence or bad language the excites her,
she just wants to get to the next level or challenge. She often turns
down the volume so she doesn't hear the language.

Before I became a rad unschooler I did control her games and she was
very bored with the younger games because they were not as challenging.

Kay

Malinda Mills

<<Now, I am the mom that wanted no guns or violent toys in the house
(long before unschooling days!), and I'm really sensitive to violent
movies.>>

This has probably been my biggest obstacle, Deanna. Tristan has several friends that I felt got way too into their gunplay (to the point I had to walk away, but the images greatly disturbed me), and for the longest time I never allowed toy guns in the house. When I was younger, I could watch violent movies without a problem. Over the past few years, however, I can no longer stomach them....and this has overflowed to video games and some of the more violent imaginary games the kids will play as well (the violence just hits too close to home in our family, with DH in the military).

After reading a ton about unschooling, I relented one day at Blockbuster and allowed Tristan to rent one of the Star Wars games. You would have thought this kid had won the lottery! LOL He's your son's age and has outgrown Spyro, Sly, and the like. He now has several Star Wars games that he enjoys so much.

Last night we were out looking at games and a few war games caught his eye. The worried look I had in my eyes didn't escape him, and he said he knew I didn't like those games since Dad was fighting in a war so he wouldn't get it. He always wants to know WHY something is rated like it is. He refuses to choose games with gore or language - those are two things he just does not care for at all.

Tristan is an active kid, who will play "lightsabers" outside all day with his friends. This is the same kid who takes care of any wayward bugs that wander into the house, insists on checking on friends who he knows are staying alone in their homes, and wants to attend a future anti-war rally in the area.

I'll sit for a bit to watch Tristan play but don't tend to hang around for long if I start to feel uncomfortable. It's great that your DH and son enjoy playing together! :o)

Malinda



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

My son plays video and computer games over ten hours every day. Most of the
time he is at home, and sometimes he goes to a local cyber cafe or the gamers
lounge. Over the years, we've talked about the violence and I've found an
uneasy peace with his take on it all. The problem that bothers me more, is the
sexist attitude found in many of the games. Years ago the females with the S &
M outfits were so cartoony looking, that it was easier to dismiss, but the
technological advances have made many of these games very realistic. And the
marketeers know that the predominant audience for these games are 14 to 34 year
old males.
They've enhanced the heavy breathing and glistening skin on the barely clad
evil temptress who has to be annihilated before you can get to the next level.
My son said that on several games there are 'secret' codes you can enter to
view or participate in various sexual activities. Who knew? And all the while
there are all the derogatory gay comments and jokes. Those really bother me.
Who are the geeks making these games?
When the computer and game consoles were in the family room, he self
regulated his games based on what he didn't want the rest of the family to see him
doing!
In our current situation he is behind a locked door a lot. He comes out for
food and to talk about his latest battle.
My son doesn't really want to stop playing long enough to get into a
philosophical conversation about any of it. But I REALLY listen to him, whenever he
is away from a console.

Robin

mamavegg

--- In [email protected], "Ren Allen"
<starsuncloud@...> wrote:

> But, what I have learned over the years, is video game violence is a
> fantasy world. It's pretend and doesn't have anything to do with
real
> violence.
> Real violence is encouraged and fostered by violence, neglect and
> abuse. Those are things my children have never been around, so they
> aren't actually drawn to violence, just pretending with it.


*********************************

This is what I have to keep telling myself. We are a peaceful
family, my son has not experienced any kind of violence or abuse and
is troubled when he sees it in "real life", such as on the news. He
is just sooooo sweet, that to see him blasting the heck out of droid
armies is a bit unsettling.

Thanks for the helpful responses, everyone.

Deanna

mamavegg

--- In [email protected], zenmomma@... wrote:


I have always talked with him about it and felt comfortable that he
understood that the violence was not real and not appropriate in real
life. I used those ratings as a rough guideline for which games I
needed to look at and talk with him about.


**************************

I feel this is such an important aspect of parenting and partnering a
child, especially in these areas where we have discomfort or concerns
ourselves. It certainly helps me to feel like I can just take a deep
breath and release all of my "what if's" when I am able to openly talk
with both my DH and DS about it.

So, you know what I found my son likes to do the most on his Republic
Commando game? Checks out his troopers to make sure the have adequate
health, and if not, he starts a healing and orders them to the health
tanks......I thanked my DH with a big smooch for sharing that little
tidbit with me, yup!

Deanna

mamavegg

--- In [email protected], "nrskay" <k_bird@...> wrote:



> Before I became a rad unschooler I did control her games and she
was
> very bored with the younger games because they were not as
challenging.
>
> Kay

******************************

Kay, you got me thinking about the tendency I and my family have for
looking for "age appropriate" items for my son......it can be so
limiting. I never thought of it in this way before. My mom is very
anal, and won't even consider anything for older kids in terms of
books, movies, games, etc. Yet I have seen my son enjoy messing
around with a toy marketed for younger kids as well as video games
for much older kids.

Deanna