I just have to post this before I forget:
I have been contemplating how to further explain to my children my loathing for violent video games. Today presented a perfect example. The news websites that pop up when I log on had two news-breaking articles about people getting angry and going on a shooting rampage. And then, lower down the page in the video game news was an article on the awards a number of 1st person shooter games had recently received.
I would call my understanding of world happenings pretty limited. I don't take the paper (although one is delivered to us once a week). I don't watch news on television. I tend to find out most major national and world happenings long after the fact. But this week has been full of terrible gun tragedies, local and world-wide. Every time I have sought or even been exposed to any news this week, I have heard of someone shooting someone else, sometimes even family members.
And then Matthew came home today with a request from a friend whose birthday party is tomorrow -- a request for "HaloWars" -- I'm not sure what the friend was talking about, because I don't think it is even out for purchase yet, but it is an RTS game building off of a line of mature-rated games. And the boy is turning 11.
Furthermore, his party is being held at an arcade/pizzeria. I went to check it out today, because thankfully my son Matthew is very strict about immodesty, something for which many arcade games don't have a very high standard. I didn't see a lot of bare skin, but the lighting was low, the music was very loud, and there were lots and lots and lots of guns.
So, I would like to say -- what gives? How can adults, and especially parents, play these games themselves and allow their children to play them and not think they will have a deleterious and even sometimes deadly impact?
I guess the real question is how can I help my children hold to the standard in the "Strength of Youth" pamphlet: "Do not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way," when it is all so readily available and acceptable in our society?
I feel like the dam holding back the tide. But too much is slipping through.
