Video Games

With the release of the new Playstation 3 (PS3) the other day, news travels of people waiting in line for 2 or 3 days, others being trampled and even one person being shot.

The case with the person being shot during an attempted robbery while he waited in line for his PS3 happened one town over from where I currently sit. Apparently two 15-17 year olds tried to rob the dozen people waiting in line for their PS3. The victim is still in the hospital, but will be recieving a free PS3 from the store when he recovers.

Of course, with news like this, my email already received correspondence from friends asking how to keep their kids away from video games.

My own beliefs are that video games are not the cause of the violence we saw here. I feel that blaming video games is just another way to pass the blame. It's a media influenced scapegoat for parents who are to busy to do their job and actually raise/parent their children. I believe that supervising kids with video games is the key.

My husband has grown up with video game consoles since the Comador 64 era. He currently owns numerous game systems and does play. Does he feel the urge to go out and shoot someone? As far as I know, no.

When Einey was younger (and we actually had more time to relax) he would sit on the floor playing his game and she would be right there next o him, with the spare controller in hand, playing a game with daddy. Will he play games with gore and tons of violence? No. But in the games some creatures die. At 4, Einey knows fact from fiction. She knows what is real and what is make-believe. So to say that teenagers cannot tell that the games they play on TV is not real is completely incomprehensible.

For Christmas, we have discussed getting Einey some kid friendly games to play on both the PS2 , Game Cube and Game Boy Advance (which will now be hers as Daddy has a new DS Lite). Will we be careful with what we buy her? You bet.

Video games, like movies and music all come with a rating. I have heard of numerous reports from parents who claim not to know how violent a games is, despite being the one who purchased the game in the first place.

So basically I feel parents should spend more time with their children being parents and less time letting their teachers, friends and TV's raise their kids for them.