Violence is a part of human nature, like it or not a part of life, just as many other not-so-nice-things out there in society. Parents need to teach their kids about this in order for the kids to be able to deal with that responsibly. People need to realize that they are raising adults, individuals that need to be able to cope with various not-so-nice-things in life. Keeping those things away from your kids and indulge / providing no consistent boundaries or spoiling them rotten is what makes kids not being able to cope with adversities and they gain no knowledge about these things.
Exposing your kid to violence needs to be done in an age appropriate way though.
The whole concept of right and wrong and the development of a solid sense of morals/right & wrong takes place before puberty and needs to be guided and experienced. Ever wonder why those kid-soldiers in Africa are able to commit such atrocious acts of violence? It's because their concepts of right and wrong were still in the process of being formed. Adults around them, training them for war situations, provided them with their sense of right and wrong - which of course was totally twisted.
A socially neglected kid, with a set of house-keys, a tv and a video game as a parent is at risk. So is the kid whose parents provide everything materialistically but forget about the development of affect and emotion. ....it's not the video games but the lack/absence of vital (parts of) parenting. There's tons of psychological literature on this. People solely blaming video games for high-school shootings are very short-sighted and over simplify the problem. GTA doesn't cause violence in society.
in order words:
Learning how to cope with frustration, learning how to postpone, learning how to endure unpleasantness to some extend, learning about boundries and modelling behaviour from a solid role model is vital for a good psychological development. Parents of all times have problems teaching and exposing their kids those things as they often look back on their own childhoods and sometimes opt to purposely do things differently. Some indulge out of guilt. In a way there is a kind of sine-wave moving across the generations when it comes to parenting, some call it the 'generational gap'. If a child doesn't learn about the above mentioned things, has a limited or no sense of boundries, has no abilities to postpone and is not able to handle frustration properly then it is at risk of developing agitative moods and impulsive tendencies - this is what causes violence in kids, regardless if video games are present or not.
Violence is a part of human nature, like it or not a part of life, just as many other not-so-nice-things out there in society. Parents need to teach their kids about this in order for the kids to be able to deal with that responsibly. People need to realize that they are raising adults, individuals that need to be able to cope with various not-so-nice-things in life. Keeping those things away from your kids and indulge / providing no consistent boundaries or spoiling them rotten is what makes kids not being able to cope with adversities and they gain no knowledge about these things.
Exposing your kid to violence needs to be done in an age appropriate way though.
The whole concept of right and wrong and the development of a solid sense of morals/right & wrong takes place before puberty and needs to be guided and experienced. Ever wonder why those kid-soldiers in Africa are able to commit such atrocious acts of violence? It's because their concepts of right and wrong were still in the process of being formed. Adults around them, training them for war situations, provided them with their sense of right and wrong - which of course was totally twisted.
A socially neglected kid, with a set of house-keys, a tv and a video game as a parent is at risk. So is the kid whose parents provide everything materialistically but forget about the development of affect and emotion. ....it's not the video games but the lack/absence of vital (parts of) parenting. There's tons of psychological literature on this. People solely blaming video games for high-school shootings are very short-sighted and over simplify the problem. GTA doesn't cause violence in society.
in order words:
Learning how to cope with frustration, learning how to postpone, learning how to endure unpleasantness to some extend, learning about boundries and modelling behaviour from a solid role model is vital for a good psychological development. Parents of all times have problems teaching and exposing their kids those things as they often look back on their own childhoods and sometimes opt to purposely do things differently. Some indulge out of guilt. In a way there is a kind of sine-wave moving across the generations when it comes to parenting, some call it the 'generational gap'. If a child doesn't learn about the above mentioned things, has a limited or no sense of boundries, has no abilities to postpone and is not able to handle frustration properly then it is at risk of developing agitative moods and impulsive tendencies - this is what causes violence in kids, regardless if video games are present or not.
Geez, I am dead tired. Another 24-hr shift.
Editor / Pixelator - Armchair Arcade, Inc.
www.markvergeer.nl
Armchair Arcade Editor