Study Finds Few Australians Are Aware of Parental Locks

[Knight Templar]

People in my nation are stupid and yet somehow I am expected to have pride in my nation.

 

[Aitruis]

Media should not be censored because parents don't pay enough attention.

 

[Andronicus]

Well I grew up watching whatever I felt like, and once I got to about 9 I could play whatever I felt like, and I never once had a discussion about the difference between reality and gaming, because my parents brought me up so that I had some sense, regardless of topic. I turned out fine, have not once murdered someone. Actually I've never even had a fight.
A friend of mine was brought up watching violence, his dad wanted him desensitised to it, then made sure he would know it is allowed in fiction, but not in real life. Again, he turned out fine.
As far as I can tell, sheltering them just isn't the way to go.

According to Atkinson, you, and I for that matter, are those weirdo freak of nature exceptions that absolutely and on no way should be taken into consideration whatsoever, despite the fact that we're pretty much the majority, as far as I can see. All they need is one kid, one kid that decides to get into a fight at school, and see if they played WoW at any point in the past 5 years. "OMG dis kid playd Wordl of Worcraft liek 3 yrs ago for harf an hour and it's totaly corupted him vidogamz are bad BANBANBAN!!!"

This survey doesn't really surprise me. I've always thought that we need a solid campaign in Australia to advertise that there really are games that are unsuitable for children, and that parents should give considerably more attention to the games their kids are playing, regardless of whether we get an R18+ rating or not. Also, their should be more stringent supervision in game stores on what games are being sold to kids, and harsher punishments for those caught selling those games to underage children.

God knows I want an R18+ rating for Australia, but even I can appreciate just how stupid people are. You can't expect them to work it out for themselves, and that's exactly what Atkinson's argument is based on. You need to shove this stuff down their throats, up their noses, in their ears, up their arses, and anywhere else it will fit, and even then keep shovelling until something sticks.

 

[Starke]

Are we sure australians are democratic at all? I doubt it.

OT: Why should australian parents be aware of parental control locks when their government doesn't allow the existence of such games in their country at all?

At least as democratic as Iran or China, I guess.

Also, it does allow 15+ games, which include MW2, so... yeah, that's not really a good excuse, no offense.

I wasn't talking about those. I could care less about those. STOP TALKING ABOUT THOSE!
/crazy ranting

But yeah, it was a comment on how parents can't really be bothered to learn how to protect their children from something when the government is doing it's best to do their job for them.

At least I didn't invoke Godwin.

But, anyway... I don't know, there's some kind of paranoid fatalism when it comes to technology and games. And the thing that scares me shitless is it's starting to pop up in people my age, and I've no fucking clue why. This whole "I can't undstand it, I give up, it's all evil" shit.

At some level I can't help but think these are the same idiots who used to beat the shit out of me on the way home from school for watching Star Trek. But I'm really not sure it's that simple.

I'm sure sheltering children from all that stuff completely isn't the right thing to do, which is what I said as well I believe. What I'm saying is you can't dump all of those issues on kids at once and see how they turn out.

What I don't understand is why I'm having this discussion; when a kid starts trash talking or kicking grandma in the shins because they played GTA 4 everyone's outraged that parents let their children play games like that. Are you suggesting we should be completely candid to children now because the middle ground between completely sheltering them from sex, violence etc. and not caring what games they play seems like the best course to me.

Hey, if they'd blame the parrents I'd be f---in' thrilled. Really, truely, thrilled. But the blame doesn't go back to bad parrenting, it goes to the developers and publishers. Anyone remember the story about that 12 year old in the UK that swiped his mother's credit card and blew a couple grand on XBox live? The story was about her suing microsoft or something along those lines, not her own intrinsic failures as a parrent.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

Yeah, even if the parents do put on the parental locks its not like people are going to find a way around them. I got around my parental lock by using a simple math equation, really wasnt that hard.

 

[Solivagus]

The problem isn't the games or the ratings or the parental locks. The problem is lack of education. For both adults/parents and children. The only reason any of this became an issue in the first place is because dinosaurs (meaning ancient in thought, not awesome stomping lizards) like Atkinson said that too many young people were getting their hands on games and media directed at adults, but it was bound to happen anyway. So it's no one's fault.

By denying the necessary education and ad campaigns on this matter, responsibility is taken away from the parents and left floating. Kids aren't blamed because that would mean blaming parents who haven't been educated properly which means blaming the institution responsible for eduction (the government). And children, in Atkinson's vocabulary, are ritalin popping idiots moments away from watching or playing something deemed unsuitable for their age.

Edit: This doesn't include the parents that wouldn't bother changing their habits or shielding their children from such games. Some of those children are actually mature enough to know the difference between reality and fiction. Most of those children and parents, however, are yobs (white trash).

 

[Zenode]

The censor on books over here can't really be that bad considering when i went to the Australian War Memorial last year in the gift store they where selling Mein Kampf >.>

I would rather my kid takes out his anger by bloody slaughtering an alien than taking it out on some other poor kid

 

[lenneth]

Media should not be censored because parents don't pay enough attention.

It shouldn't but those in power are obviously not listening.

also any australians reading this(people in SA paticularly) should check out http://www.gamers4croydon.org/home

 

[The_Healer]

*Incomprehensible babble of rage*

Now that's over and done with, let us just accept that Australia is destined to never get an 18+ rating for games; and that I will be happy to buy the overseas versions off ebay.

 

[Hashandir]

If you raise your children in a plastic bubble, without letting them experience the ups and downs of the world, you're gonna end up with a killing spree when your little baby grows up, jumps out of the bubble and buys his/hers first bloody/violent video game.

If Atkinson had an ounce of common sense in his whole useless body, he'd see that you can't, and more to the point, shouldn't shelter your children completely from the world.

 

[Sennz0r]

By 14, the average kid (in the UK) has tried alcohol, cigarettes, and about one in four have tried smoking weed. Many are socially drinking, and learning with their friends about these things, forming habits that will inform the next 10 years of social behaviour. Do you think that not being allowed to play Gears of War is going to make much of a difference?

So basically what you're saying here is "let them do whatever the fuck they want because they'll find a way to do it no matter what." Well excuse me if I won't stand by and let my kid screw himself up (if I'll ever have kids). I'm not naive, I know when kids start experimenting with alcohol and cigarettes and the likes. The thing is as a responsible parent you're going to have to teach your kid what's potentially harmful for him so he knows the consequences of his actions. And sure he's gonna have that underage drink anyway. Hell, I got my underage drink from my parents. And you know why? Because they figured this way they could at least introduce me to the stuff themselves, instead of some group of 14 year olds handing me a bottle of vodka straight away.

As a parent you have to stay involved, not turn your back on the problem and see how it turns out. I've seen plenty of 16 year olds go to hell on the streets their parents didn't care. Which makes me glad mine did.

So yeah, of course kids swear on playgrounds, start drinking fairly young and maybe even smoke (I never did, but I know plenty who do). There's still a difference between letting a child go down that road alone or to be involved.

My parents' approach was not to forbid me to drink etc. They figured I'd just be secretive about it, which is exactly what most kids do. By not making something like that taboo (and I have to stress that you should start with that at a certain age, around 14 apparently) it loses a lot of its appeal. Which worked for me I guess, since I never smoked a cigarette in my life and only started drinking regularly at age 16 (which is legal over here).

 

[Thaius]

Probably because all the games worth blocking in the first place are banned... Why would people bother knowing about something that serves no purpose to them?

 

[orangebandguy]

Just think, without 18 rated films and games we could all be as insane as the Austrailian government!

Makes me glad I'm on the minority side of my family in England. The rest have to put up with it.

 

[Cavmatrix]

wait who commenting on this is an australian?

 

[VanQ]

The one thing that I want to point out here is that not all games are purchased FOR KIDS! I buy games for myself, I don't even HAVE any kids where I live! Nor do I have the desire to allow any children to play my games! I have to admit though, I was playing AVP and Predator: Concrete Jungle back when I was just a pre-tween and they both clearly deserve an R18+ rating, yet I'm still a working adult with no criminal history, fancy that Attkinson!

wait who commenting on this is an australian?

Yes, I'm an Aussie.

 

[Danpascooch]

So you would explain exactly what sex is to a 6 year old when he asks about it?

There's a time in a kid's life when you stop protecting them from the big, scary real world so he learns to cope. There's also a time when you shield him from all the things that are still unfit for the kid. You can't let a kid play a game like Gears of War and then tell him "remember, it's just a game!" when he goes out to play outside with his friends, knowing damn well children re-enact all manner of things they see and experience.

Protecting your child from certain visuals until he's old enough doesn't make you a bad parent. Teaching them how to deal with certain visuals when they eventually come into contact with them is absolutely the right thing to do, I agree with you on that. It's no use to tell a child it doesn't exist or whatever, there is such a thing as overprotective.

However, when you absolutely don't care what a child sees or hears or plays on a console, you are being a bad parent. Protecting them from it or explaining to them it's not real is caring, that's what it comes down to.

There's nothing scary or upsetting about saying to a child that sex was what adults did to make babies. I don't know about anyone else's families, but in mine, explaining about sex didn't involve a diagramatic mechanical guide on what to do and how to do it, and so I don't see the point of bs-ing kids who ask about a perfectly normal part of adult life.

There's also a time when you shield him from all the things that are still unfit for the kid. You can't let a kid play a game like Gears of War and then tell him "remember, it's just a game!" when he goes out to play outside with his friends, knowing damn well children re-enact all manner of things they see and experience.

Re-enact it with that chainsaw gun that I keep lying around for him and his friends to play with? Kids have mimicked war since long before GoW and allowing them to play it on the tv isn't going to change the way they play. It might change the words they use and the sorts of weapons they mimick, but they are playing either way. They certainly won't magically find automatic weapons to shoot each other with.

There's actually some mildly credible sociological data that says that children who were sheltered from the realities of life completly, (sex, death, and the like) were disadvantaged when dealing with those aspects of life later, in contrast to children who were exposed and could cope much more easily with those factors as an adult. (If I have the time, I'll try to see if I still have the study someplace).

And plenty of anecdotal evidence. This research needs more research.

What I don't understand is why I'm having this discussion; when a kid starts trash talking or kicking grandma in the shins because they played GTA 4 everyone's outraged that parents let their children play games like that. Are you suggesting we should be completely candid to children now because the middle ground between completely sheltering them from sex, violence etc. and not caring what games they play seems like the best course to me.

HAHAHA and here we come to the problem. "When a kid starts trash talking or kicking grandma in the shins because they played GTA" <- leaves me gobsmacked. Those 15 hours spent playing GTA managed to unravel all the good work that a sensitive and involved parent spent 11-14 years nurturing to fruition? Yeah, sure. And kids certainly don't swear in the playground, where they learn the words from older kids and so repeat them to be cool.

But it my opinion, once a kid hits about 14, you shouldn't really bother to shelter him much anymore.

By 14, the average kid (in the UK) has tried alcohol, cigarettes, and about one in four have tried smoking weed. Many are socially drinking, and learning with their friends about these things, forming habits that will inform the next 10 years of social behaviour. Do you think that not being allowed to play Gears of War is going to make much of a difference?

ABSOLUTELY. If these kids were not allowed to vent their rage by use of violent video games, the world would have no more problems. At all. Ever.