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UK Teachers call for anti-game laws

Vergil'sBitch

I am Nero's Mom & Obsessed fan girl
Premium
*yawn* here we go again

Primary school teachers at their annual meeting have called for politicians to introduce 'stringent legislation' to stop very young children from playing violent video games.

The annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has complained that children as young as four and five are acting out violent scenes from adult video games and that parents are routinely ignoring age ratings.

'The watershed tends to work quite well, but with online TV and video children and young people are probably watching inappropriate content over a range of media,' said the ATL's Mary Bousted according to The Guardian.
'It's about reminding parents and carers that they have a very real responsibility for their children and that schools can't do it alone,' she added.

Although there is some unfortunate rhetoric in the teachers' statement, about children becoming 'addicted to fantasy worlds that separate them for reality', for the most part their concerns seem perfectly understandable.

What worries us is a lot of vague references to unnamed 'doctors' and 'psychiatrists' implying a link between video games and mental and physical problems, when none has ever been proven.

'We all expect to see rough and tumble, but I have seen little ones acting out quite graphic scenes in the playground and there is a lot more hitting, hurting and thumping in the classroom for no particular reason,' claimed one West Yorkshire teacher.
'Obesity, social exclusion, loneliness, physical fitness, sedentary solitary lives – these are all descriptions of children who are already hooked to games … Sadly there is a notable correlation between the children who admit to playing games and those who come to school really tired,' she said.
Whether there really is a link between in-game and real world violence though we think everyone can agree that four year olds should not be playing Grand Theft Auto and other 18-rated games. The problem is how to stop them, since the Inbox is regularly filled with stories of parents knowingly ignoring age ratings when they have them pointed out by shop staff.
The PEGI age rating system was supposed to become legally binding, in the same way as film ratings are, but it's been caught up in a political quagmire and still seems no closer to happening.

As someone cool with a certain awesome avatar said :cool: :
Perhaps parents should stop buying violent games for kids. There are plenty of times that I've gone into a game shop and seen kids asking parents for 16+ whatever rated games. Parents need to be educated for two things. 1. Gaming isn't just for kids 2. that number on the box isn't a difficulty level, it's an age rating.
 

Chimera Khaos

Hades Leading General Commander
I don't live in the UK, but I think that is just f'd in the a...

Over here, it's ot too bad, but that's mainly because we have gangs running around trying to recruit people and then causing all kinds of mayhem you'd see on GTA and other stuff...
 

Dark Drakan

Well-known Member
Admin
Moderator
*has head banging comp with SRS*

the title is also supposed to be ANTI... believe it or not, i spelt my name wrong today too.

Ive changed the title for you. As you quoted in the first post violent games arent created for children. Maybe parents and teachers should start looking a little closer to home as to why some children behave this way rather than pushing the blame onto the games industry.
 

Vergil'sBitch

I am Nero's Mom & Obsessed fan girl
Premium
Ive changed the title for you. As you quoted in the first post violent games arent created for children. Maybe parents and teachers should start looking a little closer to home as to why some children behave this way rather than pushing the blame onto the games industry.

Thank you Dark Drakan.

I was saying to my mum earlier how good it would be to contact someone (with a bit of power) to get a campaign (or something like it) up and running that educates parents (and teachers) about age ratings.
 

Sparda's rejected son

For Edenoi!
Premium
Supporter 2014
Thank you Dark Drakan.

I was saying to my mum earlier how good it would be to contact someone (with a bit of power) to get a campaign (or something like it) up and running that educates parents (and teachers) about age ratings.

This would be good for parents.
But I fear this could also backfire and doom us all!
But maybe not. :)
 

Vergil'sBitch

I am Nero's Mom & Obsessed fan girl
Premium
This would be good for parents.
But I fear this could also backfire and doom us all!
But maybe not. :)

the only people that would lose out are underage gamers (and mybe the games industry)... and I remember what that was like... but at least games couldn't be blamed (much) for the world's problems.
 

Sparda's rejected son

For Edenoi!
Premium
Supporter 2014
Folks don't know how to raise kids these days.

'Obesity, social exclusion, loneliness, physical fitness, sedentary solitary lives – these are all descriptions of children who are already hooked to games … Sadly there is a notable correlation between the children who admit to playing games and those who come to school really tired,' she said.
Oh yeah? Then if that's the case why am I so freaken skinny??
 

Angel

Is not rat, is hamster
Admin
Moderator
As one even wiser person once said to me:

Utterly Awesome Person said:
You can't take the jungle out of everyone with good parenting

Kids will be kids regardless of the supposed input. I don't believe children are any more nasty than they were 50 years ago - we just hear about it more now because we have more means of reporting it. Plus the options available where punishment and discipline are concerned have been increasingly limited thanks to the bleeding hearts brigade who think every adult is an abusive psychopath at heart.

That said, I do not believe that anything that teaches parents about the ratings laws will change a thing. I'd bet anything that they KNOW what the labels mean but they are just choosing to ignore them for whatever reasons. I don't know how many times it has been debated on this forum and elsewhere concerning the whole kids and violent video games issue but it still stands that in my opinion there needs to be some common sense being exercised when it comes to allowing children access to things that are far beyond their comprehension on whatever level it applies.

Put the console in a family room, put parental controls on, keep to time limits on how long a child can game - it's not rocket science. If you think your kid can understand enough to play GTA then why the hell not? It's on you if they become car-stealing, molotov-hurling nutters as a result but it's highly unlikely that this will occur from a little gaming exposure but rather a lack of understanding between reality and fiction, cause and effect, actions and consequences. If they don't get their overly-violent attitudes from games, they'll get it from TV or films or little Timmy down the road with serious mental health problems. Or simply just because someone has never put them in their place and kept their behaviour in check.

Vilifying the games industry is pointless. You may as well go back to the times of sticks and stones because the world has moved on and as much as we'd like to have our kids playing with teddies until they leave home, it's not realistic. Or sensible. Common sense prevails - the politicians won't have anything sensible to say about this issue. Ever. So it's on the parents to review the games as they come and decide what is best for their kid. And keep in contact with parents of other kids who hang out with theirs to make sure that they're all on the same page. It's what I do and it's not hard.

Your kid is getting too fat? Chuck them outside with a football or whatever and tell them they can come back when they've done 30-60mins of exercise. Your kid is tired? Check their diet and make sure they are going to bed at a sensible hour along with some sort of chilling-out routine half an hour beforehand so they aren't completely wired before bed. Your kid can't make friends? Encourage them to invite fellow gaming kids over and have a co-op session or whatever. Join an after-school club. Buy them a freaking dog - I dunno. There are ways of working through these things without being all crazy about it.

My kids do and will continue to game for as long as it interests them. And I fully expect them to get their hands on something utterly unsuitable at some point, scare the crap out of themselves and then take ages to pluck up the courage to admit it to me. At which point I shall laugh at their misfortune and say "I told you so" as often as possible. Because, as a parent, gaining the upper hand NEVER gets old.
 

Sieghart

"Plough the lilies"
6 year olds here in my country are already playing Left 4 dead,GTA,God of war ETC
So yeah......
 

V

Oldschool DMC fan
When I was a kid we didn't have many games, but my sister and I would still dress up like knights and try to knock the crap out of each other with sticks in the garden. I don't think there was a time when kids didn't play fight, or love games, no matter what they were... are they trying to say that there was a point when kids were not so physical (but not sedentary) and actually wanted to come to school and sit there obediently for six hours listening to teacher?

Most every kid would much rather be doing something else, I bet. It's so funny that they always have to try to blame the nature of children on something else, in the past it was comics, then videos, now games... but never the fact that kids just want to be kids.
 

Angel

Is not rat, is hamster
Admin
Moderator
With me and my sister it was always cowboys and indians. We'd drag all the dining room furniture outside, make a den using bedsheets over the top of the table and chairs and then make guns out of sticklebricks for the cowboys and use sticks and string for the bows and arrows the indians would be using.

We'd beat the living daylights out of each other until someone (inevitably me, being younger and therefore more whiny) got hurt properly and the game had to stop. But I don't recall watching a lot of violent TV (we didn't even have a TV for some years) or playing a lot of violent games (Monopoly, anyone?)...
 

V

Oldschool DMC fan
I don't think violent games or films really had an affect on us as children. We both knew the difference between reality and the game, and we knew we were playing, and I was the oldest so I was predictably the more boisterous one, even a bit of a bully sometimes. Whatever we did play, I don't think it had much to do with what we'd played or seen on TV, rather than the books we'd read or the raw concepts of things. Black knight vs white knight, etc.

I know that there have been some cases where kids have literally tried to re-enact specific games and sometimes got hurt or even died, but I think it's extremely rare. And how is it really any different from when children sometimes do other dangerous activities they shouldn't? I remember we once managed to get into a large derelict Victorian house when we were kids, that was full of huge black holes in the collpasing floors, and rusty nails and who knows what else... and one of us managed to almost fall through one of the holes and landed on a rafter full of rusty nails instead. Now that could have ended very badly, luckily it didn't, but that was just a very random, stupid, childlike act for us to do and we did it. I don't think any movie or game or anything suggested the idea to us, other than that we knew we weren't supposed to go in there, so it was automatically fascinating to us.

I suppose there is a concern in the sense of those children that are not able to control their behaviour as well as others, should be more carefully looked after. I have a friend whose son was very naturally anxious when he was growing up, and she did not want him to play violent or disturbing games, or anything with blood, and he himself said he did not want to see them either. It isn't a case of something you can put blanket rules on, but more a case of parents knowing the strengths and weaknesses of their kids and trying to steer them accordingly. Which is what parenting is about, I guess. I just think some people think parenting must be a simple case of allowing this and disallowing that... or that all kids are identical. It makes you wonder if the people claiming this is what parents should do to protect kids even *have* kids, or are the worst parents going?

My sister who is grown up and has her own son now, though, is an example of someone who *could* do better. It's okay, I think, to allow your child to see and play these things as long as you're on hand to explain to them how it really is, and to stop any problem acting or thinking in its tracks, or steer them away from it. Not just leave them to it. I know she has, in the past, just left him to it in front of the TV and the games consoles, and I know it has angered my mother, who thinks the child will suffer as a result. But my sister is adamant she knows what she is doing and there is not much anyone can do about that.
 

lorddemolatron

I think im sort of dimensional traveller lol
Premium
Well. From my beginnig of live my Family have an computers in home. Well it was my brother C-64, since he vas older than me but when I getted my third pirmary school grade, we all gotten first true computer and games like sadly I had encounter with famous Doom or FF VIII as PC games but I only gotten chance to play FF VIII only, I never getted playtrough of Doom.
And now only we all have next-gens and realistically violent games, but for me experience them never caused me been lonely as I have friends or totally mentally insane, here are lies. I could never attack anyone in reality , only in VR i have an bloodlust and violent urges but not in real. I could never allow my kids to play games wich are 18+, they can easilly mental breakdown antyone, but my stance never changed as Im not insane for now.
 

Tony_Redgrave

TimeLord Detective
Moderator
Everything affects children. Not only games. Parents should be held responsible for what affected their children up to some point at least.

But also, not everything decides how a kid will be/what he/she will become. If someone grew up to be a psychotic murderer, then he/she either would be anyway, and if games actually did affect her/him then surely they weren't the only thing that made them like that, and/or their parents should have taken notice at some point.

Reminds me at that anime guy who killed animals for sport, but they were all like "oh my god, he is a murderer suddenly, it's all ANIME fault".

People would do anything to squeeze money from other people nowadays.
 
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