Where are the parents??

     Before I start this post, I would like to say that I am NOT a parent. I was lucky to have two amazing parents who were involved in my life and raised me well. I am NOT telling anyone how to raise their kids. This is a request for more parental involvement in 


    The other day, I was playing Halo: Reach with a friend of mine on XBox Live. This has become a good stress relief activity lately. We meet up, we game, we drink mountain dew, yell at the TV, it's a good time. On this given day, we were playing online. One of the people who was in our lobby was on a headset, communicating vocally with other players. The kid playing was 10 years old, and had his 5 year old brother sitting next to him while he played.

     I'll say that again: the kid playing Halo: Reach, a video game intended for an audience age 17+, was 10 years old, and his 5 year old brother was sitting next to him watching.

    I'm not sure which aspect of this is the most surprising: the 10 year old playing, the 5 year old watching, the headset which allowed the kid to share all this information to strangers who could be anyone, anywhere, or that the parents weren't anywhere to be found.  

     The kid shared this information when someone else in the lobby asked. He shared where he was from, his first name, and his brother's first name. The kid wasn't good at the game at all, but to be fair, Reach came out when he was either 6 or 7. He presumably hasn't been playing that long (he had a much lower ranking than everyone else playing). Some of the other players started to taunt the kid, saying he "sucked," was a "little f*****," and that it was "past his bedtime." The kid seemed to be unfazed, although he did talk less after that.

     The kid’s dad was later heard over the mic, telling him to “wrap it up” as it was “time for bed.” The parents were home the whole time, letting their 5 year old son watch as their 10 year old son played the most violent and graphic video game of the Halo franchise, and let him talk to strangers over the headset. I know it’s not my place to criticize other parents, especially as I am not yet a parent, but this is absolutely unfathomable to me. I have a hard time figuring out how any parent could justify letting such young children play and watch a video game intended for an audience age 17+.

     People in the media regularly point to violent video games as a source of blame when bad things happen. It frustrates me to no end because these games are not intended for kids at all! Parents buy these video games for their kids, and seem to have no knowledge of what actually happens in these kinds of games, and if they have a headset, they have no control of who their kids end up talking to, or what gets said online. 

     Common sense seems to be so uncommon nowadays. It's frustrating to think that this is happening. I'm not asking for much. All I'm asking is that any parents who read this would think about the video games they buy for their children, and maybe sit with them and watch what they're doing. A 10-year-old doesn't need a headset (I'm 22 and I don't use one). Just a little involvement would go a long way.

     

     Here's a link to the official video games ratings guide: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp