Parents and MMOs

There are a few things you should know about parents. The first is you can’t tell them how to discipline, or parent, their children. You won’t make any friends and in fact you will ostracize your existing friends by doing this. The reason is very simple; every parent thinks they are a good parent, regardless of the truth. These facts are very important to remember when reading parent’s opinions and views, typically on themselves, as it pertains to video games.

If every parent thinks they are a good parent and refuses to accept criticism what do we do? Well if you want to get drawn into a long debate, assuming it’s on the internet, then challenge them. However the odds are you won’t change their mind. No it is unlikely you will change these people in any sort of direct confrontation. Bringing up studies done about video games and how they may be unhealthy or counterproductive to the social and mental growth of a child will only result in an anecdotal counter argument from the parent or youth in question.

It’s even worse when you throw Americans into the mix. We’ve been spoiled by our so called freedom here. As soon as you attempt to tell an American they should do something they cower behind the “American’s don’t like being told what we can’t do because we value our freedom” flag. Mind you that’s total bullshit, but the flag still flies high.

So what do we do if we can’t tell parents that allowing their children to play video games, in particularly MMOs, is bad for them? I’m not completely sure. To be perfectly honest I believe the only way to get parents to wake up would take a series of deaths related to video games. The problem is that people still wouldn’t place blame in the proper place. Instead of blaming the parent who neglected to… well parent their child they would blame the video game and the developer.