Recently an article was published on GamePolitics.com, with a view on a new report put out by the FTC on how Virtual Worlds offer real explicit content to minors. You can view the article at this URL.

It seems to me that we are touching very closely on the thin line that separates how far government policy should go when it comes to activities that our children will be (and I use the term WILL instead of maybe) involving themselves on, and what a parent should be doing in terms of their own due diligence to monitor and police the activities that their children are involved in online.

Let’s first start with the issue, the issue is that games are being policed by government policy. This is no different than to tell an artist that they cannot paint a nude picture because a minor may see this explicit content, or a singer from not using certain tones because they are too harsh and may invoke depression or suicidal thoughts. Art is art, and as such it should have some freedoms that are part of the creative process (within limits). For instance, I am a strong proponent for the music industry having clean versions of songs and explicit versions so the purchaser of the music can determine which version they want to have based on the content. Games are no different, they should be allowed to make games as gore-filled and explicit as they want to, with the understanding that the PURCHASER will make the decision on whether the content is acceptable. Let’s look at that one more time–the PURCHASER will make the decision.

This of course would then require the game studio or distributor to adhere to some general guidelines in terms of how to rate the game and provide a high level and consistent guide for purchasers (and lets face it, most purchasers who who I’m referring to here are parents as if you are over 18, well you’re old enough to make your own decisions) to understand how gore-filled or explicit a game is and if that is acceptable to them.

But to create guidelines for parents that in my view provide common sense approaches seems to be overstepping the bounds. This is no different than the government imposing themselves by providing guidelines on how you should be eating–in my view, that is up to independent civilian organizations to provide those to consumers as then it provides choices and isn’t perceived as something that should be applied across the entire population. The same goes with games. Yes games have a tendoncy to just be all involved. People fall in love, get in love affairs, engage in less than PG behavior, and yes there are plenty of risks and exposures, but you know what, that’s life. And as a parent I make it your own responsibility to own that risk from end to end.

If your child subscribes to a game through facebook, falls in love, and something bad happens, my first questions are:

  1. Why does your kid have a Facebook account?
  2. If you knew about the Facebook account, what measures have YOU imposed to regularly monitor that account activity? (again, it’s NOT Facebook’s responsibility to protect YOUR child, it’s YOUR responsibility to do that!)
  3. How do you maintain an open dialog with your child to be aware of the types of games that they are engaging in, and how do you prepare yourself to be educated and informed on the content of that game, it’s inherent risks, and if need-be to block the access to that game (all while having open dialogs, as I’m certainly not advocating that you just go up and pull the Cat5–your child will hate you and figure ways around your dictatorship behavior).
  4. How do you monitor dialog your child has with others via social mediums, email, twitter, facebook, myspace, MMORPG, etc.

This seems like an aweful lot of responsibility, but the truth of the matter is that if something bad happens, it’s not anyone else’s fault than the parents, as you should have made time to have open dialogs with your child and be an aware and involved parent. It is NOT up to the vendor or the provider to police your child’s activities, and it certainly is not up to the US Federal Government to be setting guidelines telling you what as a parent you should be doing. Go figure it out. Ask questions, talk to people, go online and do a bit of research. If there is one benefit from college that everyone should have as a take away is that knowledge requires research and leg-work. You can’t rely on the credibility of research that others have done and you have to go through your own process of validation.

Parenting in the 21st century is tough, there is no question about it. And I will be the first to say that I have no idea what that is entirely like not being a parent myself! But just from the periphery, you cannot as a parent throw up your hands and say that it’s up to someone else. That just is not an option. Just like a parent should be involved with your child’s activities in school, and at home or with the friends and places they go to, online activity is just another facet to that relationship and is ultimately the responsibility of the parent to get that under control.

And again I’m not advocating control in the totalitarian view, as your children are smart–probably smarter than all of us who are reading this, and will figure out ways to get around you (if for no other reason than to do it out of spite). You need to have a good enough relationship where your children feel comfortable in telling you about what they are doing, heck you should be participating with them–if they love World of Warcraft get an account and play along side with them. This is what I would call Bonding Time! You can have fun, and at the same time see how your child interacts with the virtual world, the people that they meet and to help shape and guide their behaviors so they know how to react or engage to situations appropriately. Ultimately this is what a parent does is to shape and guide their child through life’s challenges taking from your own experiences and intuition and passing that onto the next generation to build upon.

I do believe that there is a gap emerging in all of this as technology is moving at such a fast pace that as a parent it can be very difficult to keep pace with things. You cannot let that deter you and you need to be ontop of the emerging technologies. Let your children teach you and together you can work through acceptable use policies and guidelines. This should be a family effort, instead of parents looking at a technology and saying “Well I don’t understand it therefore until I do stay away”. This way of thinking will get you nowhere and ultimately encourage the child to defy you based on your own ignorance.

It does mean that tools need to be made available in clear language that provides parents with high level important tidbits of a game or technology that they can evaluate and say yes this is something that I would accept or no thanks we’ll wait a few more years. And when in doubt, try it out yourself! For goodness sake! It’s like a movie, am I going to allow my child to see something based on the rating, or am I first going to go see it myself, or at last watch trailers, read reviews, read synopses of the movie–you’d do all of the above and more. This is just part of the due diligence that I am referring to above, and the responsibility that parents ultimately have as gatekeepers to the brave new world that we are facing in this generation and generations to come. You can stand back and try to hold back the raging waters, but in the end it will be a futile effort and it’s best just to take the bull by the horns and trundle through this as best we can.