My son recently saved up his pocket money for six months and bought himself an XBox 360. No he doesn't get paid the big bucks for his chores, I went halves with him in the purchase.
We bought the console as part of a bundle, which included the Kinect equipment, a controller and 3 games. All of the games are for the Kinect. After just one day, Mr Eleven was complaining that he needed a controller game because it was exhausting playing the Kinect games. He gave me a list of games he would like - which I found quite funny - I'd just forked out $180 on a console, and had not intentions of buying top of the range games now!
However I did concede that I could buy him one. Off to EB Games I went, and found the perfect game. Rated PG, Thor seemed like a good option. After all, he got a controller game and I got to watch a Chris Helmsworth character on screen. Win-win situation if you ask me.
To his credit, he loved the game and was extremely appreciative. But he continued to try to plug away at me to buy him the ones he really wanted. Nothing but the Halo series would make him truly happy with his new toy. "Mum," he said, "I've been playing it for ages when I go across the road to my friend's house." That made me angry. He knew I didn't want him to play it, so had snuck across the road to play it at his mate's house. Perhaps I was most angry because I knew it was something I would have done as a child as well!
I'd done a bit of research on Halo, and found that the ones he wanted were rate MA 15+. Hayden has played games that are M rated, usually with simulated video violence, but still at a level I'm comfortable with. I'm not prepared to buy those games for him yet - he's only 11 years old, and I trust that the censors who rate these games rate them at these levels for a reason.
I visited EB games again today and found two games in the Halo series that were rated PG and M. They were also heavily discounted, so I got the two of them for $30 total. I've read the details, and am happy that they will be ok for him to play. He will probably get the PG one first and I'll hold the M rated one back until I've checked out the PG version.
When I paid for the games, the assistant asked me if I'd like to pre-order Halo 4. I politely declined and asked what the rating was. "MA15+" was the response. I explained that it was for an 11 year old. She nonchalantly replied, "Oh, that's ok, we find that kids who play those rated games are as young as 8!"
I was dumbfounded, and then started to question myself. Was I just a fuddy duddy who wouldn't let my son play these games? If other parents were ok with it, why wasn't I? I really began to second-guess myself.
Then I realised that everyone is different. I'm not judging anyone here. If you're reading this and your child plays games above their classification level, that's your choice. You know your kids better than I ever will and I'm not hear to tell you if you're right or wrong. I just know that for my son, I'm not ready for him to learn more adult concepts through video games. I don't watch him play every moment he is on, which means I can't talk him through things that may be beyond his conceptual levels.
So he'll stick to the PG games and the occasional M for the moment. He may not think I'm the coolest mum in the world, but that's ok. I'm happy to trust in the censors' decisions in these things in determining what is age appropriate for games and apply them against him as an individual.
I do the same thing for television shows and movies. When both of my kids were younger I would watch some of the PG and M movies first (yep, nothing like being able to see I'd seen the Harry Potter series twice at the cinema!) to ensure I wasn't ambushing them with content they couldn't handle. I didn't always get it right. Miss Seven-at-the-time was terrified by Dementors in the third movie of the series. I didn't pick that she would even give them a second thought. She had nightmares for weeks after the movie. Mr Four, on the other hand, had no problems at all.
That being said, I would never have guessed that the Simpsons episode that featured X-Files music and an alien conspiracy theory ("I come in peace") would strike such fear into a four year old's heart that he would run from the room and hide in his room every time the episode aired - right up until his tenth birthday. Maybe I should have seen it. He would watch the first ten minutes of Disney's "Monsters Inc" from the kitchen so he wasn't in the room with the monsters. But then again, he would watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with me without any qualms at all.
All I ask is that if you have a child come to your place to play and they are drawn to the gaming consoles (as they all are!), please consider the content of the games they are playing. If a parent had asked my son, "Are you allowed to play these level games", he would quite honestly respond with a negative.
It's the same as watching a movie. I've had afternoons when my son's friends have come over to play while I've been in the middle of a television show. The Crime Channel on Foxtel is my favorite channel, but the content on there is not always appropriate for visitors to my home; in fact, it's not always appropriate for my own children either. That's when it's time to record the show, and flick over to something a little more mundane and appropriate to the level of the visitor.
So keep an eye on the content of what you're watching, what your kids are playing and what other kids who visit might be exposed to and it'll be all good!
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