WoW blamed for bad parenting
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Opinion
Here's a recent news item from the Contra Costa Times, about a kid who played way too much World of Warcraft: "[World of Warcraft had become] the one place he was joining the world. Bringing him back to the real world took months of therapy, a wilderness camp and boarding school." Months of therapy, a wilderness camp and boarding school -- could the cure be worse than the disease? The article describes him as a "tween" -- between the ages of ten and twelve. So let's break it down. A middle schooler was allowed by his parents to spend as much unsupervised time playing World of Warcraft as he liked, such that it was the only thing he did. A game the parents would have had to pay with their credit card each month, along with the initial cost of the game. The parents didn't notice their son had become withdrawn for such a long time that months of therapy, a wilderness camp and boarding school became the only options. Who was really to blame?Blizzard knows that their game is addictive; they've even gone so far as to create parental controls for the game. Parenting support groups urge children to be restricted to just a couple of hours a week on the game. Given there is so much concern about children playing computer games of any sort to excess... how is it Blizzard takes the blame? Before World of Warcraft, it was EverQuest. Before EverQuest, it was Dungeons & Dragons. It can be hard for parents to keep tabs on their children; their natural desire is to give their children space to mature and learn how to take care of things on their own. But any sort of parents should be able to tell when a game, or depression, a fight with a friend or any of the thousand things that get too serious has gone beyond what a child can handle. Waiting until a problem has become so severe that boarding school and months of therapy are the only solutions are not Blizzard's fault. It's the parent's.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
GRT said on 4:36PM 4-10-2008
Preaching to the choir, Brenda...
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GRT said on 4:37PM 4-10-2008
Oops, premature submission issues....
You could argue that parents now have it *easier* than they used to. It'd be a lot harder to prevent your kid from playing D&D than it is to prevent them from playing WOW. All you need to play D&D is some dice and an imagination, after all...
Ghen said on 11:29AM 4-11-2008
Or even the early roguelikes, moria, angband, etc. No such things as parental controls and they're just as addictive to the loot/level mentality!
Parental Controls make today's entertainment very easy to control both online and on your TV. Any parent that doesn't know by now to look for parental controls when setting up entertainment for their kids is lax.
Vice said on 6:27PM 4-10-2008
Therapy, wilderness camp and boarding school? Note that none of these solutions entail spending more time listening and talking to their kid. Seems to me these parents were looking for opportunities to kick their kid out of the house and push responsibility somewhere else.
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Ghen said on 11:31AM 4-11-2008
Yeah, that sounds about right. What, was Boy Scouts just too much trouble for these parents? Oh, 4 hours 1 day a week and maybe a weekend a month camping.. rough!
Calarius said on 9:36AM 4-11-2008
Because, as always, it's easier to place blame outside of the parents. Last time I checked, World of Warcraft was incapable of bearing children.
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