a healthy gamer: good tips for parents PART 3

 

Online play: something you should take seriously, but not why you think.

With Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network—not to mention games like World of Warcraft and hundreds of other online titles for the PC—being so popular, you have to be aware of when your child is online.

"I don’t think the risks are with online predators. I think the risks are with negative online behavior fostering a generally negative atmosphere for kids, which is ultimately not healthy," Knorr explains. "I think the anonymity of online gaming is problematic because it doesn’t help foster empathy, which again is key to social development. Never allow a child younger than 12 to play online multiplayer games unless the game is highly secure, and has moderated and filtered chat—something like Club Penguin, for example." For kids older than 12, you can allow supervised online gaming with a discussion of your rules: no hate speech, no negative behavior.laying video games online can be unhealthy for children for the same reasons many adults find it distasteful: racial and sexual terms are far too common, aggressive behavior and generally abusive language is the rule instead of the exception, and rarely do these kinds of anti-social behaviors carry any real consequence. Speech or even virtual actions that would never be tolerated in the real world can be normalized by playing online, and these problems aren't just something that you may run into online—they're a near certainty.

Vance makes the case that children need to be instructed how to act and behave online just as they are in the real world. "Exposure to strangers through a game online can carry with it the same risks as meeting strangers in the offline world," she tells Ars. "Just as parents teach their kids to deal with those issues in the real world, they need to prepare those kids for these kinds of possibilities in the virtual realm as well."

Imagine it from a child's perspective: they're usually taught not to talk to strangers, and now they're in a situation where the whole point is interacting with strangers. They're taught not to use certain language, and suddenly everyone is using that language with no oversight. Be nice to others? That's another behavior that's thrown out the window with online play in many games or services. Online play is a tricky thing, and if your child is playing with a headset, you have no clue who is speaking to him or her or what they're saying. Proceed accordingly.