Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Let’s ask ourselves these three questions:

1. Do my children play video games, or any kind of games online, and freely access the internet?

2. Do I know the kind of games they play (on their own or with their friends)?

3. Am I aware of the kinds of ‘impact’ the games will have on my children?

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I’d like to share with you one of today’s most popular games called ‘Grand Theft Auto’ or GTA.

It is known as a violent bestselling video game and its latest version (GTA V) allows players to do all ‘sorts of things’, from a player point of view.

Players are in 3D, enacting ‘real scenarios’.

If you haven’t heard about the game, or if you don’t know much about it, I’d really recommend that you search and find out more about what the game is about, today.

Because with this post, I’d like to share with you how this game is totally NOT for children.

Not for adults too, if you ask me.

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Here are some of the reasons WHY:

> This game glorifies crime and violence. 

As the player, you can hit, kill, butcher others, violently. Players are regularly exposed to killing acts, blood and gore.

 
> This game contains strong and explicit s*xual content

‘Seriously? Like …. what could possible be done in a game children play these days?‘, you may wonder.

Any sane parents out there feel this is all okay and ‘MERE ENTERTAINMENT’ for their children, since ‘it is just VIRTUAL’?Here is just one example:

GTA V allows the players watch as a prostitute (or someone’s wife) performs s*x acts on them! Complete with explicit images and sounds! Audio represents the player AND the prostitute during the s*x act!

And wait, there’s more:
Apparently the players can AFTERWARDS murder the prostitute – gruesomely – and take back their money.

GTA V allows players to use their game controller to rape, kill, beat women, hire prostitutes, visit strip clubs, cheat on their spouse, amongst many other acts.

Seriously, I don’t know if any sane parents out there actually feel this is all okay and ‘MERE ENTERTAINMENT’ for their children, since ‘it is just VIRTUAL’? (read : It’s not like they actually are doing it, right?)

3. Constantly strong languages

When researching about this game, I only needed to listen to ONE minute of a GTA V gameplay clip on Youtube to decide that such vulgarities / crude dialogues should never be heard or accepted as ‘normal talks and behaviours’ by children.

At least not by ‘my’ children.

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Regardless of whether we have any faith in anything or not, would we watch an R-rated movie with our young children? Parents,

Do we know what’s going on in our children’s lives?

Do we nurture and build a strong relationship and open communication with our children, so much so that we can discuss the danger of such games (and the virtual world in general) with them?

I feel something is just so wrong if children (or even adults) can :
– laugh at a sight of someone being butchered or shot to death
– chuckle and find it funny upon seeing an old woman being hit by a car
– feel it is okay to rape and torture someone since it is just a ‘virtual game’

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Now.

“What if the player is a 13-year-old and the parent said:
‘My son knows what’s right from wrong, and he knows what is reality and what is fantasy! Other kids who don’t play GTA also can turn out to be worse than kids who play!’

To such parents I’d probably reply:

As a parent, I know I’m accountable to God for everything that I do and say to my childrenIt is entirely up to the parents to decide what is best for their children. Others can write and say about anything, and at the end of the day, it’s each to their own. 

It’s just I would choose to do things differently though.

Because even if I know what’s right from wrong, … I believe what I play, watch, listen and read are like ‘food to my mind, heart and soul’.

If I wouldn’t touch rubbish with my bare hands, if I wouldn’t put rubbish into my mouth, then why would I feed rubbish into my mind, heart and soul?

Yes, our children can turn out to be ‘anything’ as they grow up (may God have mercy). They are not robots. 

But as a parent, I know I’m accountable to God for everything that I do and say to my children. And this game (and I’m sure there are heaps more out there) is one kind of exposure I believe would do more damage than good.

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I don’t know about what you believe in.

But regardless of whether we have any faith in anything or not, would we watch an R-rated movie with our young children?

Would we allow our children to visit strip clubs, kill, steal and rape?

If we disallow such acts to be done in the real world, then why doing them in the virtual world be any different?

The thoughts, intentions, or worse ‘pleasure’, from such acts are real, though done virtually.

(Click HERE to read the article on dailymail.co.uk where teachers report parents who let their kids play GTA to the police)

I myself am a Christian Mom, and I find such games to be in total conflict with the faith that I have in Christ.

Many may disagree with me, but to me personally, exposure to such games is tremendously destructive to one’s mind and heart.

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Parents,

This is the kind of world that we live in. The kind of world that our children live in.

May God have mercy on us all and protect our little ones from harm, be it in the real world, or virtual.