Okay I am going to rant a bit- these are my opinions that I am expressing:
Well in talking with my good friend K the other morning during our morning walk and talk session, we hit on the problem and she was in agreement..More parents need to stop letting Video games be the baby sitter.
The entire gaming industry needs to be revamped, It all first started with "Dungeons and Dragons" some of us who are old enough to remember- a group of kids got so heavily involved in it, they were actually role playing and killed a person-they were living the game, talking like the game, dressing like the game, they all even renamed themselves with medieval names..
Well games have evolved a lot since then, they are realistic and keep you coming back for more.
You take a kid, that is bullied, he has no friends, he is the loner, both parents work, he comes home from school and the first thing he does is pick up and turn on the video games. Give him a game console and let him grow up with that..and it becomes his best friend. He starts to believe in it, and believe it is real...he then feels he needs to act that out. The boys who committed these recent killings all had 2 things in common..their age group, and they were all in to video gaming.
Also, there has got to be more parental involvement in your kids life, and parents need to know what their kids are doing, and care enough about them..You had them, be responsible for them. I have a friend, her little boy is 8. He has a PSP, A Wii game system and a Xbox... it is all he does, and he looks at my kids like they are from another planet because we don't have all that. We have another friend whos 5 year old is a mental health case, both parents work, he has been raised by day cares, and what does he have at home? Again, a Wii, an Xbox, a PSP, and his own Ipad tablet...Good Gawd No wonder he is the way he is. I love his parents but they use no sort of discipline and he runs over both of them.. I would give anything if they would pull his pants down and wipe his little A--
Immediately after BO took his photo op at the memorial service in CT. do you know what the commercial was? It was for a new game called "Hitman" A kid sees that and plays that, and they think they can do anything. They think they can be that character. You put that in the hands of a kid with some mental issues, who has been picked on and bullied his whole life, and its a recipe for disaster.
And then there is the whole movie industry..I love the show "Criminal Minds" I watch it all the time..a few weeks prior to the tragedy in CT, they aired a show about 2 brothers, who kidnapped a school bus full of teens, they took them to a warehouse that was set up like a video game, the brothers put shock collars on the kids and made them go through this warehouse killing each other.. Why? Because they were playing out a video game they were involved in using real people. I did not think much about that episode until this happened last Friday..how scary.
Another thing is, there needs to be legislation on what doctors prescribe for these kids... You can't cure mental issues by prescribing pills like its candy. They can't just brush the problem under the carpet with pills and tell the parents it will be okay. Because obviously its not.
So my point to my rant is, people are over reacting, the weapon is an inanimate object..the real issue is what is going on with the mind behind it, and all the parameters involved.
Like I said in a comment on another bloggers post.. "where there is a will there is a way, Cain killed Able with a rock"
-JUGM
Agree with you about the video games, movies, and parents being involved with what their kids are doing and spend time with them. There are good things to say about medicine prescribed to kids but I think it has to be done cautiously and with lots of monitoring. I also think doctors and other healthcare people need to really listen to a parent when they come in and express concerns about their children's behavior. It took me YEARS to get someone to listen that my daughter was a bit different in her behaviors. Everyone wanted to attribute it to her physical disabilities (she has cerebral palsy) but no one wanted to associate itwith anything mentally and emotinally going on until it was too late (too late meaning by the time someone would really listen to me, she was too far advanced in her depression and psychosis that no one locally could treat her and she had to be sent 1400 miles away for 7 months of inpatient therapy).
ReplyDeletebetty
I def. Concur Betty.. it does need to be monitored better. I hope things are better with your daughter. Our friends grand son has palsy...we love him to death, and my boys just adore him.
DeleteExcellent post
ReplyDeleteVideo games definitely contribute to the 'numbing down' of our culture.
ReplyDeleteAMEN !!!!!!!
DeleteTHANK YOU !
DeleteI read this the other day and it goes right along with what you wrote.
ReplyDeleteChildren are like bank accounts.... If you open a bank account and put nothing in it for eighteen years, and then come back to take out a withdrawal, don’t expect to get much out. If we don’t invest in our children their entire lives, we’ll never get much of a “withdrawal” from them. If you’ve poured into them, trained them, and loved them, when the teenage years come and the peers start to have influence on them, you’ll still, Lord willing, be able to see fruit in their lives, because you’ve invested spiritually and physically in their lives!
Thats awesome Mama! I am going to copy that to Facebook....thanks for sharing!
DeleteI like what Mama Bear posted as well! I agree about the video games. My son has an xbox, but he is 16 and I have never let the t.v. or video games be a baby sitter even though for 10 years I was a single mom. Great post!
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