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[The Scollard]

I think the problem is a COD themed birthday is just a military themed birthday. COD is not a unique identity.

If the problem is that its a military-themed birthday, what's the difference between this and having a GI Joe themed birthday party, since both are military related.

 

[Fredrik]

Very inappropriate. And since it was a family b-day party I would've told the parents how inappropriate it was.

Can't compare violent games today to what you all played as kids either. Games look real today.

 

[tesqui]

I played Doom when I was 5 and I would've loved a Bday themed around it! A Cacodemon cake for me please.

 

[icecold1983]

I'm not an expert but yeah I have a degree in psychology with a minor in child development. Sick burn.

So surely you can link us to some scientific literature showing that correllation between violent video games and dangerious behavior

 

[ChouGoku]

My favorite game when I was 4 and 5 was Doom. I would've liked a shotgun to shoot some demons

 

[Art Vandilay]

Nah, it's definitely inappropriate.

Agreed. That's just weird.

 

[Hoho for breakfast]

I wouldn't do it for my kids party. I have a lot of nephews and I know 2 of them around that age that play CoD though. Still, not for a birthday party.

 

[Astral Dog]

It could be worse lamb, it could have been Pokemon

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

If the problem is that its a military-themed birthday, what's the difference between this and having a GI Joe themed birthday party, since both are military related.

GI Joe has hokey memorable characters and also ninjas. COD has............Soap?

 

[SMOK3Y]

‘MURICA!

First thing i thought is this has got to be US lol

 

[Z..]

Quite frankly, fuck people condemning this... like our generation was any different. I was hooked on Doom at 6~8 years of age as was the entirety of my generation and I've yet to see a single consequence. Focusing on the wrong fucking thing, really, as anecdotal as my frame or reference may be it's too strong to ignore.

Agreed. That's just weird.

I gotta ask... was Vandelay taken or what's the story there?

 

[lifeexpectancy]

Am I wrong for thinking this is a little...inappropriate? The cake had a grenade and gun and bullets on it with a little 7 on it. The kids were clamoring over eating the pistol and the bullets. When I asked what to get the birthday boy, I was told he is obsessed with the CoD games this year. And I'm like...wtf is he doing playing CoD at 7? I got him a Lego Marvel game instead.

I guess I played rated M games as a kid, but I was like 12...6/7 is kind of too young imo to be encouraging a kid to obsess over that level of brutality and serious themes IMO. It's not my kids so I obviously didn't say anything, but I don't think it's right.

What do you say, GAF? Am I being too judgmental or is it kind of inappropriate for a 6/7 year old kid to be obsessed with CoD?

Most people over the age of 25 or 30 grew up in a world where it was normal for children to play with super realistic looking toy guns, including cap guns for which the 'ammo' couldbe considered dangerous, and we were fine. It is encumbent upon parents to teach their children the different between fantasy and reality and that real guns are not to be played with.

Unfortunately most parents these days let a cell phone raise their children. But I seeno5hing wrong with a CoD themed kids party as long as the parents ARE engaging with their kids about this subject.

 

[NoKisum]

Activision might as well go all out. Get a partnership with Disney and show a major Call of Duty tournament on Disney Channel like they did for Smash Bros. & Street Fighter. I'm sure it'd be a hit.

 

[Sami+]

So surely you can link us to some scientific literature showing that correllation between violent video games and dangerious behavior

ok

Gentile, D. A., Bender, P. K., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). Violent video game effects on salivary cortisol, arousal, and aggressive thoughts in children. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 39-43.

Çetin, Y., Wai, J., Altay, C., & Bushman, B. J. (2017). "Effects of violent media on verbal task performance in gifted and general cohort children": Retraction. Gifted Child Quarterly, 61(2), 153.

Collier, K. M., Coyne, S. M., Rasmussen, E. E., Hawkins, A. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Erickson, S. E., & Memmott-Elison, M. K. (2016). Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes? A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. Developmental Psychology, 52(5), 798-812.

 

[Jamiaro]

My 6 year old watches me play Titanfall 2 (huge robots, yo!) and he himself plays Lego-games once a week.

I play other games once he is asleep or just out of the house.

I can't imagine that he would ask for a cake like that in the op. :/

 

[Sami+]

My 6 year old watches me play Titanfall 2 (huge robots, yo!) and he himself plays Lego-games once a week.

I play other games once he is asleep or just out of the house.

I can't imagine that he would ask for a cake like that in the op. :/

I haven't played Titanfall but what I've seen of it looks like something I would have been all over as a kid tbh. Very exaggerated with giant robots and jetpacks and wallrunning, I assume the antagonists in the campaign are just straight up bad guys. Would love to share that kind of stuff with my kid someday in a safe environment, props for that.

 

[Z..]

ok

Gentile, D. A., Bender, P. K., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). Violent video game effects on salivary cortisol, arousal, and aggressive thoughts in children. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 39-43.

Çetin, Y., Wai, J., Altay, C., & Bushman, B. J. (2017). "Effects of violent media on verbal task performance in gifted and general cohort children": Retraction. Gifted Child Quarterly, 61(2), 153.

Collier, K. M., Coyne, S. M., Rasmussen, E. E., Hawkins, A. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Erickson, S. E., & Memmott-Elison, M. K. (2016). Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes? A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. Developmental Psychology, 52(5), 798-812.

The first 2 are the same link AND are paid content.

Third link asks for authentication which vast majority of people obviously won't have.

Can you shed some light as to what their conclusions are and save us all alot of trouble?

 

[icecold1983]

ok

Gentile, D. A., Bender, P. K., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). Violent video game effects on salivary cortisol, arousal, and aggressive thoughts in children. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 39-43.

Çetin, Y., Wai, J., Altay, C., & Bushman, B. J. (2017). "Effects of violent media on verbal task performance in gifted and general cohort children": Retraction. Gifted Child Quarterly, 61(2), 153.

Collier, K. M., Coyne, S. M., Rasmussen, E. E., Hawkins, A. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Erickson, S. E., & Memmott-Elison, M. K. (2016). Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes? A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. Developmental Psychology, 52(5), 798-812.

Will check them all out and report back

 

[Nights Owl]

I edited because I wanted my point to be clear and precise.

Yeah, sure, but it's nice to know you think I'm a lunatic because I refused to listen to my mother being apologetic to her boyfriends abuse for so many years. Shame on me for finally stepping up and realizing I shouldn't be treated like shit and that it wasn't right despite her saying it was.


It might not be freaking Military or COD related, but I really get pissed off when people act like the parents always know best and that their child or other people shouldn't question them when it can literally fuck up a kids life.

 

[Sami+]

The first 2 are the same link AND are paid content.

Third link asks for authentication which vast majority of people obviously won't have.

Can you shed some light as to what their conclusions are and save us all alot of trouble?

Here are the abstracts:

Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes?
A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior.

The current study examined how parental mediation of media (restrictive mediation, active mediation, and coviewing) influenced child outcomes. Three meta-analyses, 1 for each type of mediation, were conducted on a total of 57 studies. Each analysis assessed the effectiveness of parental mediation on 4 pertinent child outcomes: media use, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. The overall results indicated small, but significant relationships between child outcomes and restrictive mediation (r .06), and coviewing (r .09). Overall active mediation was nonsignificant, though active mediation was individually related to lower levels of aggression (r .08), sexual behavior (r .06), and substance use (r .11). This analysis revealed that parents may have the ability to mitigate some of the adverse effects of the media by using certain mediation strategies. Overall, a cooperative effort from the communication and parenting fields is necessary for a comprehensive analysis of parental mediation as well as a disentanglement of the various parental mediation measures.

Collier, K. M., Coyne, S. M., Rasmussen, E. E., Hawkins, A. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Erickson, S. E., & Memmott-Elison, M. K. (2016). Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes? A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. Developmental Psychology, 52(5), 798-812

Violence exposure subtypes differentially mediate the relation between callous-unemotional traits and adolescent delinquency.

Research with children and adolescents has established a link between callous-unemotional (CU) traits and delinquency, as well as a link between violence exposure (witnessing and direct victimization) and diverse negative and antisocial outcomes. Little attention has been paid to investigating the association among CU traits, violence exposure, and various forms of delinquency. Using a sample of 753 adolescents (male =58%; African American =46%), the current study aimed to elucidate the mediating role of violence exposure (measured in grades 7, 8, 10, 11) on the relationship between CU traits measured in grade 7 and later delinquency (i.e., property, violent, drug, and sexual) assessed in grade 12. Total violence exposure (witnessing and direct victimization) mediated the association between CU traits and all forms of delinquency. When looking at witnessing and direct victimization separately, however, only witnessing violence mediated the relationship between CU traits and all forms of delinquency. These results highlight the importance of violence exposure in the CU-delinquency link, and showed the differential roles of indirect and direct forms of violence exposure on the association. Witnessing and direct victimization may involve different underlying mechanisms influencing developmental outcomes in youth. These findings have important implications for understanding developmental models of violence exposure, CU traits, and delinquency, as well as interventions for youth who have experienced both indirect and direct forms of violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Oberth, C., Zheng, Y., & McMahon, R. J. (2017). Violence exposure subtypes differentially mediate the relation between callous-unemotional traits and adolescent delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. Advance online publication.

Parental mediation in an evolving media landscape—Commonalities, contrasts, and implications for design.

Comments on the chapter by Jessica Taylor Piotrowski (see record 2017-00224-013). The chapter by Piotrowski demonstrates that parents play important roles as gatekeepers, facilitators, and moderators of their children's use of media. Studies of parental mediation of children's media use frequently center on counteracting potential effects of negative media content, such as ameliorating the impact of violent media or overcoming gender stereotypes. However, parental mediation can be equally valuable in facilitating or enhancing positive effects of media as well. Perhaps the most extensive body of evidence in this area can be found in the decades of research that have documented benefits of joint parent-child book reading in contributing to children's language and literacy development. This commentary discusses several issues related to parental mediation that enhances the value of educational media: the nature of such mediation, how it compares across different types of media, and how media can best be designed to promote such mediation.
(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Fisch, S. M. (2017). Parental mediation in an evolving media landscape—Commonalities, contrasts, and implications for design: Commentary on chapter 13. In R. Barr & D. N. Linebarger (Eds.), Media exposure during infancy and early childhood: The effects of content and context on learning and development (pp. 221-226).

Edit - Don't want to skew too far off topic but just pointing out that there are sources of research on this. Most not free, unfortunately, but there ya go.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Can you shed some light as to what their conclusions are and save us all alot of trouble?

I've researched and summarized a lot of published research on the topic (not saying I agree or disagree... I don't really care. it's just my job to summarize research sometimes), and usually the findings are that aggressive or violent games lead to aggressive behaviour that can be measured immediately after. E.g. a sample of kids take a poll, then play some games for an hour or two, and then take another poll. the poll is some sort of measurement of behaviour. and i've seen quite a few studies find that kids sometimes have more aggressive answers afterward.

I would hesitate to call the behaviour violent or dangerous over aggressive because they're usually behavioural polling.... it's kinda ethically hard to 'test' if a kid has become "violent" so maybe it asks, how a kid may respond if someone took their chair in class, and perhaps the kids give responses than appear more aggressive. "violent" would be a difficult characterization of it imo.

the other thing I've seen a lot is they're usually short term studies. 'same session' sort of thing. it's just difficult to do a proper long term study with the same sample while also isolating other factors. so they're usually shorter term studies and often the way violent games make kids more aggressive is not unlike any 'adrenaline' activity. I'm sure you could find similar effects from competitive high adrenaline-racing games or fighting games, competitive high adrenaline sports, etc. they usually do find some difference from violent movies because violent games/aggressive sports have more agency, but the effects are often still similar.

all that said, that's mostly speaking about violent or aggressive games.. I think the reason COD would be different than, say, G.I. Joe or maybe even Doom back in the day is not because it's violent but because its realism could feel more graphic. and I'm not really sure what the research is on 'graphic' games (it usually focuses on aggressive and violent games).

either way I don't really care. my impression (again, not my field of expertise but I have summarized the topic dozens of times... sadly) of it is that it has an effect only in lieu of parenting or educating. which is why most kids who played violent games as kid are fine. but yeah if someone let COD raise their kid, let them think bullying in OK is ok, never set any rules and always fulfilled their expectations -- you do enough of those things that always gratify an emotional response, in theory that can lead problem behaviour. i'd never attribute it to just COD tho.

 

[ViviOggi]

Yup that's no good

 

[weekev]

Here are the abstracts:

Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes?
A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior.

Collier, K. M., Coyne, S. M., Rasmussen, E. E., Hawkins, A. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Erickson, S. E., & Memmott-Elison, M. K. (2016). Does parental mediation of media influence child outcomes? A meta-analysis on media time, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. Developmental Psychology, 52(5), 798-812

Violence exposure subtypes differentially mediate the relation between callous-unemotional traits and adolescent delinquency.

Oberth, C., Zheng, Y., & McMahon, R. J. (2017). Violence exposure subtypes differentially mediate the relation between callous-unemotional traits and adolescent delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. Advance online publication.

Parental mediation in an evolving media landscape—Commonalities, contrasts, and implications for design.

Fisch, S. M. (2017). Parental mediation in an evolving media landscape—Commonalities, contrasts, and implications for design: Commentary on chapter 13. In R. Barr & D. N. Linebarger (Eds.), Media exposure during infancy and early childhood: The effects of content and context on learning and development (pp. 221-226).

Edit - Don't want to skew too far off topic but just pointing out that there are sources of research on this. Most not free, unfortunately, but there ya go.

The thing for me is that correlation does not equal causation. In my view parents that allow 7 year olds to play COD are likely to let them get away with other shit too. Letting their PS4 babysit them stops them having meaningful family time, conversations and will stunt their psychological growth. I don't have a degree in psychology like you though so I'd be interested to hear if you agree with my theory.
Edit or I could just read your very good post 2 up, sorry

 

[BBboy20]

It's pretty much exactly like this but with a giant kiddish 7 candle on it

Yeah, you would have to straight up advertise the game in order to figure out the context of all these real world armaments beyond "I want to be a soldier".

 

[jrcbandit]

One thing people need to remember that mature games in late 80s or 90s did not have bad language in it or voice acting, and the graphics were no where close to looking realistic. Plus, there was no realistic depiction of sex, it was cartoony censored at best like Leisure Suit Larry. So those types of games would not have the same effect on 7-10 years old like it would today.

 

[Finaika]

At least its not a Dead or Alive themed birthday party.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

At least its not a Dead or Alive themed birthday party.

America

Where the human body is considered more harmful for children than lethal weapons

I say this as someone who hates Dead or Alive

 

[The Lamp]

America.

The kid probably has a firearm at home.

Yup, America as fuck, and I'm not a fan of it. Ive been told he owns several expensive firearms actually (his dad bought them for him and taught him to hunt and shoot). They are kept in the parents closet. I don't even think they're locked up but I'm not sure. I'd rather not divert the thread but yeah, I don't agree with the way they parent, and I don't believe they "engage" him on this content like many of you recommend. I think they just don't care if he plays violent things.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Yup, America as fuck, and I'm not a fan of it. Ive been told he owns several expensive firearms actually (his dad bought them for him and taught him to hunt and shoot). They are kept in the parents closet. I don't even think they're locked up but I'm not sure. I'd rather not divert the thread but yeah, I don't agree with the way they parent, and I don't believe they "engage" him on this content like many of you recommend. I think they just don't care if he plays violent things.

ugh this makes me so angry

 

[Cuningas de Häme]

There is a concern that stuff like that might desensitize kids to violence and guns, but it's nothing new. Would it have been all that different if it were a cops/robbers or cowboys/Indians themed party? Most kids come out of it alright.

Well, of you look the situation in the US and how much there is gun related violence, one could say that they are desensitive to gun violence.

And games today are a lot more real like than the ones I used to play. 8 bit violence is nothing compared to games this day and age.

Same with movies. I wouldn't show my kid any of the modern action movies, but the 80's had pretty good stuff, also 90's.


USA has a very, very unhealthy approach to violence, especially done with guns. They glorify war, and a huge party of it is because of entertainment industry makes that kind of content.

 

[TLZ]

Now imagine if the family were middle eastern.

 

[Javier23]

You - like a majority of GAF people - are overthinking this

Not really, it's pretty odd. And somewhat sad.

 

[Messofanego]

American kids have been grown up on loving guns and the military thanks to pop culture and gun lobbying groups marketing it to them. Toddlers have killed more Americans than terrorists.

Call Of Duty is just the modern toy equivalent of American gun and military glorification.

Yup, America as fuck, and I'm not a fan of it. Ive been told he owns several expensive firearms actually (his dad bought them for him and taught him to hunt and shoot). They are kept in the parents closet. I don't even think they're locked up but I'm not sure. I'd rather not divert the thread but yeah, I don't agree with the way they parent, and I don't believe they "engage" him on this content like many of you recommend. I think they just don't care if he plays violent things.

Yup, figured as much.

 

[Itaremustbedangeres]

Yup, America as fuck, and I'm not a fan of it. Ive been told he owns several expensive firearms actually (his dad bought them for him and taught him to hunt and shoot). They are kept in the parents closet. I don't even think they're locked up but I'm not sure. I'd rather not divert the thread but yeah, I don't agree with the way they parent, and I don't believe they "engage" him on this content like many of you recommend. I think they just don't care if he plays violent things.

That's fucking disgusting... and sad... really sad. I hope the kid turns out fine.

 

[RedAssedApe]

Yeah kind of not age appropriate quite yet. Although probably not that far off as I remember playing stuff like Mortal Kombat starting around 6th grade and this was the early 90s. COD is a tier below that.

I assume kids get exposed even sooner now with all the stuff available online. Although I suppose as always it depends on who they hang out with and parents.

 

[SolarMystic]

‘MURICA!

Should have been the first post.

 

[anothertech]

Lol. I was making m80's with my brother at 6. Grenades and guns is no different than bow and arrows or ninja stars. Kids like that stuff naturally, and cod is pretty tame in the violence dept honestly.

Don't get your knickers in a twist so easily.

 

[Jonnax]

Lots of kids that young even love GTA5. You know the one where one of the main characters is introduced by murdering someone by stomping on their head until there's bits of brain on his shoe.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

Terminator was my favorite movie when I was 7.

I saw Terminator 2 and some violent shows but they were pretty light on it. But I'm not gonna lie I'm pretty sure I wasn't mean tot watch those when I was 10 lol.

I honestly don't know what the best age for becoming densitized to violence is. In T2 seeing Sara Conor get burnt to a crisp in her imagining a nuclear attack scared me shitless and then seeing an arm get cutoff from a Megazord in S1 of Power Rangers also just stunned me.

But I hear so many stories back then of kids playing MK2 when they were 12 too and for a lot of people younger than me they probably played GTA3 or 4 at that age too.

I have no idea about 7 though. That's like Grade 2 right? I was still learning how to multiply and watching Transformers then lol (and I believe I also had no clue what the plot was)

 

[Sweep14]

You should offer him a real gun with real ammo for his next birthday. Just to see the parents reaction...

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

This is shocking.

What are the parents thinking? Complete idiots.

 

[aygomyownroad]

I went to a house on a job and was talking to the mother while her 4 year old was playing GTA Vice City! He was just walking about, I asked her about it and said he saw his dad play it so he wanted to play it.

Its a tough one. My daughter loves trying to play Mario kart, Sonic Mania and Fallout 4! She just walks about sanctuary basically.

I played games rated for older people when I was 5, but the graphics were not as good at the time, (I was 16 when GTA3 landed) but good for you for getting him a good game, he will hopefully not overlook it.

 

[eizarus]

So surely you can link us to some scientific literature showing that correllation between violent video games and dangerious behavior

It doesn't. TV is much worse. Here's a study based on 11,000 kids over a decade. http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/21/archdischild-2011-301508

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Yeah kind of not age appropriate quite yet. Although probably not that far off as I remember playing stuff like Mortal Kombat starting around 6th grade and this was the early 90s. COD is a tier below that.

I assume kids get exposed even sooner now with all the stuff available online. Although I suppose as always it depends on who they hang out with and parents.

There's a difference between you playing MK at 9 and your parents baking you a cake at 7 featuring a marzipan decapitated head on the top. It's totally irresponsible parenting.

 

[Ban Puncher]

 

[newtypepilot]

Press F to eat cake

 

[The Lamp]

You should offer him a real gun with real ammo for his next birthday. Just to see the parents reaction...

They'd add it to the collection

 

[Randall365]

Might as well let the kid watch 18 rated movies and porn too.

I remember sawing through someone's throat in a vietnam level which shocked me in my twenties! Can't be great for a seven year old.

 

[kurahador]

Suggest GTAV to the kid. Let see how the parent react when seeing their kid want GTA theme party.

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

Terminator was my favorite movie when I was 7.

Same here.