Do 13 year olds not babysit and mow lawns and shit anymore?
Age restrictions are kind of arbitrary. They are set at what people think is enough years to accumulate the experiences necessary to cope with the content in a healthy manner, but there are always extremes. Just as many people who are deemed old enough can lack the necessary maturity, so to do many who are "too young" already have the necessary understanding. Arbitrary age restrictions are a necessary because it would take too much effort to make judgements on an individual basis, but that doesn't mean we can't make judgements on an individual basis.
The kid seems to have had good enough parenting to understand the differences between reality and fiction to the point that his playing the game shouldn't really be an issue. He clearly understands that a lot of the things the game depicts are things are considered wrong and many of the bad things will fly over his head, anyway.
Do 13 year olds not babysit and mow lawns and shit anymore? Why would a parent purchase a video game for a teenager if it wasn't a birthday or Christmas or whatever?
ESRB exist as a guideline it in theory is suppose to look at the population at large and not individuals. So even if the kid was somehow mature enough based on your awesome assessment, it is still a bad idea.
I don't get this attitude. The kid made decent points, clearly explained the game, explained his intentions, and invested a decent bit of time in making the PowerPoint.I would've told him no simply for being a little smart-ass thinking this would work.
The ESRB guidelines are born out of America's Christian morals. Unless I'm mistaken there's zero science put into the guidelines. Games with pornographic content aren't rated AO because there is reason to believe it's unhealthy for individuals under 18 to see porn, they're rated AO because Americans have an unhealthy relationship with sex.
Since when did gamers here became sticks in the mud?
There was a thread before about this, a parent here in GAF asking if its wise to buy GTA5 for his kid? I forgot exactly what it was but the responses were rather...erm...shocking I guess.
When we were young we weren't supervised like this. If you know your kid and what he's doing and the level of maturity that he is at there is no reason to regulate this kind of stuff. The kid did a great job on the PowerPoint and showed great maturity as a result he is getting it. Yes, there's stuff there like "if you don't give it to me I'm going to bother you...forever" and stuff like that.
Although he showed maturity that doesn't mean he's gonna stop being a 13 year old. Cmon, don't tell me you didn't do this kind of shit to your parents.
And you can get all of that from simply reading the presentation.
Not to be rude, but not even psychologist are arrogant enough to state their opinion about the mental state of a person without first interacting with that person.
ESRB exist as a guideline it in theory is suppose to look at the population at large and not individuals. So even if the kid was somehow mature enough based on your awesome assessment, it is still a bad idea.
I used to smoke but I stopped and I'm not dead. Should my kid smoke?It makes me laugh how many on here grew up on Doom, Mortal Kombat, GTA 1, Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, etc, often way younger than 13, but are now completely puritanical about it.
I used to smoke but I stopped and I'm not dead. Should my kid smoke?
Erm, no, they're the ones who give the kid way too much credit for growing up in the digital age and his shitty "decent points". Fuck this thread.It makes me laugh how many on here grew up on Doom, Mortal Kombat, GTA 1, Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, etc, often way younger than 13, but are now completely puritanical about it.
Hyperbole aside, I don't think it's accurate to say those of us who played doom, etc as kids turned out fine. Personally I'm completely desensitized to violence, surely that's not very healthy.GTA gave me cancer.
Yes, let's not intentionally teach our kids how to navigate the realm of thought, because that is equivalent to religious dogma and sheltering them. A free-reign policy for youth has surely led to great outcomes in our society.This post was brought to you by Ned Flanders Enterprises. lmao
The fact that something is normal or common does not justify it as the condition it ought to be or what we should aim for with our children, unless you are fully satisfied with the kind of stats we're seeing among youth these days.That's a level of maturity that even some ADULTS don't have.
Leave the kid on autopilot until they are demonstrably fucking up because they've been under-equipped for life for who knows how long, and then ban them from what appears to be instigating outside sources of influence after they're already approving of and attached to them and/or cram cognitive skills that conflict with their manifested values into them too late when they are already bombarded from every angle and using their own self-developed rationale to sort things out rather than having experienced the positive benefits of listening to you in the past? That's a terrible idea.The most important thing for the parents to figure out when making this decision are : Does the kid understand that this is fantasy and most if not all of these actions would lead to big trouble. Is the kid mature enough to enjoy the material without it affect the child's behavior, i.e. the kid repeating the language and violence from the game. If the answer is YES then it's fine.
Yeah, I grew up in the ghetto and that shit was all of life around me. I don't look at myself making it out without a criminal record as proof it is not a danger. Some of my friends lost family, plenty got into drugs and/or jail, some became teen parents and suffer to this day for it, my own family learned some lessons the hard way. Being "good" is not just a thing that naturally comes from having some positive examples as parents, it is a skill of applied reasoning that has to be taught, and schools leave instilling good values up to the parents.This kid is 13 years old. That's Freshman Year High School. One of the High School I went to exposed me to real life gangs and violence by that age. And of course poor language is probably repeated in his household by his parents so nothing new there.
I think you overestimate the general populace.
At least read the story. He wants to buy it himself but he needs to ask permission from his parents because he's not old enough.
It makes me laugh how many on here grew up on Doom, Mortal Kombat, GTA 1, Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, etc, often way younger than 13, but are now completely puritanical about it.
Hyperbole aside, I don't think it's accurate to say those of us who played doom, etc as kids turned out fine. Personally I'm completely desensitized to violence, surely that's not very healthy.
Wtf I used to do this to convince my parents to buy me a pack of $7 Pokemon cards
My parents laughed in my face and told me to put that effort into my school work
Are you sure? At the end he says that if he gets the game, "i can save up money for other stuff i want i the game if their si stuff". Who knows what the hell that means, but if getting the game allows him to save for other stuff it sounds like the parents would be paying for it.
Step 1
Wtf I used to do this to convince my parents to buy me a pack of $7 Pokemon cards
My parents laughed in my face and told me to put that effort into my school work
That kid put together a more concise and coherent slide deck than most of my adult co-workers. Good for him.
"so i'm warning you if it is a no after this i'll beg non-stop"
This is a stupid comparison and you know it.It makes me laugh how many on here grew up on Doom, Mortal Kombat, GTA 1, Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, etc, often way younger than 13, but are now completely puritanical about it.
Posters in here are giving him credit for making good points and being mature, and he certainly does make some decent points...but I think too many are glancing over the third slide which has this gem of a line:
Haha, people think he's mature? Kid still sounds like a brat. I have sympathy for the idea of "presentations" to parents. I remember when I was a kid and I would show my dad a game, movie or a book and walk him through the reasons I wanted it. I always made sure to make carefully thought out points and be honest about the things he might not like in the game (since lying sure wouldn't have helped build any trust). Sometimes I'd get the item I wanted, sometimes he'd say no. You know what I never did? Threatened to beg non-stop if I didn't get my way.
This is a stupid comparison and you know it.
GTA 1 =/= GTA 5
I don't think it's a joke line, but what the hell do I know. I don't think there's any meaningful way to prove the bolded. Kid could just be a sophisticated brat. On the "Consumer" section of the final slide he lists this reason:Sounds like hes making a joke with that line. Bratty immature kids don't create power point presentations to try to convince their parents to buy them a video game. Also, I'm sure hes seen worse on the internet on that same computer he made the PP presentation on.
Which could be me totally misreading it, but again, sounds like some whining going on.and to mom i can stop complaining if i do
Wait till he comes back in a year asking to get a hooker.
Age restrictions are kind of arbitrary. They are set at what people think is enough years to accumulate the experiences necessary to cope with the content in a healthy manner, but there are always extremes. Just as many people who are deemed old enough can lack the necessary maturity, so to do many who are "too young" already have the necessary understanding. Arbitrary age restrictions are a necessary because it would take too much effort to make judgements on an individual basis, but that doesn't mean we can't make judgements on an individual basis.
The kid seems to have had good enough parenting to understand the differences between reality and fiction to the point that his playing the game shouldn't really be an issue. He clearly understands that a lot of the things the game depicts are things are considered wrong and many of the bad things will fly over his head, anyway.
Well, I have a degree in psychology and I provide therapy to children with autism...
Yes, I can get that from reading the presentation, and I used qualifying words like "seems" because it's based on just that evidence. In the presentation he demonstrates clearly that he knows that the content of the game is considered wrong and he has good reasoning skills. Based on that he seems well adjusted. SEEMS.
ESRB provides general guidelines. They exist due to baseless fear mongering from US politicians in the early 90s. If people are exceptions then there's no reason not to make exceptions. If a kid genius takes a test and qualifies to skip high school and go straight to college, you're not going to force him to go to high school anyway because that's the norm. Likewise, you're not going to deny an alcoholic immature frat boy from buying something he's legally old enough to buy even though he doesn't demonstrate maturity. Parents should decide what's right for their own kid based on their individual upbringing and disposition.
Posters in here are giving him credit for making good points and being mature, and he certainly does make some decent points...but I think too many are glancing over the third slide which has this gem of a line:
Haha, people think he's mature? Kid still sounds like a brat. I have sympathy for the idea of "presentations" to parents. I remember when I was a kid and I would show my dad a game, movie or a book and walk him through the reasons I wanted it. I always made sure to make carefully thought out points and be honest about the things he might not like in the game (since lying sure wouldn't have helped build any trust). Sometimes I'd get the item I wanted, sometimes he'd say no. You know what I never did? Threatened to beg non-stop if I didn't get my way.
This is a stupid comparison and you know it.
GTA 1 =/= GTA 5
Mature enough to present it intelligently? Most likely mature enough to play the game.
Age is never the issue, maturity is.
I don't get this attitude. The kid made decent points, clearly explained the game, explained his intentions, and invested a decent bit of time in making the PowerPoint.
Spoken like someone who either doesn't have kids or is young enough to still be considered a kid by others. Age is absolutely the issue - no one is a special snowflake that somehow lives outside the limits of human evolution and development. I see this in my own kids all the time: "everyone else might be weak and not able to handle it, but I'm the exception to all that and will be fine."
No, you aren't the exception.
Maturity comes from time and experience and children, by definition, have neither.