This discussion comes up a fair amount on the Stately Play forums. I only recently allowed my 5 1/2 year old to have limited game time on the weekends (and by limited I mean twenty minutes). She prefers to watch me play rather than play herself, likely because she’s a perfectionist and it’s hard to learn to do these things right off. She does occasionally enjoy being Doink on WWF Raw (yep, starting her off old-school with the SNES). She’s fond of Pokemon Red and Mario Kart as her preferred games to watch, and cared for Mario Brothers not at all. However, the last few weeks she’s skipped video game time and instead asked to play with me during that time with her toys or playing pretend, which I have been happy (if also a little bit oddly disappointed) to oblige. I don’t know if games will make a comeback later or not, and honestly I’m good either way. I would enjoy sharing it with her, but I’ve always been adamant that I wouldn’t force my interests on my children. That’s easy to do (and admittedly sometimes unavoidable), but has a lot of potential repercussions later on in life.
I don’t have kids, but I want them so I’ve given this some thought. I started playing video games when I was four years old. Super Mario Bros. 3 on my older brother’s NES was the first game I ever played. I don’t actually remember much about it. Honestly the only reason I’m sure I was that young was that we moved the next year, and I know I played them in the old house.
So basically, I would let my child play video games as young as she or he wanted to, but…
At the risking sounding really, really old…video games aren’t like they were when I was a kid. I’d let my 4-5 year old play Super Mario Brothers in our living room, but I wouldn’t let them anywhere near an online game. Not until…god…just not ever. I see things in public chat on online games that I’m still too young to know about.
If I think they are capable of understanding reality and fictional.
At any age, games are classified by age rating, however COG games are kinda adult, even if they are rated as any age games they approach delicate themes, i mean how do i explain my 7 years old nephew what is homosexuality or transexualism? Such situations are very common in the games of this company, you can allow your son or daughter to play games, just make sure such games are appropiate for their age.
I forgot there was even a rating before Everyone. You see that about as infrequently as AO.
I grew up in the 90s and played Mortal Combat and Killer Instinct when I was real young. I turned out fine. I even played the original gtas and wattched slasher flicks. In the end it is up to the parent, but if children can seperate real life from fiction I don’t see a problem.
Me and my sisters were left alone with a computer and a playstation at age 6 and younger, we were even allowed to watch and play violent 12+ games and such. Our parents didn’t care.
But I don’t plan on doing it that way. I want to have some rules.
I would let them play children’s games at 4/5 with supervision and other games at 6/7. I will allow them to play certain +12 games a bit younger, maybe at age 10 or 11 and certain 16+ games at 14/15.
I was young myself so I know some games are not that bad for a bit younger audience. Then again I would surely check up on them when they are older and playing a game, just to be sure.
I really don’t think there is a safe secure rule of ‘‘Put on some rules , and everything is dandy’’ .
Honestly , the real rule here is : Know your kid . Know their personality , what make them ticks , what they can handle . Don’t guess , know them . You can have 2 kids , and one of them will get traumatized while the other will just feel a thrill .
Because…those sames rules are just that , wild guessed rules put in place . Hoping for the best isnt really an answer . Some rules can backfire , what you may think was done with ‘‘Love and Care’’ , can turn out to be ‘Suffocating and overbearing’’ . What may have been done with ‘‘Muh my kid can handle it! I saw worse when I was a kid’’ , could be seen as ‘Uncaring’’ . And don’t get me started , the friction it could build between sibling . ‘Oh we cant watch that cose of you! cose you are a cry baby , I hate you!’’ resentement…fear .
Kids only get one chance to be kids , know them . really know them , there is no 100% rule that work for everyone . Anyone who say ‘‘hey it worked for my kid! It worked for me ! My parents did that !’’ …is someone who seeing only their life…their childhood…and the scope is bigger . Way bigger…
Truey mctrue face, but also keep in mind that age ratings are insane and stupid beyond belief. For example life is strange 2 and gta 5 are both 18 games. I repeat a game (haven’t finished LIS 2 yet, but based on the first two episodes) where the “worst” things are cannabis use (a drug with health benefits that is becoming more and more widely legal), sex being none graphicly talked about and violence and death that isn’t gorey or anything has the same age rating with a game with literal torture in it. And life is strange before the storm, a game with 99% 16 year old protagonists (probably) has an 18 rating. This is the same age rating as a Serbian film (yes it isn’t worldwide banned, it’s legal in the UK, it’s on my amazon wish list 
) .
So a good idea is to only let your children play games that you’ve played first unless they have a 16 or under age rating. Because yeah, 18 plus and 16 age ratings are just, yeah, insane and stupid. I for example would let a child of any age play any life is strange game, but not gta 5, or watch a Serbian film.
Plus context matters too. the life is strange games are helpful, useful, relatable, and don’t do stuff like violence just because. I got a lot from playing them, and I’m sure everyone else did too. Where as all I got from playing Hitman blood money and massacring a shit ton of innocent people with my m16 and bombing them was lolz.
I let my kid play Minecraft, and I didn’t even know how it would turn out. At first, my son just spent time at the computer, and now he knows how to use programming languages. A source code editing option is available to players around the world. This allows you to create mods - various objects that make the game world more diverse, items ranging from small things to huge buildings, new creatures, and whole new dimensions. The rule is simple: you want to add something special to the world of “Minecraft” - program it. That’s how players worldwide learn Python, JavaScript, Java, and other languages. When I tried to play, the only thing I managed to find was Minecraft skyblock servers.
My only restriction would be that I wouldn’t let them play 18+ games until 18. And that’s only because of legal liability. Many of them are completely reasonable for a 13 year old to play; it’s just not legal.
My nephew is 6 and has understood both of those for years. I’m not the one who taught him, so I don’t exactly know how, but… it’s not exactly a difficult concept for a 7 year old to comprehend.
Idk if you’re a parent, worried about age ratings or one of those people that foolishly believe that games are directly tied to an increase in violence. Fact is once you and afford it and they want it you can certainly allow them to play from as early as five or six, most games kids play at that age have the same content that their cartoons do. The only thing that you need to do is set limits on how long they play especially when they’re just starting out, its easy to get hooked regardless of your age.
If you’re worried about age ratings I would like to know why. WWE 2k22 has a rating of T or to be specific 16, all their games have a similar rating and I promise you every kid has been in fight or done some form of trash talking which is basically the worst thing in those games ( that and blood but we are humans we bleed).
If you’re worried about the violence bit…the nicest thing I can say is that I hope you aren’t, I really do.
Interesting to see this thread make a reappearance. Since then, the 5 1/2 year old is now 8 1/2, and her sister is now 5 1/2.
Video games have ebbed and flowed for them since that time a few years ago. My older daughter still prefers to watch rather than play, and the SNES Classic I got with my Parenting Simulator royalties was awesome for playing several choice RPGs (her favorite genre) with the extremely valuable instasave option it has. She has watched EarthBound, Mario RPG, Link to the Past, and some of Secret of Evermore before she lost interest right before Gothica. For a couple months after that she had no interest, but now EarthBound is on the Switch and she enjoys us replaying that in handheld mode while cuddled up on the couch. She already thinks a lot like me in general (as I do with my own father), so it is funny to see she already shares my predilection for replaying favorite games.
Ava, my younger girl, has started being interested in actively playing. Kirby Super Star gave her a risk-free option to figure out what to do, since helpers are easy to bring back to life. A 360 game called Disney Universe was also one she enjoyed off and on for several months. I also rebought Scott Pilgrim on the Switch since my friends and I had liked it on the Xbox back in the day, and she has played that a lot on her mornings to choose what to do before their school and my work. She’s always Ramona Flowers with the pink hair, and while she still doesn’t have playing down pat she is slowly getting better and holding her own. More importantly, she is having a good time.
Still and all, for both of them video games are not a huge thing, and that’s probably as it should be. Let them do more pretend and playing with toys now. Those things go away a lot faster than interest in video games does when children get older.
15, and not a moment sooner.
- Mainly only because my hypothetical kids don’t need to destroy their eyesight at an early age. The people who list older ages because of the false ideology surrounding games are simply misinformed, imo.
I would let my child start play game at young age 5?. I would even play role play games with them. It was fun to play a character in the story that could never happened in real life but still need to prepare if that ever happen. But they must maintain good grade. We Asian have to be perfect or our ancestors will curse us.
I would let them play 18+ games. Why not? I played mature game when I was like 14-15. I turned out fine.
Guess it depends on the game really. I was “playing” educational style games from younger primary school age and turned out fine (I hope?) Actually gave me some advantages going forward for being a bit more computer savvy compared to some of my peers of the same age at the time which is kind of essential these days so I think they were right to let me have time (not free reign, but was allowed a certain amount) on their computers when young. (Let’s play how to do some basic DOS programing to make the computer do your maths homework, debug windows (again and again- does anyone remember how dreadfully unstable some of those releases were?) or make fun animated cursors in amiga workbench like flappy birds and running animals. Yep, high stakes fun for all. What can I say, I’m easily amused I guess lol.) I even made my first CYOA in… I want to say Q-basic? Something like that. (Spoiler- It wasn’t very good but it worked 
)
I also remembering being “co-pilot” to my dad of flight simulators so was a great family bonding style session, and playing kid friendly games with friends where we encouraged each other and engaged in some serious back seat driving at times. Doesn’t have to be your kid in front of a screen for hours by themselves. There are games out there that promote learning, socialisation and hand/eye co-ordination without being shooting fests, so there are definitely other options for anyone wanting to go that way.
Yeah, it really depends on the game. I’ll probably allow my hypothetical kids to play games atan early age what with educational games and getting more well versed with technology.
soon as there able to pick up a controller
id teach them to play gta ^_- just to spite the tree hugging hippie’s out there that claim video games make people violent
I hate to break it you, but the people who claim video games make people violent are, invariably, right-wingers. More often than not, they’re also bible-thumpers.