Whenever there is a violent situation involving a child that has acted out, the world wants to put the blame on some sort of factor that has triggered the violent behavior in question. The first thing that always seems to pop up, is that the child plays violent video games which has caused him or her to act out.
This is the dumbest reasoning that people can come up with. Let's take it back to when video games never even existed. Were there violent children, bullies, aggressiveness, shootings, and crime? Yes, there was, and what did the people blame that upon if no video games existed? Kids used to play games where they would take a stick, pretend it was a gun and make believe that they were in a war shooting each other.
I have been playing video games my whole life, some of them have been extremely violent, and because of that fact, I should be one most violent and dangerous people on the planet, but if you know me, you would know that I feel bad if I have killed a spider, and love animals. I hate hunting, and can't touch raw meat because it's icky and I'm afraid of germs.
Let's assume that violent video games are the cause of adolescent aggression, if that were true, wouldn't every single child, teen, and adult on this planet be a killer? Most of them should be if they play violent video games, and we would have a problem of epic proportions on our hands.
If you want to blame, or have to put the blame on something, why does no one look to the parents of these violent people? Why are the people that in charge of raising their kids not accountable for their actions? If I did something wrong in my house as a child, I got punished, with a spanking or some other form of discipline, my parents did that to show me the error of my ways, and they never gave up on it even though I'm sure I tried their patience.
Video games are forms of entertainment, and for the most part, we all know the difference between reality and fantasy, which is why we enjoy the latter so much in the first place, because we all know it's not real. There are violent books, movies, tv shows and other forms of entertainment that don't get blamed for aggressive behavior, so if you want to blame something or someone for your child's aggression, maybe you should look at yourself first before you start pointing fingers.
Scott Goerz
