At some point, every parent struggles with violent media and violent play. What kind of violence is acceptable, and how much? Should a 5-year-old play with a Star Wars blaster? Should a 10-year-old be allowed to play "Doom 3"? Is it okay for a 15-year-old to watch "The Matrix"?
I think it's safe to say that the conventional wisdom these days says keep your kids as far away from that stuff as possible. That violent media and violent games only encourage aggressiveness and desensitize kids towards the pain of others. Combined with sensationalistic headlines about school shootings and other child crime, there is the implication that the parents who allow violent media in the home are practically training a generation of zombie child killers.
Now there's a book that shoots down, so to speak, that conventional wisdom.
Killing Monsters by Gerald Jones argues that kids need a certain amount of fantasy violence, which helps them cope with the very real frustruations they encounter growing up.
Now, Jones has a vested interest in the issue. He's written comic books and screen plays and has had his works turned into video games and cartoons. He is firmly part of the media establishment he defends throughout the book. But Jones isn't arguing to protect his industry or slap an undeserved halo over the heads of pop-culture creators. He is deeply involved in school programs to help kids tap artistic talents on the way to being fuller people, and he has worked with a variety of troubled kids.
No psychologist himself, Jones draws upon the opinions of many professionals to support his theories. But most of his evidence is anecdotal. He details story after story of children and youths who were able to use comic books, play fighting, morbid music and video games to deal with fears, emotions and behavioral problems. The anecdotes are heartfelt and drive home Jones's point in a way dry statistics can't.
Yet that's their drawback too -- the book suffers from a lack of scientific and statistical evidence to support the thesis. Almost every study done shows that television, movies and play fighting make kids more aggressive. Jones spends a considerable amount of time debunking these studies. He notes that laboratory conditions that isolate the kids in a strange environment and bombard them with clips of violent images are not exactly representative of the typical home, where a kid is in a comfort zone, can watch a show within its full context and is in turn watched over by a parent.
Jones also says it's important to make the distinction between real fighting and play fighting. Real fighting is obviously a concern for any parent, but play fighting is a natural release of aggression for most kids. "Being evil and destructive in imagination is a vital compensation for the wildness we all have to surrender on our way to being good people," Jones says.
One of the most powerful examples Jones highlights is how people reacted after 9/11. Most adults instinctively shrank away from violence, banning play fighting and wargames and the like. Yet, according to Jones, demand for war toys went through the roof as kids responded the only way they knew how. In trying to protect kids from real-world violence, adults were imposing their own fears on kids and cutting off their best avenue for coping with a scary and unfathomable event. Jones says of the kids' reactions: "This isn't a failure to react appropriately to tragedy; this is how children deal with it. When something troubles them, they have to play with it until it feels safer".
Jones isn't blind to the dangers of too much media exposure. But he says that's not so much a direct effect of the media as with a personalities and circumstances that don't offer a way back to reality. "Young people whose conflicts are too serious and who don't have any other help resolving them can fall into habitual media use that keeps them spinning in their anxieties without relieving them."
The best way for parents to deal with music or content that make them uncomfortable is to talk with a kid about why they like what they like. Death metal and gangsta rap may sound disturbing to adult ears, but it's a liberating outlet for kids. A parent can express dislike of a song without making the kid feel guilty for wanting to listen to it. Indeed, how an adult deals with the kid's musical tastes may have far more of an impact on them then the music itself. "Expressing anger or anxiety about a child's entertainment won't make her like the entertainment less -- but it
will model anger and anxiety for her," Jones said. In fact, Jones cites one expert as saying the only kind of TV content that needs moderating is commercials and the news, because "they both claim to represent reality but often distort it".
Jones does fail to address one important issue, which is: is there any limit at all to what kind of entertainment kids should be exposed to? If media violence is actually beneficial to kids, then lots of media violence must be even better, right? Of course that idea is crazy to most people. You'd probably let a high schooler watch "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", but you'd be labeled a crummy parent, and rightly so, for letting a kindergartner watch it. I remember seeing a woman with an infant get heckled out of "The Blair Witch Project". What was she thinking? Graphically violent movies and TV shows are common sense no-nos for most young kids. That's simply because it will disturb and upset them more than it will help them. The scale of the violence is beyond their comfort level and is more likely to give them nightmares than put them at ease.
But what about stuff not so clear cut? Is "Halo" too violent for a 10-year-old? Yeah, you're blasting and killing and fragging, but c'mon, it's
aliens, and it's obviously a game that in its fundamentals isn't so different from the imaginary wars fought on playgrounds at recess. What about "Grand Theft Auto" with its open-ended gameplay that lets you run down little old ladies, beat down hookers, and blow away cops after your drug deal goes sour? Behind the foul language and mafia-driven violence, there is actually a lot of problem-solving in a game like "GTA".
I think the answer, like so much in parenting, is a combination of common sense and observing a kid's behavior. Kids need boundaries within which there is a certain amount of comfort and safety. At the same time, they need to explore and push those boundaries. Do you want your kid sneaking over to a friends to play "GTA", or is it better to play it with them and be there to help steer them away from any mistaken conclusions? Then yet again, kids also need their own space and the feeling that they are independent. So maybe the best solution is to let them play own terms, but still be tuned in from a distance and ready to intervene at any sign of disturbing behavior.
I'm obviously starting to ramble and shoot off into endless hypotheticals. But I think that illustrates what a thought-provoking book this is. Although his thesis may be controversial, I don't think anyone can question Jones's intentions in wanting what's best for kids and in feeling that popular entertainment offers a valuable resource in helping kids develop emotionally and mentally.
