No, I was replying specifically to Scratch's posts about the game distributer etc having a part in this. The parents have done nothing wrong here from what I see...
Teen goes missing after argument over Xbox use
- Thread starter Praxius
- Start date
No, I was replying specifically to Scratch's posts about the game distributer etc having a part in this. The parents have done nothing wrong here from what I see...
Exactly how is this the fault of the manufacturer of the game? They developed and distributed a game intended for an adult audience, or at the very least, not for 15 year old kids.
The rating is on the front of the box in it's standard positioning and size with proper details about the game included. Hell, if that wasn't enough, it's obviously a war game.... wars usually include violence. With the amount of reports and complaints about kids getting games they shouldn't, and all the procedures these companies and distributors have to go through in order to improve the ability of parents to determine if a game is appropreate for their child, there is no excuse for this child getting this game, other then the parents not paying attention, or just simply giving into their kid and giving them whatever they want whenever they want something..... AKA: Spoiled Rotten.
That's like trying to blame a porn studio for your own actions of buying one of their pornos for your kid to watch..... there's no logic in it. They have ratings for a reason.
When horror movies come out, you don't know what it's actually about until you actually watch it..... but you know it's a horror movie and you know you probably shouldn't give it to your 8 year old kid (Or whatever young age you can think of)
Games are no different. You look at the cover, you look at the back, you see what the game looks like, you see how the gameplay is like..... hell, go a step further and ask the guys working at the store and get their input on the game and who it is appropreate for.... but a game, like a movie, you don't know exactly what it's going to be like until you buy it and watch/play it..... but there is more then enough information on the package and heck, even on the internet to inform yourself.
Your kid wants a game? Well take 30 seconds to search for it on the internet and find out what it's like..... it's not difficult.
But attempting to put the blame on the people who designed and sell the game for what is directly the parent's responsibility is a tad foolish in my opinion.
As I see it, there are only two options:
Option A:
The parents bought him the game and didn't bother to look into what they were buying their kid = Lack of Responibility for their own Parenting.
Option B:
They allowed their child to buy the game himself without having any control or observation on what he is buying = Lack of Responibility for their own Parenting.
This isn't the fault of the manufacturer, like any other form of entertainment.... be a horror movie, a violent or time consuming video game, or an music album with lots of swearing and violent messages..... they are usually ment for adults, not kids.... and parents can't keep ignorant on these things and blame others for their own inability to be educated parents in todays' world.
The fact that they let him keep his game console in his bedroom was another dumb move, on top of not regulating which games he is allowed to play.
I could go on all day, but this is clearly not the manufacturer's, distributor's or the Retailer's fault in any way.
All the people I know whom I work with and deal with are very paticular and attentative on what games their kids get to play, what internet sites they're allowed on, for how long, etc..... to me there is no excuse.
Agreed, and I wasn't really directing blame on the video game itself, I was putting focus on the parents and their responsibility in this situation. To me, this goes beyond just a video game dispute, but something a bit bigger in relation to the family structure in the household.
I know.... it's still not an excuse. And sometimes those video games, such as Grand Theft Auto, may be more impressionable to certain kids of certain ages, which is why they have ratings in the first place. These parents in this report seem to focus their attention more so on their child's addiction to a paticular game they game him and allowed him to play. They don't explain what else may have occured to create this situation, they just direct their focus mainly on the video game as being the root problem.
Well even if it may have been the root problem, it's still their fault for not doing their jobs as a parent and making sure they got the right games for their kid.
If they want these things as babysitters, then perhaps they should treat them like baby sitters and make sure they're the right one for the job, because when crap like this happens, they still have nobody else to blame but themselves.
Yes I care, your third is irrelevant if one answers the second.
I thought I'd try and confuse you and it worked.;-)
... especially when you consider that the video game has nothing to do with it. What exactly is it about Call of Duty that would make a kid more likely to run away in your view? Where in the rating does it say that a video game contains subliminal 'run away from home' messages? :lol:
While I get what you're saying, you're hearing it all second hand through a police officer who CLEARLY thinks the game is an issue (why else bring it up... seems odd to me), and so I don't trust that it wasn't a fairly isolated issue in the family structure.
The game has embedded images of goatse & lemonparty.jpg flashing across the screen at random intervals causing teenagers to do CRAZY things!
Yeah, my dad was already two steps ahead of my sister when she was a teenager.... she was freaking out and screaming about running away, so he said sure, get the fk out.... helped her pack her stuff in a suitcase, opened the door for her and she left.....
about 20 minutes laters after hanging out down the street, figuring out that she didn't really have anywhere else to go, she of course came back home and that was that.
^ That probably won't work for every situation or family, but the way our's was structured, it worked pretty well, lol.
And see, that's part of the MAJOR issue I have with the parents' skills being dissected over a video game. This is the sort of thing that SO many families have happen. Imagine what would have happened if you sister had gotten down the road, and some kind stranger asked why she seemed so upset. Suddenly, she may be gone (because no kid is thinking right, they're thinking 'revenge' at that point), and your family is under a spotlight, being dissected. The reason her and your dad were fighting is public knowledge, and he's declared an unfit parent because only unfit parents have kids who toss hissy fits, right?
I played the game until I beat it, which was about two weeks ago actually. Kids can get sucked into the graphics, environment, sounds, gameplay, and storyline.... not to mention the ability to play others online for more involvement..... to some kids, it has nothing to do with any hidden messages, it's got to do with something that actually enjoy.... something like a hobby that they're probably good at.... something that amongst all the other things that maybe crappy in their lives, they have that one thing they find fun and entertaining.
The problem as I see it, is that their parents never taught him how to deal with it in moderation..... a level of control over it. I don't know what it is like for girls, but for most guys, once we find something interesting and entertaining, we can have a tendancy to consume ourselves into it..... be that hockey, a movie trilogy, a book, a collection, a tv series, a video game, etc....
With a game that has no real end-game in it, where after the story is over, you can continue to play what you enjoy online continually, to some without any sense of control, can tend to have attictive traits towards that thing.
• Wanting to play it again as soon as their vision clear up from the 13 hours before.
• Thinking about what they just went through last time they played it.
• How can they improve their gameplay for the next time around.
• Is there anything they missed, etc. etc.....
heck the list could go on.... so what's my point?
Allow a kid to get that involved into something for so long and see what happens when you take that one thing away from them, when they may not have anything else going for them in their lives currently.
They'll snap the sh*t is what they'll do..... esspecially when you allowed it to go on for as long as it may have. Shoot someone with heroin for a few months straight and then suddenly take it away from them..... see what happens.
There was a level of addiction to this game, but it could have been stopped long before it became a problem.
• Take the console out of his room.
• Give him a set amount of time per day for playing the game.
• Attempt to find other things that could take up his time that they may find interesting, so that they don't become completely dependant for that one game being their sole source of entertainment.
Then when you apply a punishment like removing the game from their use, their reaction/response may not be as drastic as it was.
But there must be many other factors at play besides just this game and not being able to use it that would have created this situation in the first place..... to me, this was just the breaking point that stems from many other issues that haven't been addressed.
Why else bring it up? Probably because the parents kept bringing it up when reporting it to the police. Usually police don't pull out assumptions on things they don't know about and I believe he wouldn't be going on about a video game in the center of the situation unless the parents specifically made it a point for the officer to understand that the argument revolved around a video game.
Most reports I hear in regards to police officers issuing statements and informing the public, they usually don't throw out assumptions and wild guesses, but only report the given/proven/known information of the situation that is normally agreed apon by all parties involved in the situation.
I've got to say Praxius, that by the time a parent realizes the game is a problem......it already is a problem........
i also think this kid has some other big problems......15 years old, 5'2", 100 lbs.....not much wonder he is obsessed with being the all-powerful......
i also think this kid has some other big problems......15 years old, 5'2", 100 lbs.....not much wonder he is obsessed with being the all-powerful......
Depends on the situation. If she got picked up by a stanger, so be it.... thems the breaks when you make your own decisions.... you accept the responsibility that comes with those decisions...... my father's included. But when you actually pay attention to your children's behaviors and what they tend to do over and over again, you have a better opportunity to predict what their future actions would be. My father and the rest of the family know the area where I grew up very well, and usually no cars go by for up to 30 minutes at a time.... and usually those cars going by, you know them anyways..... so worry of someone picking her up was extremely minimal.
Not to mention many RCMP officers my dad was friends with all lived close by, it wouldn't suprise me if he already had the whole situation planned out and they were in on it..... hell, my dad threw my brother in jail for a couple of nights with the help of some RCMP..... When my mom and dad went for a trek accross Canada for a couple of weeks and my cousin and I had the house to ourselves during the summer, he had the RCMP come popping by the house to make sure I wasn't having a bunch of parties.
Like I said, this situation may not work for everyone else's situation, but was an example none the less.
Having my family's reasons and actions dissected matters not to me.... we are all alive, we have all learned our lessons in one way or another, we are all independant from one another, and we are all very responsible for our own actions. My family's approach worked in my view....
I wasn't like the kid down the road I talked about a few times now, who got everything he wanted, who bitched out his grandparents every chance he could, who broke expensive things days after getting them..... who last I heard, is now in jail. There was no control over him by his grandparents, his mother didn't want anything to do with him due to her own selfish and slack ass reasons, and he pretty well got everything he wanted.
This kids reactions, the reasons given for the situation, pretty much all of it stinks like this kid I grew up knowing.
He ran away from home over some stupid thing like a video game being taken away..... it stems from not getting any normal punishment a child should be getting, then suddenly being punished in what they feel is an extreme manner, and causes them to react in a way like running away.
He got caught not too long afterwards, charged and put on house arrest, as I believe he was already in trouble for some other petty crime he did prior...... the details I didn't look too far into, because I simply no longer cared about that asshole. He chose his path, I chose mine..... like I said, last I heard he was in jail.
But all of this, no matter what you focus on in the story, all stems on parenting.
Do I say this as a parent? No.... I say this based on my first hand memories as a child, both from my own situations and the situations of those I knew and hung around with..... their explinations, their own reasons, and vice versa. When I apply those memories with the adult mentality I have today, the problems, reasons and solutions are so apparent it boggles the mind.
Agreed... in regards to the game being the problem, that is why I said parents should at least ask the guys at the store selling the game before hand. If you can't find the information online or on the back of the box..... it's a lot like asking for directions while traveling.... sure it may seem embarassing, but it is necessary.
Back when I was a kid it wasn't a big deal to take off for a few days(this was a long time ago) now there are so many weirdos and predators out there you can't help but think the worst, his parents must be sick with worry.
Yeah, I used to grab my bike and drive all over the county for hours on end and usually not come back until night fall..... can't say I ever remember staying away from home for multiple days. Sure I'd bike over to someone's place and then plan on staying the night, but I usually called my parents to inform them...... other then that, it was just a waiting game until I came home. They knew I was out somewhere doing something.... usually deep in the woods somewhere where nobody would find me easily and on times when someone tried, I was always several steps ahead of them.
I don't remember normally telling my parents where I was going, I normally just grabbed the bike, drove in some paticular direction and as soon as I seen a trail or road I never went down, I took it as far as it went.
Then those dumb bike helmet laws came into play and the helmet I was given looked retarded, so I quit biking...... I think I've only been on a bike twice since then.
Added:
But I never had the notion of running away at anytime that I could remember..... suicide, sure.... who hasn't.... but not running away, that's just being silly ;-)
Update:
Steve and Angelika Crisp, parents of missing 15-year-old Brandon Crisp, speak on CTV's Canada AM from Barrie, Ont. on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008.
Parents wonder, was missing teen lured by gamers?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081021/barrie_teen_081022/20081022?hub=Canada
Oh jesus, here we go.... :roll:
Are you fk'n kidding me? In games like that, you don't have time to sit around sipping your tea talking about how your day went and making buddies. He may have joined a clan, but everyone I have ever been in in my younger years, and the ones I fought against online, all focus on the game and gameplay.
If these parents are going to sit there and toss out the assumption that their son got kidnapped by some online nerd clan, they're more clueless then I originally thought.
But sure.... go ahead... blame the game and those playing it.... wash your hands clean of any responsibility you jerks.
The fact that he was able to "Take it back" and they allowed that to happen until the next time he screwed up is a big sign right there in regards to their piss ass parenting. This whole situation stinks of the kid I grew up next door to.
Well apparently he is the type to run away, because he just did.
Suprise!
Yeah, so far the new information given with combination to the older information is lining up along what I have been believing so far.
Steve and Angelika Crisp, parents of missing 15-year-old Brandon Crisp, speak on CTV's Canada AM from Barrie, Ont. on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008.
Parents wonder, was missing teen lured by gamers?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081021/barrie_teen_081022/20081022?hub=Canada
Oh jesus, here we go.... :roll:
Are you fk'n kidding me? In games like that, you don't have time to sit around sipping your tea talking about how your day went and making buddies. He may have joined a clan, but everyone I have ever been in in my younger years, and the ones I fought against online, all focus on the game and gameplay.
If these parents are going to sit there and toss out the assumption that their son got kidnapped by some online nerd clan, they're more clueless then I originally thought.
But sure.... go ahead... blame the game and those playing it.... wash your hands clean of any responsibility you jerks.
The fact that he was able to "Take it back" and they allowed that to happen until the next time he screwed up is a big sign right there in regards to their piss ass parenting. This whole situation stinks of the kid I grew up next door to.
Well apparently he is the type to run away, because he just did.
Suprise!
Yeah, so far the new information given with combination to the older information is lining up along what I have been believing so far.