Noelle asks... "Do you feel that it should be the parents' responsibility to censor and preview their child's entertainment or do you think these tyoes of games should be censored from the get go and not even be out on the shelves, thus eliminating the role of the parent as the bad guy?"

As the parent of a 12.5 year old, I know that being the bad guy is in my job description, and I'm not about to censor all of society to make my job easier. My wife and I draw the line at slightly different points (I'm the less bad bad guy), but we've always been clear about what's acceptable to watch on TV or what downloaded games get sent immediately to the trash can. So far, I think, Alex has been internalizing what we say and does his own self-censoring (mostly).

More effective than simply banning all exposure to violence (and crudeness and dumbth) is to talk back to it. When we're watching TV and see something that shows that the writers just weren't working very hard, we're quick to jump on it, and as a result Alex is becoming a pretty funny critic of popular culture. (I hope we haven't ruined real life for him! Probably not.) If all violent games were banished from view, then the worst of these things would become the forbidden fruit with even more appeal. If we never see even a hint of these things and get to talk back to them, then a teaching opportunity has been lost.

But where do you draw the line on game violence? It's a line that moves as your child gets older, and that's a question that we still wrestle with. Alex's favorite game at present, StarCraft, is rated for Teens and I'm not totally at ease with it. StarCraft does have some redeeming virtues involving strategy and creativity, but still...