Disclaimer: I am not a parent.
I agree with the "Don't start what you can't finish" line of thought and that real life comes first, but I always found the insistence on eating as a family really weird. If a child has to do their chores or their homework then sure, but why the emphasis on the dinner ritual?
I enjoy my kids and want to spend time with them. During the week dinner is sometimes the only chance we parents get.
As a parent, I can honestly say that I give absolutely zero fucks about the video gaming experience of the people playing a game with my child if I decide it's time for him to stop playing. And if I'm the one playing and family responsibilities suddenly call for me to quit a game, I give just as many fucks. It's recreation. If you're taking it so seriously that you genuinely think it should take precedence over my responsibilities to care for my family, you need to take a seriously hard look in the mirror and do some self-examination of your life choices.
Disclaimer: I am not a parent.
I agree with the "Don't start what you can't finish" line of thought and that real life comes first, but I always found the insistence on eating as a family really weird. If a child has to do their chores or their homework then sure, but why the emphasis on the dinner ritual?
Sometimes you just want to sit back and admire the fruit of your loins consuming the fruits of your work efforts? IDK. Obviously, I am not a parent.
I imagine the number of players in general that leave due to disconnections/rage/"cat being on fire" far outweigh the number of child players that have to get offline because of bedtime/dinner/their parents said so though, and the open letter was simply done because someone was sore about that one time they lost for said reason. Open letters like these are just silly in general though, imo. Especially when you're simply addressing the choir.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
I AM a parent. I also had parents.
Not leaving a game early is being considerate to the OTHER people playing, not to the person who is leaving early.
Not starting if you don't think you can finish is indeed a good idea, but for many kids, it's not an option. This is due to the fact that your mother hates when you have having fun playing video games. She is convinced that allowing you to play games makes her a bad mother, but to kick you off the games directly would make her "uncool" and feel old due to the 4th dimensional hatred from her younger self. Her solution to this is to wait until you are playing, then come up with some chore you must do. This chore must be completed immediately. It is imperative that the trash be taken to the curb within 42 seconds of her thinking of it or the trash collectors will not pick it up the next morning. This applies to wives as well as mothers. I hate to sound sexist, but it seems women in general want to urinate on your gaming experience and those playing with you will get wet in the process. This assumes you have no fetish for such things... it was meant to be an unpleasant event that causes no harm, but a general preference that it not occur. Yes, I hate to sound sexist... but I'm married.
While personal life DOES come first, it's not like the dishes couldn't wait another 15 minutes while I finish repelling the Nazi forces from the digital battleground. I think the kids can stay up an extra 5 minutes while we finish off that demon. It's about common courtesy, even to people you never met and never will again. We'd pause it if we could. Give the kid a break and let him finish the round unless he REALLY has something that must be done now.
Note: It's cute how people without kids think they know how to raise one. Even now, someone is reading that thinking "You don't need to have kids to know how to raise one!", and every parent who read THAT was thinking "yes... yes you do."
I'd say Tycho's post captures the balance here. The idea of educating parents about stuff they may not understand--like the odd length of LoL games--is worthwhile. Hopefully parents appreciate it, because I'd think a good parent wants to be educated about what their kids are doing. But you cross the line when you tell parents how they should parent, and place the priority on the other players instead of teaching the kid responsibility. Sticking to commitments is good: not making commitments you can't keep is good too.
I do remember being frustrated as a kid because my parents tended to confuse "priority" with "chronology". Yes, taking out the trash is more important than computer games. But since I'm playing an MMO which can't be paused (something many parents still don't get about most games these days), that's something I can only do with real people (many of which were RL friends) right now, whereas the trash can be taken out ten minutes from now. Granted, if I use that leeway to forget to take the trash out, by all means punish for it. But parents found a balance between commitments to friends and commitments to family a long time ago regarding sports (both organized and unorganized). They're getting the hang of it with video games. Realizing there are other people on the other end is a first step. But all things told, it is still just a game.
I AM a parent. I also had parents.
Not leaving a game early is being considerate to the OTHER people playing, not to the person who is leaving early.
Not starting if you don't think you can finish is indeed a good idea, but for many kids, it's not an option. This is due to the fact that your mother hates when you have having fun playing video games. She is convinced that allowing you to play games makes her a bad mother, but to kick you off the games directly would make her "uncool" and feel old due to the 4th dimensional hatred from her younger self. Her solution to this is to wait until you are playing, then come up with some chore you must do. This chore must be completed immediately. It is imperative that the trash be taken to the curb within 42 seconds of her thinking of it or the trash collectors will not pick it up the next morning. This applies to wives as well as mothers. I hate to sound sexist, but it seems women in general want to urinate on your gaming experience and those playing with you will get wet in the process. This assumes you have no fetish for such things... it was meant to be an unpleasant event that causes no harm, but a general preference that it not occur. Yes, I hate to sound sexist... but I'm married.
While personal life DOES come first, it's not like the dishes couldn't wait another 15 minutes while I finish repelling the Nazi forces from the digital battleground. I think the kids can stay up an extra 5 minutes while we finish off that demon. It's about common courtesy, even to people you never met and never will again. We'd pause it if we could. Give the kid a break and let him finish the round unless he REALLY has something that must be done now.
Note: It's cute how people without kids think they know how to raise one. Even now, someone is reading that thinking "You don't need to have kids to know how to raise one!", and every parent who read THAT was thinking "yes... yes you do."
Most of the parents posting here flat out disagree with you.
How you view... other parents is also very unsettling.
That being said if I was watching my son play a game in the future and he was obviously being a goose (teamkilling, being profane, etc) I would be interested in taking steps to correct that behavior.
Team-Killing Bobby? Spawn-Camping?? You go to your room Bobby, you go to your room right now.
This applies to wives as well as mothers. I hate to sound sexist, but it seems women in general want to urinate on your gaming experience and those playing with you will get wet in the process. This assumes you have no fetish for such things... it was meant to be an unpleasant event that causes no harm, but a general preference that it not occur. Yes, I hate to sound sexist... but I'm married.
I know that it can be frustrating when someone drops from a game. But here I am years later completely unable to remember any time it actually mattered.
I AM a parent. I also had parents.
Not leaving a game early is being considerate to the OTHER people playing, not to the person who is leaving early.
Not starting if you don't think you can finish is indeed a good idea, but for many kids, it's not an option. This is due to the fact that your mother hates when you have having fun playing video games. She is convinced that allowing you to play games makes her a bad mother, but to kick you off the games directly would make her "uncool" and feel old due to the 4th dimensional hatred from her younger self. Her solution to this is to wait until you are playing, then come up with some chore you must do. This chore must be completed immediately. It is imperative that the trash be taken to the curb within 42 seconds of her thinking of it or the trash collectors will not pick it up the next morning. This applies to wives as well as mothers. I hate to sound sexist, but it seems women in general want to urinate on your gaming experience and those playing with you will get wet in the process. This assumes you have no fetish for such things... it was meant to be an unpleasant event that causes no harm, but a general preference that it not occur. Yes, I hate to sound sexist... but I'm married.
While personal life DOES come first, it's not like the dishes couldn't wait another 15 minutes while I finish repelling the Nazi forces from the digital battleground. I think the kids can stay up an extra 5 minutes while we finish off that demon. It's about common courtesy, even to people you never met and never will again. We'd pause it if we could. Give the kid a break and let him finish the round unless he REALLY has something that must be done now.
Note: It's cute how people without kids think they know how to raise one. Even now, someone is reading that thinking "You don't need to have kids to know how to raise one!", and every parent who read THAT was thinking "yes... yes you do."
This is ridiculous and bad and you should feel bad not just for posting it, but for thinking it.
You just gotta love the follow-up justification of being married for your sexist nonsense. Like no sexist ever got married.
I know that it can be frustrating when someone drops from a game. But here I am years later completely unable to remember any time it actually mattered.
I'm sure it matters to people who take their W/L ratio a bit too seriously.
I know that it can be frustrating when someone drops from a game. But here I am years later completely unable to remember any time it actually mattered.
You mean you don't remember that one time Billy Mackenbrough cost you the 1996 Duke Nukem 3d Deathmatch Championship because his mom cooked spaghetti and she already put the Parmesan cheese on it and you know how it gets all soggy if it's on there too long? Never Forget.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
I wonder when the hell people are going to learn that when you say things like "I'm not racist/sexist/etc. but..." we are all expecting the very next thing you say to be the most racist/sexist/etc. shit we ever heard in our life.
Because it is always the case.
+12
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I AM a parent. I also had parents.
Not leaving a game early is being considerate to the OTHER people playing, not to the person who is leaving early.
Not starting if you don't think you can finish is indeed a good idea, but for many kids, it's not an option. This is due to the fact that your mother hates when you have having fun playing video games. She is convinced that allowing you to play games makes her a bad mother, but to kick you off the games directly would make her "uncool" and feel old due to the 4th dimensional hatred from her younger self. Her solution to this is to wait until you are playing, then come up with some chore you must do. This chore must be completed immediately. It is imperative that the trash be taken to the curb within 42 seconds of her thinking of it or the trash collectors will not pick it up the next morning. This applies to wives as well as mothers. I hate to sound sexist, but it seems women in general want to urinate on your gaming experience and those playing with you will get wet in the process. This assumes you have no fetish for such things... it was meant to be an unpleasant event that causes no harm, but a general preference that it not occur. Yes, I hate to sound sexist... but I'm married.
While personal life DOES come first, it's not like the dishes couldn't wait another 15 minutes while I finish repelling the Nazi forces from the digital battleground. I think the kids can stay up an extra 5 minutes while we finish off that demon. It's about common courtesy, even to people you never met and never will again. We'd pause it if we could. Give the kid a break and let him finish the round unless he REALLY has something that must be done now.
Note: It's cute how people without kids think they know how to raise one. Even now, someone is reading that thinking "You don't need to have kids to know how to raise one!", and every parent who read THAT was thinking "yes... yes you do."
Leaving out your utterly bizzare judgement of other people's motives... you could say to your parent, "I'm about to do an online match that may take as long as an hour, do you have any chores you would like me to clear up beforehand, so that I won't be interrupted during the match?" Then said child takes out the goddamn trash, and match is uninterrupted. Added bonus that parent looks upon child as industrious and responsible for asking.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I wonder when the hell people are going to learn that when you say things like "I'm not racist/sexist/etc. but..." we are all expecting the very next thing you say to be the most racist/sexist/etc. shit we ever heard in our life.
Because it is always the case.
Now that's just not true. Very often it's not the most racist/sexist/etc. shit.
I wonder when the hell people are going to learn that when you say things like "I'm not racist/sexist/etc. but..." we are all expecting the very next thing you say to be the most racist/sexist/etc. shit we ever heard in our life.
Because it is always the case.
Now that's just not true. Very often it's not the most racist/sexist/etc. shit.
Well I have short-term memory loss, and I was using the royal "we".
That's some Real Talk, Chiselphane. Thank you for sharing that. Good perspective.
We first-generation gamers--those of us who took up the Atari, the Commodore 64, the Apple ][ and IBM 286--are becoming parents, now. Heck, some of the more ambitious or unlucky members of Gen X could be GRANDparents. When we were growing up, our parents didn't know how to deal with "gamers" because there had never been such a thing. Gaming--as a lifestyle--was new, and abnormal. Now we're the parents. It's interesting watching how we lifelong gamers parent, compared to nongaming parents who are raising kids who have grown up in a world where gaming is not only tolerated, but the default lifestyle.
0
Options
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I asked my mom if I could finish games all the time. Because I was one of those kinds of kids would played most RPGs and for extremely long periods of time.
Sometimes she said "yes", sometimes "no", sometimes "Get your ass off that game and do what I told you to do right now!"
It varied from situation to situation and even though I probably thought it was the worst thing in the world when I got no, I really can't say it was that big of a deal looking back on it.
Not to mention sometimes I would have totally procrastinated my ass off if I could have.
As a League player and someone who was involved in the discussion on the original thread, I'm gonna say the same here that I basically said there.
The thing most people here, especially those parents who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter, seem to be ignoring, is the lesson they're teaching their children by taking them off the game, as opposed to the lesson they think they'd be teaching if they left them on.
By saying both to the child and on here that you don't give a shit about the 9 other people they're playing with, you're teaching them that people online don't matter. That unless you can see them, they're not really people, not worth considering.
In the modern age this might just be the worst possible lesson you can teach your child short of 'playing in the road is a great idea'.
By instilling in children the idea that online people aren't 'real' you reinforce the treatment of internet interactions as somehow distinct from reality. The 'real world' and the internet are NOT two different things anymore. What you do and say online, how you act, has a definitive impact on other people, and can come back to have a definitive impact on yourself. League of Legends may be a game, but the interactions with the people playing with you are no less important than any other conversation you might have with another human being.
Instilling in children the idea that these people they meet online do not matter in the real world is what leads children to treat them as objects, as worthless. It's what leads to the horrendous trolling, online abuse, verbal assaults, death threats, rape threats, from people who have spent their whole lives being reinforced in the belief that their actions on the internet will not have real world consequences.
In the same vein, you remove any fear a child SHOULD have over the potential for strangers on the internet to be a genuine threat to them. The reservations they should have for putting sensitive information about themselves online without a thought or care as to where it might lead.
As a player, i'm annoyed when someone disconnects from a game i'm playing, for either no reason or a stupid reason. If someone tells me there's a family emergency, I don't care if they leave. If they tell me it's bedtime I think it's stupid they're playing, and it does mess up my game, but it never bothered me to the extent to pen an open letter.
What does bother me is the reaction I see from parents towards the internet. Towards the people they interact with on the internet, and the people their children interact with on the internet. Because the internet is not some mythical world separate from reality anymore. It may contain a thousand worlds, subcultures and forums for people to interact on, but they are still interactions with people. And we're living in a world where those interactions are having serious consequences for the people involved.
It's time for people to get over their ignorance of things they can't see, or perhaps even things they don't truly understand, and don't dismiss other people just because they're not in the room with them.
People aren't saying that people online aren't real or don't matter.
They're saying that the GAME doesn't matter.
I'm sure that all the parents here "who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter" would punish their kid if the kid was tossing slurs online at strangers or cyberbullying.
Djiem on
+20
Options
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited February 2015
Basically.
I'm sorry, but unless money is on the line I just can't look at a game as more than recreation. Recreation that will still be there when you get back from doing whatever you need to do.
In the modern age this might just be the worst possible lesson you can teach your child short of 'playing in the road is a great idea'.
Seriously?!?! You have zero perspective if you think that this is the second worst possible lesson to teach a child. Not that that is the lesson being taught to the child in this scenario at all anyway. If anything, it teaches them that they need to budget their time and that there are more important things than a PUG LoL game, apparently a lesson lost on many so-called adults.
It's clear who in this scenario is being selfish, and it's not the parent or the child.
Forcibly ending the game early has nothing to do with teaching the kid 'people on the internet don't matter'. It has to do with teaching the kid 'games do not matter compared with life's other responsibilities'.
It is right in all scenarios? No. It depends on the responsibility being shirked, obviously. Because context is everything and these events do not occur in a vacuum.
However, I find the idea of teaching a kid to prioritize online gaming over their family a disturbing one. It reminds me of the mother in The Guild who neglects her babies in favor of the MMO. That is the 'ad absurdium' of the 'finish up' life lesson, just like trolling and abuse are the 'ad absurdium' of the 'internet people aren't real' life lesson. Like so many things in parenting, you don't slam right the way to the most extreme position, you take an interest and teach your kids, in a nuanced way, to try and keep a balance and act responsibly.
As a League player and someone who was involved in the discussion on the original thread, I'm gonna say the same here that I basically said there.
The thing most people here, especially those parents who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter, seem to be ignoring, is the lesson they're teaching their children by taking them off the game, as opposed to the lesson they think they'd be teaching if they left them on.
By saying both to the child and on here that you don't give a shit about the 9 other people they're playing with, you're teaching them that people online don't matter. That unless you can see them, they're not really people, not worth considering.
In the modern age this might just be the worst possible lesson you can teach your child short of 'playing in the road is a great idea'.
By instilling in children the idea that online people aren't 'real' you reinforce the treatment of internet interactions as somehow distinct from reality. The 'real world' and the internet are NOT two different things anymore. What you do and say online, how you act, has a definitive impact on other people, and can come back to have a definitive impact on yourself. League of Legends may be a game, but the interactions with the people playing with you are no less important than any other conversation you might have with another human being.
Instilling in children the idea that these people they meet online do not matter in the real world is what leads children to treat them as objects, as worthless. It's what leads to the horrendous trolling, online abuse, verbal assaults, death threats, rape threats, from people who have spent their whole lives being reinforced in the belief that their actions on the internet will not have real world consequences.
In the same vein, you remove any fear a child SHOULD have over the potential for strangers on the internet to be a genuine threat to them. The reservations they should have for putting sensitive information about themselves online without a thought or care as to where it might lead.
As a player, i'm annoyed when someone disconnects from a game i'm playing, for either no reason or a stupid reason. If someone tells me there's a family emergency, I don't care if they leave. If they tell me it's bedtime I think it's stupid they're playing, and it does mess up my game, but it never bothered me to the extent to pen an open letter.
What does bother me is the reaction I see from parents towards the internet. Towards the people they interact with on the internet, and the people their children interact with on the internet. Because the internet is not some mythical world separate from reality anymore. It may contain a thousand worlds, subcultures and forums for people to interact on, but they are still interactions with people. And we're living in a world where those interactions are having serious consequences for the people involved.
It's time for people to get over their ignorance of things they can't see, or perhaps even things they don't truly understand, and don't dismiss other people just because they're not in the room with them.
Eh, I'd argue that a parent that tells a child that they don't care about the 9 other people they're playing with isn't teaching them that people online don't matter; they're teaching them being obedient to what they say matters more than people online, or people irl, because the interaction involved there is the same. Back in the day when the streetlights came on, it was time to go in the house. Since I often had the ball/toy, it was going in with me too, game was over. "I don't care if so-and-so is still out there you are my kid; get in the house." Full stop. That didn't mean that my friends didn't matter. It meant that what they told me to do was a thing that I was to do then and there.
It's really no different. That's a major stretch on your part.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
+11
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
You're making a huge leap there. The reason that stopping the child from playing the game immediately (in order to follow through with a pre-planned commitment) is effective as a punishment is because of the added pressure of having the child being embarassed in front of their online friends. It's not that the child or the parent doesn't seen those people as real, any more than a parent pulling a child off a playground for a pre-planned commitment is saying that the child's friends on the playground don't matter.
If someone honestly wanted to discuss having respect for other players in an online game, it would have been an open letter about making the LoL community less toxic, not about telling parents to let kids play to the end of the game. Sexism, homophobia, racism, and general trolling are much more important issues to address if you're looking at player respect.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
People aren't saying that people online aren't real or don't matter.
They're saying that the GAME doesn't matter.
I'm sure that all the parents here "who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter" would punish their kid if the kid was tossing slurs online at strangers or cyberbullying.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think they matter.
I quote from TheCanMan above; "As a parent, I can honestly say that I give absolutely zero fucks about the video gaming experience of the people playing a game with my child if I decide it's time for him to stop playing."
The attitude here is simple. What happens to the people online because of the decisions I make for myself or my child is irrelevant to me. I don't have to care about the impact of my actions to people online.
Whether it's on the scale of a game or the broader scope of their interactions with these people as a whole, the effect remains the same.
People aren't saying that people online aren't real or don't matter.
They're saying that the GAME doesn't matter.
I'm sure that all the parents here "who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter" would punish their kid if the kid was tossing slurs online at strangers or cyberbullying.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think they matter.
You just made the same mistake a second time.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think the GAME matters.
In the modern age this might just be the worst possible lesson you can teach your child short of 'playing in the road is a great idea'.
No, I'm pretty sure timeless classic terrible lessons like "There are no consequences for your actions," "Always go along with whatever everybody else around you wants to do," and "Your value is determined by what other people think of you" still have it beat, "modern age" though this may be.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think the GAME matters.
Just because YOU don't care about the game, doesn't mean other people don't, and once again you're missing the underlying point. What you think about the game is irrelevant to the matter i'm trying to put across. That your treating others as something you don't have to care about, especially because they or your interaction with them is 'not part of the real world' is an extremely dangerous view to have.
Would you start playing football in the park in the middle of a friendly soccer game just because you don't like soccer? Would you tell your kids to just go play in the middle of the game for the same reason? It's as someone earlier in the thread said; would you turn the TV off for a room full of people just because it's time for your child to eat? Would you turn it off for the whole room just because you don't like what's on? Because i'm pretty certain most people would consider you an asshole for doing these things. So why is it okay to do it to people online? Because you don't know them, or because you don't think you'll experience any consequences for it? Either one is a shitty lesson to give a child, and it's a lesson too many young adults and teenagers are having now and suddenly finding that their actions online can and will have consequences they never knew about.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think the GAME matters.
Just because YOU don't care about the game, doesn't mean other people don't
That's cute. The game still doesn't matter as much as parenting does.
That your treating others as something you don't have to care about, especially because they or your interaction with them is 'not part of the real world' is an extremely dangerous view to have.
Nobody said that. We're saying that a videogame is not as important as parenting. Just like a game of soccer. You don't teach your kids to play football in the middle of the park where kids are playing soccer, but you sure do call them for dinner even if they're in the middle of a soccer game, even if they have the ball. That doesn't mean that soccer or playtime don't matter. It just doesn't matter more than dinner or parenting.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think the GAME matters.
Just because YOU don't care about the game, doesn't mean other people don't, and once again you're missing the underlying point. What you think about the game is irrelevant to the matter i'm trying to put across. That your treating others as something you don't have to care about, especially because they or your interaction with them is 'not part of the real world' is an extremely dangerous view to have.
Would you start playing football in the park in the middle of a friendly soccer game just because you don't like soccer? Would you tell your kids to just go play in the middle of the game for the same reason? It's as someone earlier in the thread said; would you turn the TV off for a room full of people just because it's time for your child to eat? Would you turn it off for the whole room just because you don't like what's on? Because i'm pretty certain most people would consider you an asshole for doing these things. So why is it okay to do it to people online? Because you don't know them, or because you don't think you'll experience any consequences for it? Either one is a shitty lesson to give a child, and it's a lesson too many young adults and teenagers are having now and suddenly finding that their actions online can and will have consequences they never knew about.
As multiple other people have already said, if my kid was playing soccer with people in the park and it was time for the family to leave to go eat dinner or whatever, I am absolutely telling my kid it's time to leave and the other kids he was playing soccer with can deal with it. There is no difference in how the situation would be treated whether the kid is playing a game online or playing a game in "real life," so no lesson about interacting with people specifically in the context of the Internet is taught. The lesson in both cases is: family commitments and parental authority take precedence over fun and games, be they with friends or strangers.
I don't even know what you're on about with the rest of this. If by telling my kid to stop playing LoL and come do something else I somehow have the mysterious power to close LoL on the computer of everybody else in the game he was playing with and restrict them from playing it for such a duration as I capriciously see fit, then your TV comparison might be something other than ridiculous. But I don't! So it's completely ridiculous.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think the GAME matters.
Just because YOU don't care about the game, doesn't mean other people don't, and once again you're missing the underlying point. What you think about the game is irrelevant to the matter i'm trying to put across. That your treating others as something you don't have to care about, especially because they or your interaction with them is 'not part of the real world' is an extremely dangerous view to have.
Would you start playing football in the park in the middle of a friendly soccer game just because you don't like soccer? Would you tell your kids to just go play in the middle of the game for the same reason? It's as someone earlier in the thread said; would you turn the TV off for a room full of people just because it's time for your child to eat? Would you turn it off for the whole room just because you don't like what's on? Because i'm pretty certain most people would consider you an asshole for doing these things. So why is it okay to do it to people online? Because you don't know them, or because you don't think you'll experience any consequences for it? Either one is a shitty lesson to give a child, and it's a lesson too many young adults and teenagers are having now and suddenly finding that their actions online can and will have consequences they never knew about.
I really think that your passion toward this online game is sort of making you unable to see just how irrational you're being right now.
The cut of your jib in your posts as far as "consequences" for leaving a game early toward the parents or other players in general is also kind of disconcerting.
I'm just saying, it's also not okay to harass and abuse other people online for any reason, let alone because they quit a game early.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Nobody said that. We're saying that a videogame is not as important as parenting. Just like a game of soccer. You don't teach your kids to play football in the middle of the park where kids are playing soccer, but you sure do call them for dinner even if they're in the middle of a soccer game, even if they have the ball. That doesn't mean that soccer or playtime don't matter. It just doesn't matter more than dinner or parenting.
And as I said before, which I'm feeling wasn't as clear as I thought it was from others reactions, I have no problem with placing dinner ahead of games. I totally agree with the position that responsibilities in your life take precedent over leisure time.
My problem is NOT with parents wanting to teach their children to manage time responsibly and to build solid priorities with their time.
My problem is that I see too many parents arbitrarily dismiss actions as not mattering purely because they are online, without even the consideration of how their interactions with others online effect them, not just in League but in the wider world of the internet. I have no problem with a child being told to get off League if they've joined a game trying to extend their bedtime, or because they've failed to communicate with their parents.
But I do think there are a lot of parents out there who aren't sufficiently educated in their child's hobbies, especially online play, and how they effect other people, and will make arbitrary decisions that effect others, and actively profess that they don't care about the impact of their actions, or the actions they can force upon their children, online.
I also think a lot of people have taken the basic points of the original letter and simplified them to the point of it being 'You're parenting your kids wrong if you don't let them finish your match because you're fucking with my stats' when I feel his underlying point had a lot more to do with there being ways to both teach a child time management and teach them that the people who they play with online are people that matter as well.
I'm not talking about the gamer parents who take their child off the computer at 10 because they've tried to be clever and start a game at 9.55, and scold them for the impact they have on the rest of the game and punish them for breaking the rules. I'm talking about the parents who don't use the internet heavily and weren't raised in a tech-oriented household, and kick their child off at 10 for bed, telling them they don't care about what they're doing, that they don't care if they're playing with people, it's time for bed, and then DONT do anything about the fact they'd just gone into a game. And repeat this motion practically every night, with nothing being learned on either side.
Seems to me the takeaway is "dropping out of a game is rude, so encourage your kids to not drop out of games. Because that's rude." I can get behind that. What I can't get behind is putting commitment to strangers over the Internet in a game over commitment to family obligations / duties. Real life trumps games.
Posts
I enjoy my kids and want to spend time with them. During the week dinner is sometimes the only chance we parents get.
It really depends on how much you like prog rock!
Sometimes you just want to sit back and admire the fruit of your loins consuming the fruits of your work efforts? IDK. Obviously, I am not a parent.
I imagine the number of players in general that leave due to disconnections/rage/"cat being on fire" far outweigh the number of child players that have to get offline because of bedtime/dinner/their parents said so though, and the open letter was simply done because someone was sore about that one time they lost for said reason. Open letters like these are just silly in general though, imo. Especially when you're simply addressing the choir.
Not leaving a game early is being considerate to the OTHER people playing, not to the person who is leaving early.
Not starting if you don't think you can finish is indeed a good idea, but for many kids, it's not an option. This is due to the fact that your mother hates when you have having fun playing video games. She is convinced that allowing you to play games makes her a bad mother, but to kick you off the games directly would make her "uncool" and feel old due to the 4th dimensional hatred from her younger self. Her solution to this is to wait until you are playing, then come up with some chore you must do. This chore must be completed immediately. It is imperative that the trash be taken to the curb within 42 seconds of her thinking of it or the trash collectors will not pick it up the next morning. This applies to wives as well as mothers. I hate to sound sexist, but it seems women in general want to urinate on your gaming experience and those playing with you will get wet in the process. This assumes you have no fetish for such things... it was meant to be an unpleasant event that causes no harm, but a general preference that it not occur. Yes, I hate to sound sexist... but I'm married.
While personal life DOES come first, it's not like the dishes couldn't wait another 15 minutes while I finish repelling the Nazi forces from the digital battleground. I think the kids can stay up an extra 5 minutes while we finish off that demon. It's about common courtesy, even to people you never met and never will again. We'd pause it if we could. Give the kid a break and let him finish the round unless he REALLY has something that must be done now.
Note: It's cute how people without kids think they know how to raise one. Even now, someone is reading that thinking "You don't need to have kids to know how to raise one!", and every parent who read THAT was thinking "yes... yes you do."
I do remember being frustrated as a kid because my parents tended to confuse "priority" with "chronology". Yes, taking out the trash is more important than computer games. But since I'm playing an MMO which can't be paused (something many parents still don't get about most games these days), that's something I can only do with real people (many of which were RL friends) right now, whereas the trash can be taken out ten minutes from now. Granted, if I use that leeway to forget to take the trash out, by all means punish for it. But parents found a balance between commitments to friends and commitments to family a long time ago regarding sports (both organized and unorganized). They're getting the hang of it with video games. Realizing there are other people on the other end is a first step. But all things told, it is still just a game.
Most of the parents posting here flat out disagree with you.
How you view... other parents is also very unsettling.
what
This is ridiculous and bad and you should feel bad not just for posting it, but for thinking it.
You just gotta love the follow-up justification of being married for your sexist nonsense. Like no sexist ever got married.
How he views his own wife is kind of unsettling.
I'm sure it matters to people who take their W/L ratio a bit too seriously.
But *shrug*
You mean you don't remember that one time Billy Mackenbrough cost you the 1996 Duke Nukem 3d Deathmatch Championship because his mom cooked spaghetti and she already put the Parmesan cheese on it and you know how it gets all soggy if it's on there too long? Never Forget.
Because it is always the case.
Leaving out your utterly bizzare judgement of other people's motives... you could say to your parent, "I'm about to do an online match that may take as long as an hour, do you have any chores you would like me to clear up beforehand, so that I won't be interrupted during the match?" Then said child takes out the goddamn trash, and match is uninterrupted. Added bonus that parent looks upon child as industrious and responsible for asking.
Now that's just not true. Very often it's not the most racist/sexist/etc. shit.
Well I have short-term memory loss, and I was using the royal "we".
How he views him mother isn't much better.
And these are the thoughts he decided were reasonable enough to share with everyone? :?
We first-generation gamers--those of us who took up the Atari, the Commodore 64, the Apple ][ and IBM 286--are becoming parents, now. Heck, some of the more ambitious or unlucky members of Gen X could be GRANDparents. When we were growing up, our parents didn't know how to deal with "gamers" because there had never been such a thing. Gaming--as a lifestyle--was new, and abnormal. Now we're the parents. It's interesting watching how we lifelong gamers parent, compared to nongaming parents who are raising kids who have grown up in a world where gaming is not only tolerated, but the default lifestyle.
Sometimes she said "yes", sometimes "no", sometimes "Get your ass off that game and do what I told you to do right now!"
It varied from situation to situation and even though I probably thought it was the worst thing in the world when I got no, I really can't say it was that big of a deal looking back on it.
Not to mention sometimes I would have totally procrastinated my ass off if I could have.
The thing most people here, especially those parents who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter, seem to be ignoring, is the lesson they're teaching their children by taking them off the game, as opposed to the lesson they think they'd be teaching if they left them on.
By saying both to the child and on here that you don't give a shit about the 9 other people they're playing with, you're teaching them that people online don't matter. That unless you can see them, they're not really people, not worth considering.
In the modern age this might just be the worst possible lesson you can teach your child short of 'playing in the road is a great idea'.
By instilling in children the idea that online people aren't 'real' you reinforce the treatment of internet interactions as somehow distinct from reality. The 'real world' and the internet are NOT two different things anymore. What you do and say online, how you act, has a definitive impact on other people, and can come back to have a definitive impact on yourself. League of Legends may be a game, but the interactions with the people playing with you are no less important than any other conversation you might have with another human being.
Instilling in children the idea that these people they meet online do not matter in the real world is what leads children to treat them as objects, as worthless. It's what leads to the horrendous trolling, online abuse, verbal assaults, death threats, rape threats, from people who have spent their whole lives being reinforced in the belief that their actions on the internet will not have real world consequences.
In the same vein, you remove any fear a child SHOULD have over the potential for strangers on the internet to be a genuine threat to them. The reservations they should have for putting sensitive information about themselves online without a thought or care as to where it might lead.
As a player, i'm annoyed when someone disconnects from a game i'm playing, for either no reason or a stupid reason. If someone tells me there's a family emergency, I don't care if they leave. If they tell me it's bedtime I think it's stupid they're playing, and it does mess up my game, but it never bothered me to the extent to pen an open letter.
What does bother me is the reaction I see from parents towards the internet. Towards the people they interact with on the internet, and the people their children interact with on the internet. Because the internet is not some mythical world separate from reality anymore. It may contain a thousand worlds, subcultures and forums for people to interact on, but they are still interactions with people. And we're living in a world where those interactions are having serious consequences for the people involved.
It's time for people to get over their ignorance of things they can't see, or perhaps even things they don't truly understand, and don't dismiss other people just because they're not in the room with them.
They're saying that the GAME doesn't matter.
I'm sure that all the parents here "who seem to have the biggest issue with the letter" would punish their kid if the kid was tossing slurs online at strangers or cyberbullying.
I'm sorry, but unless money is on the line I just can't look at a game as more than recreation. Recreation that will still be there when you get back from doing whatever you need to do.
And I am a heavy user of online multiplayer.
Seriously?!?! You have zero perspective if you think that this is the second worst possible lesson to teach a child. Not that that is the lesson being taught to the child in this scenario at all anyway. If anything, it teaches them that they need to budget their time and that there are more important things than a PUG LoL game, apparently a lesson lost on many so-called adults.
It's clear who in this scenario is being selfish, and it's not the parent or the child.
It is right in all scenarios? No. It depends on the responsibility being shirked, obviously. Because context is everything and these events do not occur in a vacuum.
However, I find the idea of teaching a kid to prioritize online gaming over their family a disturbing one. It reminds me of the mother in The Guild who neglects her babies in favor of the MMO. That is the 'ad absurdium' of the 'finish up' life lesson, just like trolling and abuse are the 'ad absurdium' of the 'internet people aren't real' life lesson. Like so many things in parenting, you don't slam right the way to the most extreme position, you take an interest and teach your kids, in a nuanced way, to try and keep a balance and act responsibly.
Eh, I'd argue that a parent that tells a child that they don't care about the 9 other people they're playing with isn't teaching them that people online don't matter; they're teaching them being obedient to what they say matters more than people online, or people irl, because the interaction involved there is the same. Back in the day when the streetlights came on, it was time to go in the house. Since I often had the ball/toy, it was going in with me too, game was over. "I don't care if so-and-so is still out there you are my kid; get in the house." Full stop. That didn't mean that my friends didn't matter. It meant that what they told me to do was a thing that I was to do then and there.
It's really no different. That's a major stretch on your part.
If someone honestly wanted to discuss having respect for other players in an online game, it would have been an open letter about making the LoL community less toxic, not about telling parents to let kids play to the end of the game. Sexism, homophobia, racism, and general trolling are much more important issues to address if you're looking at player respect.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think they matter.
I quote from TheCanMan above; "As a parent, I can honestly say that I give absolutely zero fucks about the video gaming experience of the people playing a game with my child if I decide it's time for him to stop playing."
The attitude here is simple. What happens to the people online because of the decisions I make for myself or my child is irrelevant to me. I don't have to care about the impact of my actions to people online.
Whether it's on the scale of a game or the broader scope of their interactions with these people as a whole, the effect remains the same.
You just made the same mistake a second time.
If you don't think the effect your child leaving has on others matters, you don't think the GAME matters.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
No, I'm pretty sure timeless classic terrible lessons like "There are no consequences for your actions," "Always go along with whatever everybody else around you wants to do," and "Your value is determined by what other people think of you" still have it beat, "modern age" though this may be.
Just because YOU don't care about the game, doesn't mean other people don't, and once again you're missing the underlying point. What you think about the game is irrelevant to the matter i'm trying to put across. That your treating others as something you don't have to care about, especially because they or your interaction with them is 'not part of the real world' is an extremely dangerous view to have.
Would you start playing football in the park in the middle of a friendly soccer game just because you don't like soccer? Would you tell your kids to just go play in the middle of the game for the same reason? It's as someone earlier in the thread said; would you turn the TV off for a room full of people just because it's time for your child to eat? Would you turn it off for the whole room just because you don't like what's on? Because i'm pretty certain most people would consider you an asshole for doing these things. So why is it okay to do it to people online? Because you don't know them, or because you don't think you'll experience any consequences for it? Either one is a shitty lesson to give a child, and it's a lesson too many young adults and teenagers are having now and suddenly finding that their actions online can and will have consequences they never knew about.
That's cute. The game still doesn't matter as much as parenting does.
Nobody said that. We're saying that a videogame is not as important as parenting. Just like a game of soccer. You don't teach your kids to play football in the middle of the park where kids are playing soccer, but you sure do call them for dinner even if they're in the middle of a soccer game, even if they have the ball. That doesn't mean that soccer or playtime don't matter. It just doesn't matter more than dinner or parenting.
As multiple other people have already said, if my kid was playing soccer with people in the park and it was time for the family to leave to go eat dinner or whatever, I am absolutely telling my kid it's time to leave and the other kids he was playing soccer with can deal with it. There is no difference in how the situation would be treated whether the kid is playing a game online or playing a game in "real life," so no lesson about interacting with people specifically in the context of the Internet is taught. The lesson in both cases is: family commitments and parental authority take precedence over fun and games, be they with friends or strangers.
I don't even know what you're on about with the rest of this. If by telling my kid to stop playing LoL and come do something else I somehow have the mysterious power to close LoL on the computer of everybody else in the game he was playing with and restrict them from playing it for such a duration as I capriciously see fit, then your TV comparison might be something other than ridiculous. But I don't! So it's completely ridiculous.
I'll say the same thing I said before. My child's poor choices affect other people. This is a critical lesson everyone should learn.
Will it mean some people get in 4v5s? Yes it will. But its worth it hands down if it makes my kid use their brain before acting.
I really think that your passion toward this online game is sort of making you unable to see just how irrational you're being right now.
The cut of your jib in your posts as far as "consequences" for leaving a game early toward the parents or other players in general is also kind of disconcerting.
I'm just saying, it's also not okay to harass and abuse other people online for any reason, let alone because they quit a game early.
And as I said before, which I'm feeling wasn't as clear as I thought it was from others reactions, I have no problem with placing dinner ahead of games. I totally agree with the position that responsibilities in your life take precedent over leisure time.
My problem is NOT with parents wanting to teach their children to manage time responsibly and to build solid priorities with their time.
My problem is that I see too many parents arbitrarily dismiss actions as not mattering purely because they are online, without even the consideration of how their interactions with others online effect them, not just in League but in the wider world of the internet. I have no problem with a child being told to get off League if they've joined a game trying to extend their bedtime, or because they've failed to communicate with their parents.
But I do think there are a lot of parents out there who aren't sufficiently educated in their child's hobbies, especially online play, and how they effect other people, and will make arbitrary decisions that effect others, and actively profess that they don't care about the impact of their actions, or the actions they can force upon their children, online.
I also think a lot of people have taken the basic points of the original letter and simplified them to the point of it being 'You're parenting your kids wrong if you don't let them finish your match because you're fucking with my stats' when I feel his underlying point had a lot more to do with there being ways to both teach a child time management and teach them that the people who they play with online are people that matter as well.
I'm not talking about the gamer parents who take their child off the computer at 10 because they've tried to be clever and start a game at 9.55, and scold them for the impact they have on the rest of the game and punish them for breaking the rules. I'm talking about the parents who don't use the internet heavily and weren't raised in a tech-oriented household, and kick their child off at 10 for bed, telling them they don't care about what they're doing, that they don't care if they're playing with people, it's time for bed, and then DONT do anything about the fact they'd just gone into a game. And repeat this motion practically every night, with nothing being learned on either side.