The 'death of childhood'? Blame games, say UK childcare experts

by Jennie Lees { Sep 12th 2006 at 6:56PM }

An open letter in the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper condemns "junk culture" -- junk food, junk entertainment and a fast-moving culture -- for its effect on children, with sombre phrases like "ruining our children" and "the death of childhood" weighing down its paragraphs. From the letter:

[Children] still need what developing human beings have always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed "junk"), real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives.

A scathing commentary on the evils of modern life -- and what's more, plenty of readers agree that the hands-off parenting enabled by video games is a big problem for today's youth. Perhaps the high profile given to this complaint (a national broadsheet) will open up some serious debate on the matter, rather than give a platform for rabid anti-gaming propaganda to spread to the UK as well.

Tags: childhood, comment, culture, opinion, society, telegraph

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JimeneX @ Sep 12th 2006 7:00PM

The picture wins hard

mykie @ Sep 12th 2006 7:07PM

How much modern technology do you expect THE TELEGRAPH to accept? I mean come on when was the last time YOU communicated via TELEGRAPH?!

Anyways, I don't want to read through all 15 pages of that article, can't someone please just summarize it in Pop-Up Video format so that I can absorb it while I wait for my PSP game to load, while I listen to Avenged Sevenfold on my iPod?

Whoops too late.

Derbeste @ Sep 12th 2006 7:08PM

I have no problem with (and even agree with) many of those points.

It IS a problem. It's a BIG problem. It's a social and physical risk to be sure.

What is an even BIGGER problem, however, is trying to blame an inanimate object for that problem. Games, like fast food and pop culture, are inherently amoral.

Until PARENTS stop attempting to absolve themselves from responsibility, nothing will get better.

Furthermore, the government needs to get itself OUT Of the household and release parents to actually make rules and consequences for their children without calling everything they do "abuse".

In short, games can't choose. Parents can. End of story.

GamerZero @ Sep 12th 2006 7:10PM

Ban games...yeah!
Ban junk food...yeah!
Ban films while we're at it...yeah!
Ban books and magazines...yeah!
Let's just make it easier by taking people's freedom away by government control just like Hitler wanted us to do...ummm No!
Let's just STOP RIGHT NOW!

5ftassassin @ Sep 12th 2006 7:26PM

That pic is too damn funny! LOL

Ahms @ Sep 12th 2006 7:31PM

So you guys want the parents to watch their kids closely online and in their gaming...until they actually do it. Because we have freedoms and shouldn't be monitored like that by our oflks, it's our choice as inviduals. But if we screw up, then it's our parents fault for not watching us closely, not our own

What a scary future we're going to have, with all bnet kiddies running things, blaming their parents and not taking any responsibilty :)

IMO it is a concern. If a kid loves to abuse people online, be a jerk, or even try to harm someones else account/files/computer, etc., how does a parent find about that, especially if they aren't so tech savvy? They can't see what you do online; it's not like seeing the trouble Billy causes in your neighborhood and hearing about it through the grapevine

On the flipside, if your child does GREAT stuff online, like organizing clans, clubs, or positive stuff like that, how do they give them proper praise for it?

You definitley need the real life touch and experience to give a child that warmth growing up and get them outside as well. But at the same time, you need to get them computer and tech literate in this day and age. Gaming helps great with that

IMO? We need some education program to show parents hey, this is what goes on in the gaming and internet world. Understand and learn it, and participate in it with your kid, enjoy their hobby with them. If you play with them, you can help grow as well. You aren't going to like everything you see, but if you study it some, you can find the great things about gaming and the internet, the bad things, and then properly rear your child to get the best of the world he/she is in and cut off the bad, and hopefully stop a future corpse camper ;)

Well, you get my meaning :)

I think it's awful if a kid doesn't get out, explore the world, and hang out with his family. At the same time, I think it's also bad if a parent can't get into their kids hobby and see what they're doing, or if they stop a child from having fun with games and learning the online/gaming/tech world. Blaming parents soley is definitley the wrong answer, as well as just blaming games and the new culture

It's a combination of the two. What if there was some event that let parents and their kids have fun with some games together, and also explain this new online world? That would be awesome

mocax @ Sep 12th 2006 7:50PM

it's a vicious cycle.
your granddad thought it's ok to let your dad play some space invaders, eat hamburgers (they were a novelty back then). your dad got hooked on the junk. Then your dad thinks it's ok for you to take those junk because his dad didn't object that those. Next you'll be passing junk to your kids.

I don't plan to have kids, so my family line of junk stops right there. Well.... unless I misfired and she carried my seeds without my knowledge....

Cage @ Sep 12th 2006 7:47PM

Best...picture...ever. Jennie...its a classic.

Ross @ Sep 12th 2006 8:02PM

Thats funny, my early childhood is filled with SNES games and my late childhood is all the fun me and my friends and cousins had with the N64.

ogvor @ Sep 12th 2006 7:49PM

I would actually have to agree that using Video Games as babystitting as opposed to sitting down and playing with them is bad for them. So is giving them fast food every night instead of finding the time to cook a healthy meal and sit down to dinner with them. This again goes back to good/bad parenting. If you don't have the time to be with your child and nurture them, then they will probably have mental/health/social problems growing up.

Video games are entertainment and to and can transgress to art. What they aren't is a babysitter.

2slick @ Sep 12th 2006 8:00PM

that picture woulda held the record for most pp in dead rising.

as for the article, ya gotta blame the parents and any other people who help raise the child(ren). parents introduce their kids to junk food, video games, etc. if not directly then by who the parents let the kids associate with. as a parent of twin boys just about to turn a year old, they can start gaming whenever they can, but they'll be playin a nes and snes for a while and that sh1t will be monitored, the problem is that parents just use the newest console to babysit their kids, then are curious y they have a rage problem because u desensitized the p1ss outta them by lettin 'em play mortal kombat and halo all day. This along w/ most of these "infomercial reports" are pointless to me. Parents make the ultimate decisions for their children, not t.v. or some other "hipster technology"

2slick @ Sep 12th 2006 8:00PM

in response to #6, don't let them hop on a computer, kids shouldn't be playin online games w/ adults anyways, i'm not lettin mine, too many variables a parent can't control. kids and others may think i'm gonna be too controlling or what have you, but that's what you do as a good parent, control what you can for your child, until your child has proven he/she can handle responsibility. and it's a gradual process, dear lord it seems that as soon as a kid turns a certain age, he should be left alone to do w/e the hell he wants nowadays, then when said kid does something wrong, everyone runs around screamin i dunno how this coulda happened. i pray for u people. lol

Tyler @ Sep 13th 2006 10:00AM

I don't think this is a "ban " article. These parents are mostly correct. Video games CAN be harmful if the play time is not moderated. The main problem with this whole anti-games argument is that they never make the parents take enough responsibility.

I've gamed for all of my remembered life, but my parents made sure it was in moderation. If my son/daughter chooses to play video games(or watch tv too much) I will do the same thing.

Thrall @ Sep 12th 2006 8:29PM

This is stupid. This is exactly what they said with comic books. I grew up with the n64 and PC Games. I still play PC Games (obviously, from posting on joystiq, although the most anti-pc gaming website I've ever been to).

I have turned out fine. And yes..FOR THE HORDE!!

Frankie23 @ Sep 13th 2006 12:04AM

Childhood is a myth of the twentieth century. It's only been in the last few generations that children have had such large amounts of free time. The concept of kids having chores around the house has diminished severely, and modern day appliances turn what chores do still exist into much simpler tasks. While kids have always "played", to suggest that the short period of time when the baby boomers grew up in a period of previously-unknwon luxury should be held as a common example of childhood throughout history is pure ignorance.

sockatume @ Sep 12th 2006 8:38PM

I don't get it. Newspapers terrify parents into keeping their children indoors with stories of drug abuse, paedophiles, railway accidents, teenage sex, alcoholism, and general horror, and then complain about it.

Pag @ Sep 12th 2006 8:51PM

For most of history, kids started working the farm at age 8 and mostly ate bread. In the 19th century, many children in England worked 6 days a week in coal mines. The modern concept of childhood didn't really become common until the 20th century, when industrialization and universal schooling made it impractical and unwanted for kids to work.

By that standard, kids never had it better than today. This article is just the same old story about how life was so much better in the past. People tend to wear rose-tinted glasses when looking back at the past.

Things change, entertainment changes. Your kids probably won't play the same things you did when you were a kid -- deal with it.

Volcker @ Sep 12th 2006 8:55PM

If it keeps annoying kids off the streets, then it's great.

spooty @ Sep 13th 2006 3:00AM

Gaming is just the latest in a long line of youth-destroying beasts. Most things have had this come to issue: television, movies, music, comics, the waltz. Television raises more children than school or parents. Which is likely the cause behind prudist religious fanatics trying to sanitize television for children. Children have no business watching television other than what is programed for them. Same with games and movies. Stop trying to prevent others from engaging media just so you don't have to keep an eye on your kids, you lazy parents. Anything that brings pleasure is the cause of destruction. Repent all possessions and activiy and just lay on the ground. Its the only safe option. Until that bird flys overhead...

pukgreenuniform @ Sep 12th 2006 9:15PM

Thats intresting. A dude on the RRF forums uses that pic as his banner sig. Are you an Urban Dead player Jennie?

Barhah!!!

nick @ Sep 12th 2006 9:17PM

LMAO. awesome picture.

Yaanu @ Sep 12th 2006 9:41PM

...I was thinking of something else to say, but I just came up with a easy yet totally craptastic solution: Every member of the family has their own gaming profile, XBOX Live style. One account will be the admin account, PC/Mac style, and control video game ratings on each account. Members (tee hee) log into their specified accounts, and whoever is forced to play E games only for two weeks does so.

Easier done than said.

Jonn @ Sep 12th 2006 10:19PM

It's not that I disagree with what he's saying, it's that I dislike the way he's saying it.

Kincyr @ Sep 12th 2006 10:50PM

"first-hand experience of the world they live in"
Death, pain and disease are not things that children should have first-hand experience in, 馬鹿

Jay @ Sep 13th 2006 8:40AM

That pic is hilarious!

And, there is something to be said for the content of their statement -- I think kids should be outside running around and interacting with other kids and adults, not glued to a TV ... but, when I say kids, I'm talking 3 to 9 year olds ... not teenagers, and the research is talking about that, too.

Parents using the media (TV, videogames, etc) to babysit their kids is pathetic.

GhaleonQ @ Sep 12th 2006 11:43PM

Did post #2 represent their argument (the pages are the signatures of the academics)? Yes.

Waccoon @ Sep 13th 2006 6:06AM

Maybe games/TV should just be more intelligent.

Oh, that's right. If you make a really awesome game that puts plot and strategy ahead of graphics, blowing stuff up, or jumping across platforms, it sells only 50,000 copies.

Dammit, I want another Star Control so bad. That game had the sharpest writing EVER.

Chris @ Sep 13th 2006 7:57AM

That's funny, I remember when I was five I always used to play "Mega Man X" with my friends and then afterwards we'd play around pretending we were the characters. Videogames can inspire children's imaginations too, even moreso than a good cartoon show.

DCSimian @ Sep 13th 2006 9:07AM

Again...it boils down to the parents. If they get off their duffs first, the kids will follow.

Pic rulz! I LOL everytime I see it :-)

Richard Mitchell @ Sep 13th 2006 10:06AM

I agree with another poster on here. The problem is that parents use games as a substitute, instead of playing these games *with* their children. That's the result of a generational gap that is rapidly closing. When today's twenty somethings are having children, they will happily play games with their children. It's no different than reading with a child or playing any other kind of game with them.

Hell, when I was a kid, my dad used to watch me play Zelda 2. He remembered the dungeon layouts better than I did. Granted, you can never keep track of what your kid is doing at all times, but you can take part when you have the chance.

flatrabbit @ Sep 13th 2006 6:57PM

God damn that picture made me spit coffee all over. Joystiq I'm charging you for a new keyboard.

I have 3 sons all in the video game age range so I have intimate knowledge of the subject. The problem of using video games, TV & computers as alternate parenting devices is a huge one. It's so easy to just let my oldest son play WoW until his heart is content and that solves my worries about how he's hanging out with and where. But really it just builds a dependence on both sides. So I tend to give my kids a set time limit to play the games before I force them to get up and find something more constructive to do. I am lucky that my oldest is interested in outdoor sports also to he does get that human interaction time in every day.

But I've met a lot of parents who aren't so strict and just use an electronic device as a babysitter. They don't monitor what their kids do online nor do they pay attention to how long they sit in front of a monitor/tv. It's a sad situation.