Parenting Kid Can Play War Games - If He Learns The Geneva Convention
Written by Michelle Buss
It seems to be every second day that we hear a negative story about children and video games and often parents are blamed for allowing their kids access to violent games without any idea what they contain. It is fabulous then when we hear a story about parents who show that they are both imaginative and switched on to the content their child might encounter in a game they want to play.
When Evan Spencer, a then twelve year old, asked his father if he could play the popular war game Call Of Duty 4, he expected a straight out yes or no but he got much more than he bargained for. His father, Hugh, examined the game and came up with a unique parenting tactic. His child would be allowed to play the game with his friends if he both learned the Geneva convention rules and applied them while he was playing.
Mr Spencer admits “Part of it was that I wanted to discourage him from getting the game. I just thought, ‘Hey, he’ll never read the Geneva Conventions.” As we so often do he completely under estimated his son who proceeded to learn the rules, pass a quick quiz and deem them ‘common sense really’.
Now when he plays with his mates he has to apply the rules as much as he can within the scope of the game. No blowing up houses and people just for fun for Evan. If at all possible he must try to achieve the objectives of the game by harming the fewest amount of innocent people as possible. And if an opposition soldier has had enough then he must take him prisoner if the game allows him to.
Mr Spencer is understandably proud of his son and adds, “In a sense, I wanted to make him aware that there’s a lot more about World War Two than just pointing and shooting,”.
It seems his objective has been achieved as Evan now has an intimate understanding of the Geneva Convention, a piece of history that most of his friends would be ignorant of and is learning lessons about the application of moral standards as he plays the game.
In essence Mr Spencer has achieved two objectives here that most parents would be proud of and that teachers would certainly envy. He has made a history lesson come alive for his son and have real meaning to him. He has also provided moral guidance in an unobtrusive way.
Oh and Evan agrees that his dad is very ‘fair’. That is not something that parents get to hear from their kids every day.
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