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This is an ongoing discussion in my house. My 10 year old was given Halo 2 as a present by his grandfather and my wife didn't think it was a good idea.
My wife is a teacher in training and last fall they did an exercise with the kids in her grade five class... They described a scenario in which the student was walking and was hit with a random snowball. They don't know where it came from or who threw it. They asked each child for their reaction (and were very careful not to edit their responses). Just about every boy in the class said immediately that they would go and find who threw it and kill them. Many suggested the weapon they would use to do this. Most of the girls said they would be afraid and would seek shelter.
They we shocked to discover the level of violence and the desire to seek vengeance. There was no pause for reflection just gut instinct lashing out...
I think a lot of this has to do with the level of violence that we subject our children to. One aspect of which is videogames.
You can argue all you want about the tactics in Halo 2 but when it comes down to it, the game involves a lot of shooting and killing. More importantly it places the child as an active participant in the shooting and killing.
In my mind this is just not appropriate for young children.
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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke
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