Violent Video Games and Young Children

Dear Parents, Grandparents, Guardians of Young Children,

More and more we are hearing our young students talk about video games they play, including mature rated games such as Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto.  Usually these games are played with older siblings or cousins. We implore you to monitor all video and computer games your children play.  Three and four year old children do not yet have the ability to tell fantasy from reality, right from wrong, or have a developed moral compass. A lot of the aggressive behaviors and lack of self regulation we are seeing in Pre-k are resulting from too much screen time, too many incidences of violence witnessed daily and too little sleep. Young children’s brains are developing at the most rapid rate they will ever develop at any other time of their lives.  Violent fast paced video games rewire these young brains, moving children away from social behavior, toward more aggressive behavior or “loner” type personalities, create behaviors similar to ADD or ADHD and are over stimulating our children.

Here are some resources for your review:

From Dr. Phil’s website:

"Violent video games don't teach kids moral consequences. "If you shoot somebody in one of these games, you don't go to jail, you don't get penalized in some way — you get extra points!" This doesn't mean that your child will go out into the world and shoot someone. "But they do use more aggressive language, they do use more  aggressive images, they have less ability to control their anger and they externalize things in these violent ways. It's absolutely not good," says Dr. Phil. 

 Furthermore, the American Psychological Association says playing violent games correlates to children being less  caring and helpful toward their peers. And these effects happen just as much for non-aggressive children as they do for children who already have aggressive tendencies. Children spend a great deal of time with violent video games at exactly the ages that they should be learning healthy ways to relate to other people and to resolve conflicts peacefully."

Study: Violent Video Games May Make Kids More Aggressive Brian Krans | March 24, 2014

"A new study suggests that violent video games really can alter a child’s view of aggression. The study, published today in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, surveyed the gaming habits of 3,034 children ages 8 to 17 in Singapore over a three-year period. The results suggest that violent video game play influences aggressive behavior by producing  lasting changes in how a child views violence.” Full Article

I hope you do your own research on this topic. In the meantime, please prevent your young children from having access to violent video games, news and TV shows. Now that the weather is nice take your children outside and encourage imaginative play and outdoor games.