AIBU to think that Fortnite is too violent for a 7 year old?

[Celestia26]

I have a son aged 7, who has a few classmates who play Fortnite quite alot.

He's started talking about it, but because it contains guns and shooting I have said he can't play it.

AIBU? I haven't played it myself, so I'm just judging it on what I've heard.

My sons behaviour improved massively when he got an x box and started playing fortnite 🤷‍♀️. He’s 9. Does well at school. Go figure. It’s WWE wrestling that causes me issues so that’s massively limited. Too much play fighting at school.

I'm not remotely interested in your opinion of me Choude.

Great. Why do you care so much what others do with their kids then OrgyofSausages?

@OrgyofSausages I don't really think comparing a kids video game and porn is really relevant! In an ideal world no I wouldn't want my DS to watch porn at all, I'd like him to have a healthy view on sexual relationships. At 13 will he know what sex is? Most probably yes to some extent due to sexual education and peers. Would I want him to be able to talk to me about it, yes of course.

Like I said all about common sense, would
I have no clue about the game/ not have tried it myself to see what it's all about and just let him on unsupervised for hours at a time... no. He has also watched a 12 rated film (Jurassic world) which IMO is much more awful and gory and probably more harmful. Did he enjoy it... yes - he loves dinosaurs . Does he understand it's a film/ not real yes, is he capable of understanding the difference between reality and fiction yes! Like I said he is quite clever perhaps other 7 year olds wouldn't be mature enough with the game and go OTT, I know some of my elder DS school friends of 9 are babysat by their xboxes, express horrible behaviour as a consequence- bad language and so on because parents aren't actually interested in what they are doing or keeping tabs. It's just the same as going for dinner and handing your child an iPad.

Do you have a 7 year old yourself? What does he/she watch? Do they use any technology? Tbh I would rather he be on this game than you tube!

Sickmumma. You say you think your 7 year old is 'quite clever' and more mature than other 7 year olds. So this is why you ignore all the expert advice? I'm sorry but you are deluded. It's a 12 rated game. Face it.

@OrgyofSausages yes you are right the game is a 12! Deluded perhaps yes - I am
7 months pregnant and my baby brain has fully kicked in! Yes I believe he is quite clever, perhaps because we don't always follow the rules?! We think outside the box, we take risks. Who knows! When he's 18 I'll come back and let you know how he's turned out! 😬

YANBU, my 7 year old doesn't play either, and nor does my 11 year old.

They play Roblox, but we monitor it, they don't play 5 nights at Freddie's.

Its FAR less violent than Tom & Gerry so on that front you are being utterly ridiculous. Boys will play at killing things till the end of time, Army, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians... the list is endless.

The real issue is the amount of time the games last and the addictiveness that some kids don’t cope well with (you will know your own child on this front).

Orgyofsausages So glad to hear my parenting is woefully inadequate and that I’m deluded because my 8 year old plays a silly cartoon game occasionally

I think tbh it depends on the child, if they’re likely to become addicted/act up after playing then they probably shouldn’t. My daughter can get caught up in gaming if allowed to but she has also read the whole Harry Potter series by herself so it definitely hasn’t affected her attention span.

Once you get into the position of protesting too much - you have to admit being on weak ground. It is a 12 - it doesn't teach coding or co-operative skills. At best it is a babysitter without any pros beyond distraction. As for 'everyone else does it' that is as old as the hills.

I personally don't like violent games and try to stop my kids from playing them as long as i reasonably can, but i dont believe that games like fortnite are easy and turn children's minds off. To be good at these types of games requires strategical thinking and concentration. I have many extremely successful executives and CEOs among my friends and family who have spent endless hours of their youth gaming. Gaming is not coding, but on the whole coding doesn't earn that much money, it's a technical skill. Strategical thinking and leadership abilities open up more career opportunities. I would encourage girls to game more, or at least would like to see a study about how well girls who played strategy games did at work compared to girls who never did. Both my ds and dd's school have a Minecraft and general gaming club btw, my ds school aims for Eton e.a. and my dds school aims for 80percent a and a* at a levels, and both schools think that within (age and time) limits gaming is overall positive for a child's academic development.

My 7 in a few days ds plays Fortnite intermittently, but only with his older cousins. My dh and his db's are all gamers, so ds has grown up with gaming being the norm. We impose strict time limits, no chance at secrecy at all and he's always with one of us irl as well as his cousins online. Any reactive behaviour to coming off the game results in the wifi being switched off and he's then grounded from it!
Sounds like my family are total gamers, but ds is currently running around outside with a friend playing football. He's the youngest of 4 dc's, and ime it's all about balance.

It’s entertainment but obviously team play has a co-operative aspect.
I’d rather have my child spend 30mins a day playing Fortnite as they do than have them constantly tapping away at ‘educational’ games on phones and IPads seemingly unable to sit for 5 mins without one which a lot of parents seem to think is fine.
My child is respectful, popular, in top classes at school and isn’t addicted because he is actually parented and when I say it’s time for screens to go off they know it’s time to turn off and there will be a consequence if they don’t.
If kids are putting their fist through TVs etc I imagine there are deeper problems than Fortnite!

I let my kids watch 12 films if I have watched them myself/researched them think they are suitable. I also don’t let them watch PGs if there is anything I think they wouldn’t cope with in them. Age ratings are guidelines and some kids under 12 will be well able to cope with games/films with a 12 guideline. Equally some 12 year olds may not. Be a parent and judge for yourself instead of just relying solely on the guidelines!
And before someone comes on and says ‘oh I suppose I should let my 2 yr old watch 18 films then’ - it’s not quite the same. There isn’t going to be anything explicitly sexual in 12 rated material for eg, there isn’t going to be any severe gore etc.

OP is completely correct. This game is not suitable for under 12s.

Of course it’s not. It’s completely unsuitable for children 11yrs and 364 days old and then becomes suitable overnight. No need for common sense at all.

My 6 year old wants it but I've never seen it. My 17 year old has put her foot down that he's not allowed it as she wasn't allowed to play GTA or COD when she was 12/13 and they were rated 18 😁

I think it’s personal choice, and you as a parent knowing your child. Technically the ratings are the age you need to be to buy the games not play them / watch them. That said I’ve never been overly comfortable with the kind of first person shooters such as GTA that seem to glorify violence. I never stopped ds1 playing elsewhere, but talked to him about why I’d rather he didn’t buy it for the house. So on that point, I’d probably allow the play date.

It truly is cartoony, there is no blood at all and the bullets are practically just lines. A 7 year old could play it, and be fine. GTA has nudity and blood, COD just has blood splatters.

Youtube is not bad?

We said 11 for Fortnite (it's rated 12) with the condition agreed in advance that if he had a single tantrum about his time being up or being called for meals or to go out etc it'd be removed permanently.

My problems with it are the fact you're playing online and talking to people - it takes a lot of monitoring to know the kids aren't talking to ransoms, they add their known friends but if they only have a group of say 3 online they want to "fill up" for a team of 4 and a random gets added. If they have a headset they can talk to this random.

The fact it's last man standing (kill everyone else is the only way to win)

The fact it's addictive

The fact children nag to make in game purchases

The fact children actually mock one another for only having a nube skin and insufficient dances (newbie skin?)

The fact younger sibling wants to watch, which is as bad as playing it

We bought 11 year old various other conventional games for Christmas (i.e. ones you pay for up front not this endless in game purchases scam) and thankfully he and 7 year old are currently only interested in playing Lego City Undercover.

I somewhat regret allowing Fortnite at all, more because the 7 year old is too fascinated - 11 year old heeded warnings about it being outright banned if it seemed to be making him grumpy or he appeared to be getting obsessed with it, and disguises himself as a shrub if called away for lunch mid battle and never protests or asks for extra time on it.

I definitely would not allow it at 7. 11, one year below the age rating, works if there are no younger siblings...

You can select the don't fill option @blueskiesandforests - my children often play with a friend as a trio and you press square and it doesn't fill with a random but obv means they are a person down. They have never argued this, we have spoken about the rule and why we have it - my 7 year old wouldn't play with his best friend the other day because he tried to add his cousin to the party and he didn't know him in real life and so simply left and told his friend sorry I can't play with people I don't know. Ours is very locked down, you can't even find our child's name to add in a search. Again it's all about doing research.

They also do it in the living room so I can hear what they are talking about - generally it's just about the game, not had anyone upset about being a newb or not having the right skins etc, maybe ours are too young for this to be a thing but their friends just aren't like that they all just play together and have fun. Like I said ours generally play playground mode and spend half the time
Building forts and swapping ammo etc. That's the only bit I don't like is that they know the gun names but again we say as a rule when you play you can talk but at school and when out then we don't do gun talk. If it was causing aggression, moodiness etc they would be off.

I'm not keen on Fortnite because of its designed to be addictive and extortionate. We have a total ban at home on in-app purchases in any game. My almost 10yo plays it but knows the limits (when the fun stops - we'd get rid of it for good). I try to steer him into more conventional games, even if not age appropriate. I don't recommend this if you're prissy about ratings, but that does work for us a treat with Assassin's Creed series.

JKathy saying "YouTube is not bad" is like saying "TV is not bad" - it depends what they're watching, and sometimes innocent searches turn up inappropriate content- search for fire engines and get a fatal motorway pile up, search for Minecraft and get some weird zombie killing personalisation with a commentary filled with aggressive swearing, or whatever. Sometimes there's some stuff with unexpectedly dodgy commentary which isn't noticable initially.

We slipped a bit on YouTube because the kids liked DudePerfect which is harmless, and Parcours Videos and Parcours cycling, and were letting them watch it without us in the room, but now they have to specify exactly what they are watching and have access to YouTube enabled by us, after they started watching Minecraft videos and one of the you tubers in the commentary was unnecessarily talking about getting a hard-on . It's nothing so terribe but it's also not what you think you're getting when you click on a game popular with primary school children and served as a warning that you really don't know what your children are watching with YouTube unless you prewatch each thing or watch with them.

sickmumma the mocking happens at school not online during the game. Secondary school children's private conversations at school really are not under anyone's control but the children themselves, and nice kids at 7 can be shocking out of their parents and other authority figures earshot at 11.

We haven't had a conversation about not filling beyond the fact that his friends don't want to be a man down because they want to win. Again 11 year olds are I suspect less tolerant of their same age friends saying "my mum says I'm not allowed" in a context which would make them lose than they are of a tag along baby cousin or sibling saying that. We haven't so far banned ds1 from "filling up" but he plays in a family space - which has its own drawbacks due to younger sibling. Do you have just 1 child and 1 on the way? I can see how it'd feel under your control with 1 seven year old, but as kids get older and with a teen, a pre teen and a primary school child it's all a little more overlapping grey areas and multiple concerns to juggle (including new secondary school friendships) and it would have been easier to say an outright no to online interactive gaming til an older age retrospectively.

The earlier you allow things, the earlier they'll want to move on to something even less suitable (up to a point, obviously extremes of all types end up counterproductive for the most part).

GTA has a lot worse than nudity - it's horribly misogynistic, contains prostitution, involves random casual violence against civilian bystanders etc. That's really one to stick to the age rating on! There are so many alternative driving games for people who claim their kid just drives about!