Will I damage my DS's psyche if I let him play Halo?

[snagmu]

I am a peace-loving 42-year-old mother of three. My main hobbies are reading, knitting and playing the accordion. However, I do like to play the odd first-person shooter when I get the chance.

The other night my three-year-old DS came downstairs late one evening to find me fragging (do people still say that?) aliens on my new second-hand Xbox. He was enthralled, and although I sent him back to bed pretty sharpish he's been asking to play the "shooting game" ever since.

Seriously, would it damage him irrevocably if I let him shoot a few monsters?

All the HALO games have a PEGI rating of 16+, you can see them all here:

www.pegi.info/en/index/global_id/505/?searchString=halo

They're all marked as having that rating due to violence, however I thought that there was also some bad language in the game, but I'm honestly not too sure.

violence, swearing, blood and gore

age rating 16

I think the tricky thing isn't letting your 3yo do it, it's that he'll want to play it himself when he's 5 and you won't have a leg to stand on when he asks why you won't let him now when you did then. And if he plays the whole game himself, you won't be able to edit out the language, or restrict him to only shooting "monsters" - there will also be people to shoot. And you won't be able to stop him playing any other game at other people's houses, so he'll be shooting whores on someone else's brother's XBox....

Ah yes, bad language, hadn't thought about that. I suppose if I'm going to ban Tracy Beaker on those grounds I don't have much of a leg to stand on.

I dont think halo is that bad, and I think mine have tried that. The controls are pretty tricky for a three year old though.

I decide from game to game what they can play. They aren't allowed on games like call of duty or GTA.

AmuminScotland, you're absolutely right. The boundaries need to be clear, and I should be wary of creating a thin-end-of-the-wedge situation.

Useful link that BP

Space Invaders apparently has a 3/4 years age rating. Maybe he would like that

I would of thought that for shooting/slicing monsters/aliens Final Fantasy would be fairly tame, although on checking it has an age rating of 12+!

On the other question inherent in the post... Does playing violent games turn your DS into a one person war machine?

I've had more than a few people state that playing violent games turns a person into a violent psycho. I then like to point out that I've almost completed all the GTA games (I don't own them all) yet I only shoot 56 people per week .

Sadly some people will have difficultly separating a game from reality and with access to firearms, the result is a tragedy .

My DS is 1, so I read these threads with interest seeing as I can see myself having the same issues later.

Good luck!

I've been considering this stuff with DS(5).

Most violent game he gets is Lego star wars. Although I'm not entirely happy about that. Other than that it tends to be non-violent freeware. I like my wedge-ends very thin...

WRT the influence of violent games, from what I remember (psych @ uni was a while ago), the younger a child is, the more likely they are to repeat what they see. Hence I'm wary of letting DS see... anything very much. He's aware that me and DW play games that he's not allowed, and we've told him that this is because they have scary monsters in that will give him bad dreams.

That said, he did walk in on me & DW when we were in the middle of a Left 4 Dead match... never dropped out a game so fast...

So yeah... I've mentally resolved to restrict DS from anything involving headshots until he's a lot older. See how far I get with that one...

That said, I have let him watch me play sea battles in Empire TW (rated 16) a couple of times. He's bang alongside the idea of good guys chasing down pirates with sailing ships; as long as I keep it zoomed out far enough that he can't see the bodies, I'm happy with that...