The online life of our children can feel like a mystery. Especially if they’re in games, they could sit – headphones on and behind closed doors – for hours on end, leaving you wondering who they’re interacting with and what those conversations are like. In this case, a popular player has advice for parents: you should listen.
David Marchese recently spoke with Tyler Blevins – better known as “Ninja”, a popular video game streamer for teens and teens – for New York Times. Blevins says he frequently meets children who say racist things or who are aggressive and threatening to women while broadcasting.
It would be great, says Blevins, if you could somehow watch the parents of those children tell them what kind of harmful or inappropriate language their teens or teenagers use online – but that’s not possible, which means parents have to be vigilant about what their own says the child. As Blevins says:
It all comes down to raising a child. Do you want to know who your child is? Listen to him play video games when he thinks you’re not. Here’s another thing: How does a white child know he has the white privilege if his parents never teach him or talk about racism? If there are games and their first interaction with racism is one of their friends who say the word N and have no idea what it is – what if it was in my stream? Is it my job to have this conversation with this child? No, because the first thing that happens in my head is, this kid is doing this on purpose to troll me.
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This is the problem with the arguments “let only children be children” and “talking about racism and sexism only further divides us”. If we, as parents, do not talk about these issues with our children, society (especially their colleagues) will wait to do it for us. They may learn – and use – words they have never heard before in offensive ways without even realizing how offensive they are, and they may not think about asking what it means a word or phrase before they begin to adopt it in their own language, hurting or offending others along the way. Not to mention that he might say things that could lead to their being reported.
I’m not usually the one advocating for a child’s privacy (unless there’s a compelling reason to do so), but Blevins’ suggestion to consider discussions about your child’s games is one. Hi. I don’t advise you to lift a chair and stick an ear to their bedroom door for an hour, but a short listen from time to time can give you insight into how you communicate with your online gaming friends and if there are a few conversations which you must have.
At the very least, it’s a good idea to check with them from time to time to ask about friends in the games they met online and how the game was with those friends. As long as you are engaged and interested, your chances are higher that they will open you up to these interactions, which can help pave the way for productive conversations.