Our children’s online lives can seem like a mystery. Especially if they like games, they can sit – with headphones on and behind closed doors – for hours at a time, leaving you wondering who they are interacting with and what the conversations are like. If that’s the case, a popular player gives advice to parents: you should be listening.
David Marchese recently spoke with Tyler Blevins – better known as “Ninja”, a popular video game streamer among teenagers and young adults – for the New York Times. Blevins says he often encounters children who say racist things or who are aggressive and threatening to women during the broadcast.
It would be great, says Blevins, if you could track down the parents of these children so they know what kind of offensive or inappropriate language your preteens or teenagers are using online – but that is not possible, which means that parents need to be vigilant about what of them own child is saying. As Blevins says:
It all comes down to parenting. Do you want to know who your son is? Listen to him when he’s playing video games when he thinks you’re not. Here’s another thing: how does a white child know he has white privileges if his parents never teach him or don’t talk about racism? If they are playing and their first interaction with racism is one of their friends saying the word with N and they have no idea what it is – what if it was in my stream? Is it my job to have this conversation with this boy? No, because the first thing that crosses my mind is: this kid is doing it on purpose to trick me.
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This is the problem inherent in the arguments “let children be children” and “talking about racism and sexism only divides us even more”. If we, as parents, do not discuss these issues with our children, society (particularly their colleagues) will be waiting to do this for us. They can learn – and use – words they have never heard before in offensive ways, even without realizing the degree to which they are offensive, and they may not think to ask what a word or phrase means before they start to adopt it in their own vernacular. , hurting or offending other people along the way. Not to mention that they may be saying things that can lead to they being reported.
I don’t usually advocate intruding on a child’s privacy (unless there is a compelling security reason to do so), but Blevins’s suggestion to keep an eye on your child’s game conversations is a good one. I am not advising you to pull up a chair and put an ear on the bedroom door for an hour, but a brief listen from time to time as you pass can give you some hints on how they are communicating with online gambling friends and if there are any. some conversations that you need to have.
At the very least, it’s a good idea to check with them from time to time to ask them about the gaming friends they met online and what it’s like to play with them. As long as you are engaged and interested, your chances are better that they will open up to you about these interactions, which can help pave the way for productive conversations.