Boys will be boys

[Limeoutsider]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=320&ncid=320&e=1&u=/ibsys/20030725/lo_kprc/1713617 Whose gonna get blamed for this? Eminem and the music industry or Speilberg and the movie industry? Certainly not the parents, who were at fault

 

[milagros317]

Yes, L.O., the press does tend to find a scapegoat, such as the video game industry (a third possibility), when a five-year-old commits a felony.

When I was 5, I was greatly interested in visiting the little girl who lived next door, so that we could tickle each other's feet. 😀 A much healthier interest, IMHO.

 

[The Pianist]

Coincidently on the video game thing... though most people assume that the average age of video gamers is around 13... the actual average is closer to 22... yet you don't find the press blaming older violence on games.

 

[BellaRisa]

Coincidently on the video game thing... though most people assume that the average age of video gamers is around 13... the actual average is closer to 22... yet you don't find the press blaming older violence on games.

I've always had issue with violence being blamed on media. If their theories were true we'd be killing each other with falling anvils and cannons, not guns and knives, and it would be our parents generation, not ours. (I don't remember Grape Ape and School House Rock as being terribly violent anyway).

As a mom I DO question why a 12 yr old was at home alone with a five yr old, though.

Bella

 

[phatteus]

Points to Bella

Bonus points, Bella... What were these kids doing home alone?

As to blaming media for childhood violence, let me use an old analogy I came up with in a college Media Class (I was an English Major... see if you can notice):
"There are certian people out there who will be prone to do certain things. John Milton, in his poem "Paradise Lost" writes Satan not as a character who is inherently evil, but rather as a character who is TOLD that he is inherently evil. The humans Adam and Eve were given free will, a character trait that which the Angels of heaven were never offered. Satan comes to the realization that God was in need of an opposite side, and created Lucifer as the angel who would fall. Satan had no choice in the matter. This led to his hatred of mankind.
I think that this analogy works in this class' discussion of a medium's responsibility for violence. If a child is prone to violence, he or she will act on this. People were killing each other thousands of years ago without the aid of television, film or console gaming! If a 35 year old man shoots his next door neighbor, then he is an asshole. If his twelve year old son shoots the neighbor, then the video game he was playing is to blame. Or Marilyn Manson is to blame for the dickheads in Columbine. And Beavis and Butthead made some kid burn the house down. Why is it that this society has no assholes under the age of sixteen?"

God, I miss college!!

 

[sole seeker]

Legally, children under the age of seven are not presumed to know right from wrong, or to know reality from fantasy. (That's why with few exceptions they can't testify in court, and when they do get to testify it is weighed with this concept in mind.)

Of course children do learn reality from fantasy and right from wrong earlier than age seven, but it's not like someone turns on a switch and they get this knowledge overnight. Most children younger than seven know the distinctions, in some contexts. The older they get (hopefully) the clearer the picture becomes.

That's why around the age of four I bopped my napping dad on the head with my cap pistol. (Well, at least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

I would guess that their parents thought the twelve year old was mature enough to watch over his younger brother. Maybe the cost of hiring a baby-sitter to take on the responsibility colored their judgement.