Parents Not Vigilant about Video Games, Report Card Says

Do you have rules about what video games enter your home?

The annual MediaWise Video Game Report found that two-thirds of parents say they are strict when it comes to keeping sexual and violent gaming away from the family. But the kids tell a different story.

The report has good news overall for parents. It found that great strides have been made by the gaming industry and retailers to ensure kids don’t get inappropriate content.

“Now we’ve got the major retailers -- the Best Buys, the Wal-Marts, the Targets -- (who have) perfect performance in terms of our secret shoppers were not able to buy any of the violent adult games in any of those stores,” said David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, the group that published the annual report card.

When it came to parents and whether they monitor the ratings of the games their children are playing, however, the news is less optimistic. Walsh said there is a huge disparity between what kids report and what parents say.

"When we surveyed the parents and the kids, we got very different answers from each group, and when we asked the parents, for example, ‘Do you follow the ratings?’ 70 percent said, ‘Yes, we always follow the ratings.’ When we asked their kids, that percentage dropped to about 30 percent."

As a result, Walsh said moms and dads were awarded an "incomplete" on the report card for neglecting to utilize parental control.

"Either the parents don’t know all of the games the kids are buying, or the parents are giving the answer that they know they should give, but really aren’t always following through,” he added.

Bob Hoose, associate editor of Focus on the Family's Plugged In magazine, says parents really should play the games with their kids to check out what’s involved.

"On some of these, it doesn’t take long before you get into some of the real nitty-gritty, the heavy-duty elements of the game,” he said.

Some of those elements, he added, include violence and sexual content.