Adult games kids play

Even seemingly harmless computer games have nudity, sex and violence. Parents must prepare their young children to deal with this by talking openly about it, experts tell Priyanka Talreja



I didn't know how to answer my cousin's questions. How do you explain to a kid why the protagonist's girlfriend makes 'funny noises' when he gets physically intimate with her in a video game?" asks Sanjay Shah*, a student at the University of Mumbai.
What had aroused the curiosity of Shah's cousin was Grand Theft Auto (GTA), a role-playing video game where the object is to complete missions assigned to you. These can involve going on a rampage in a virtual city, beating up innocent people, stealing their belongings and even killing them. In one version of the game, GTA: San Andreas, the gamer gets to date women while playing a character called Carl Johnson (CJ). CJ can partner 6 girls at a time.
Though meant for gamers older than 17, there are modded (modified) versions of GTA on the internet which can be easily downloaded by children. These often contain explicit sexual content, which young users would not have found on the retail versions of the games. "I used to play GTA. But I was about 18 when I came across this scene. At that age, I was prepared for sex and violence in a video game. But my 11-year-old cousin was caught off-guard," says Shah.
It's a fact of life that kids today are exposed to such content from multiple sources and so it's up to parents to make sure their children know how to deal with it, says child psychiatrist Niti Sapru, adding that "it may also be one of the reasons why hormonal changes are taking place earlier than before."
"Half knowledge is worse than no knowledge," says Seema Darode from Darode's Child Guidance Centre in Pune. "Many parents feel that the child should be kept away from these things. But the child is at a stage when he's curious," she points out. "Instead, parents must now be a guide and be able to discuss these things. This way, the child will also feel comfortable about confiding in his/her parents later."