It just goes to show you

Today, Jack came home with a couple of kids from the neighborhood.  The friends had brought a couple of games over and Jack wanted to play them.  He came back to where I was and showed them to me.  I asked him to describe the games to me and why they had the rating they had.  We discussed it for some time, and discussed ways to get around it.  Apparently there's some control that can cut down on some of the really harsh stuff, so we decided to try that and see how it went.  You should have seen the kid's faces when Jack and I discussed the "bad words" used.  They couldn't believe that I would say those words (I know, you're shocked as well), but he explained it was part of the discussion process and we weren't using the words towards someone else. 

In the end, I told Jack that with the controls in place, plus the "indicators of whether he can handle it" in place I gave my permission for him to play the one of the games.  And we also discussed why the second one wasn't appropriate and Jack turned to his friends and said, "Sorry guys.  I can't play that one."

As the kids were walking down the hall, I heard one kid say to Jack, "Wow, man.  That was cool.  You and your mom talk about these things.  My mom just says no, and there's no discussion." 

Yeah she might have said no, but they have the games anyway so they obviously play them so it doesn't mean much.

It just goes to show you, they want to know why and when they do it makes it easier to take.