Parents Neglect - D&D named.....

[Melan]

Do average news-reading people care about D&D anymore? I don't think so. Articles like this are always a good opportunity for gamers to relive past injustices... but really, this is only relevant for us. Nobody* else will notice a similar article among many. Nobody will take any anti-gaming action whatsoever. Pat Pulling is dead, and so is her movement.



* For reasonably high amounts of nobody; I am sure there are at least 10 people in the USA who give a damn.

 

[S'mon]

The problem with these stories, and honestly, it comes up every time some legal story involves D&D or gaming in general, it's that effect isn't necessarily logically linked to cause. People want to blame D&D or video games, but it's more likely that these people are inherently neglectful and that D&D and/or video games are the obsessive focus of these neglectful parents, not the cause of their neglect.

Defendant claims in these cases are presented as mitigating circumstances, and usually turn out to be untrue.

 

[Jack99]

Evercrack FTW, best addiction ever

In general, I would say that people that can become so addicted to a videogame that they neglect their own children, would most likely have done so even if they hadnt been playing. There would just have been another cause.

Anyway, 12 years? Usually I am all about how ridiculous the american legal system is, but in this case, it's quite fitting.

My 2 cp

 

[DaveMage]

Do average news-reading people care about D&D anymore? I don't think so.

Oh, yes they do. My brother in law won't let his son play D&D specifically. This same brother in law has no problem with his son playing RPG console games as long as they don't have "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title.

Yeah, they're still out there.

 

[Bullgrit]

I wrote a blog entry on this subject a couple weeks ago (July 3):


Is Excessive Gaming a Disease?
“A group of doctors says yes, but video game makers scoff”

The above headline and subhead appeared in the local newspaper. The article from the AP says a leading doctors' council wants to classify playing video games too much as a psychiatric disorder. Does every thing that addicts people have to be labeled a medical or psychiatric problem? Maybe it’s the person, not the thing.

I can understand and appreciate that some things have a physical and/or chemical component that people get addicted to. Certain things affect people's bodies on chemical level: cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, etc.

But things like gambling, sex, and video games don't have the chemical component. (Well, maybe sex does.) I mean, there are people who have addictive personalities. They can get addicted to TV shows, boyfriends/girlfriends, and checking that their oven is off. Why don’t doctors just label a person as an addictive personality rather than labeling the choice of addiction as the problem?

The article says “up to 90 percent of American youngsters play video games and as many as 15 percent of them may be addicted, according to data.” Up to? As many as? May be? Is the data not complete? I would hope if some authoritative agency is going to label something, they would have more confident information.

I’m not saying that some people don’t get way too involved, even addicted, to video games. My point is that I don’t think it is the game that is the problem. If 15 percent of video gamers get addicted to video games, what about the other 85 percent? What’s the percent of all Americans that have some other kind of addiction? Do 15 percent of armchair sports fans get addicted and spend way too much time and effort on a sport? From what I’ve seen of many sports fans, I’d guess that’s a close number.

How many people vote in the American Idol competition? And how many times do they call in? Should American Idol be considered a psychiatric problem?

Why can’t we identify people with addictive personalities as problems rather than point to the target of their addiction as the problem.

“This person is an addict, and that person is an addict. Let’s solve their personality problem.” Instead of, “Video games are addictive, and gambling is addictive, and televised talent shows are addictive. Let’s identify them as a problem and scare normal and well adjusted people off of them.”

Having said this, though, I will be the first to say that there are a lot of kids and adults who need to turn off the video games and get their butts outside. But the game is not the problem.

Bullgrit

Total Bullgrit

 

[Catavarie]

Oh, yes they do. My brother in law won't let his son play D&D specifically. This same brother in law has no problem with his son playing RPG console games as long as they don't have "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title.

Yeah, they're still out there.

Thanks to the Southern Baptist Convention telling everyone that it was demon worshiping and the greatest propaganda movie to come out of the eighties Mazes and Monsters. To this day many people, including most of my family, still view D&D in a horrible light.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

This is awful. For game addiction to overcome maternal instinct, it's simply monstrous. These peope belong in jail - and in therapy. When I hear stuff like this, I feel ashamed of being human.

Games do have the potential to become addictive. You'll have a craving, will neglect other things, important things even, there will be withdrawal symptoms, it's all there.

It doesn't have the same potential as LSD or drugs like that, probably not even as strong as alcohol, and most people who play games will never become addicted, but it does happen.

I say panicking and outright outlawing games is not the solution to this (you'd have to make alcohol illegal first, and cigarettes, too), but the problem needs to be more widely recognised, and if you know that someone's playing games, you should be on the lookout for signs of addiction.

 

[Arkhandus]

In general, I would say that people that can become so addicted to a videogame that they neglect their own children, would most likely have done so even if they hadnt been playing. There would just have been another cause.

I agree with this opinion. Most likely they'd have just gotten addicted to drugs, booze, gambling, or some kind of extreme sports or whatnot that causes adrenaline and/or endorphines to be generated in them. Video/computer games most likely weren't the problem so much as addiction-prone personalities and irresponsible tendencies. Video games don't generate obsession any moreso than sports do, and in the annoying jock-culture we live in, nobody thinks sports are bad, do they? -_-

Oh, and Kmart Kommando, I would happily join you on your Time Cop adventures of justice!

 

[Varianor Abroad]

It's a sad story. I hope the kids are okay. D&D was barely mentioned.

 

[Steel_Wind]

This is awful. For game addiction to overcome maternal instinct, it's simply monstrous. These peope belong in jail - and in therapy. When I hear stuff like this, I feel ashamed of being human.

While these actions as described in the brief and sensational article (which is undoubteldy an incomplete and only partial explanation of the real facts and circumstances) are quite vile and sad, I cannot understand why jail would enter into it at this stage.

This is a case of neglect. There is no suggestion the parents were deliberately and actively torturing their children.

The children deserve parents who love them and take care of them. These parents, currently, simply don't measure up. The children need short term foster care. Medium to long term, they would be both infinitely better off with one or both of their own parents - assuming one or both cease this disgraceful activity and resume a normal life.

For both to do so together is unlikely. For one to do so on her own? That would be a likely result - and certainly not too much to hope for. Get the mother away from this unemployed creep and hopefully she'll wake the hell up.

If not, then the older - and perhaps both - of these kids will probably have their lives utterly destroyed by a childhood filled with foster care and the loss of both of their natural parents.

Why you would ever think that imprisonment would somehow improve their parenting skills - or make either of them a better person - is utterly beyond me and defies all logic.

Do other parents need to be generally deterred from committing similar heinous acts of neglect respecting their own children? Really? Are there hundreds, nay thousands, of cases of couples spending so much time playing MMOs that their own infant children are starving with urine matted hair? Is this an epidemic that needs to be treated harshly and swiftly with a strong example, lest MMOS lead to malnourishment and infection across the 50 states - and Puerto Rico to boot??

I think the fair answer is: maybe a few, but not bloody many, and it's not even close.

So just what, pray, would incarcerating these parents accomplish - other than make you feel better for 3 minutes?

Taking their damn computers away after they take their kids away. THAT would be a start.