Aliasalpha: Or maybe parents could read
this book Thank you for reminding me I need to try and borrow that via interlibrary loan. I have a young son (he turns 3 soon), and my husband and I are starting to take very careful consideration of the things he's exposed to in games, movies, et cetera. (Not that we weren't choosy before, but we're more so now that he's getting older and has more autonomy. I'd like for him to gravitate toward appropriate content of his own accord by having that baseline already in place.)
As parents, that's our right and responsibility...and few things make me as angry as individuals or groups that want to take that away from us. And it goes both ways -- just because someone decides that something is appropriate for my son's age bracket doesn't mean I or my husband agree. I question the value of a LOT of the pre-preschool programming on PBS, for example; frankly, I believe in
not dumbing down or talking down to kids.* Ditto for a lot of the 'educational' games out there. If we were forced to restrict content to things deemed 'appropriate' for his age group...well, in short, it wouldn't be appropriate for him. Or for a lot of kids in his age bracket, for that matter.**
_
*Not to be confused with introducing concepts inappropriate for a child's maturity level -- but that's also something that's highly variable from child to child, and you can't one-size-fits-all it. All the more reason for parents to have the power of choice in media.
**Yeah, I have a really strong distaste for programming aimed at the youngest viewers. At least it's a moot issue in this household, for various reasons.