The Mana World Forums

[EDIT]

Unfortunately too many minors are not raised very well or suffer from informational abuse by their parents. Parents who skirt issues or avoid discussing ethics, sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, religious freedom, and personal identity without agenda based leading or guilt are in the very few. There's a few well rounded minors who do play TMW and know proper [n]etiquette that I've met, and even my 8 year old niece comes on and plays once in a while and is responsible enough to do so by herself. The only bad kids I've seen so far were a few actual adults.

Fother J wrote:Parents who skirt issues or avoid discussing ethics, sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, religious freedom, and personal identity without agenda based leading or guilt are in the very few.

A lot of youth psychologists and pedagogues, like German bestseller author Michael Winterhoff for example, say that it is a bad idea to discuss such things with young children at all. The "no secrets towards children" philosophy is harmful to children who do not yet possess the mental maturity to cope with such things. It is much better for the psychological development of a child to keep its world view limited until the child is able to emotionally understand concepts like violence or sexuality.

Crush wrote:A lot of youth psychologists and pedagogues, like German bestseller author Michael Winterhoff for example, say that it is a bad idea to discuss such things with young children at all. The "no secrets towards children" philosophy is harmful to children who do not yet possess the mental maturity to cope with such things. It is much better for the psychological development of a child to keep its world view limited until the child is able to emotionally understand concepts like violence or sexuality.

It's cute that they SAY that, but kids have higher capacity to learn and comprehend than adults, and are quite capable. It's child abuse to patronize some fantasy onto children and deny them those golden years of learning, comprehension, and competency. Plus psychology is a psudo-science that bends to opinion.

young children have a higher capacity to remember information, yes, but they do not yet have the ability to manage and assess the information properly. For example, the child can be told that in each of two rows of pennies there are 5 pennies, but if you spread out one row, the child will claim that there is more in the spread out row because it is longer. It is the analytical part of his brain that hasn't developed enough yet.

The level of social/sexual knowledge that is mentioned by Uber_Kalimero that children need is very naturally discovered by the children on their own, as long as they are in a healthy environment.

well well

interesting posts

on one hand

Tmw can help develop opportunities to children opportunities to develops some of their intelligences (refer to gartner and multiple intelligences please)
I have an 8 years old daughter and she played tmw and liked it i let her make her own experience but before she started playing i explain the rules to her so that she behaves.
Then i talk to her she said i don't kill Moobou there are so cute i don't want to heart them.
SHe asked me why some were repeating words
She said to me she saw bad word and this with the eyes going on the floor but you know those flashes in the eyes i am sure she repeated them in the classroom aftrer that ashamed and amused
Kids

Anyway
She did not take a drop that was not hers even when people were leaving the spot or area letting items on the floor
She did not beg for the hats and so on, because she understood you have to deserve it and play and fight and get the items and sell them and if you meet someone you can ask in proper way (but she didn't she is not that kind even for an ice cream) she waits and behaves and get what she deserves.

So she was happy with that game and prefered it to her Nintendo...

on the other hand

Tmw can be dangerous for some people depending on one fact:

Education regarding the rules when the players arrive on server.

Of course, it is a test for the next version and the next ok it is a experience learning curve.

BUT

If Tmw admin and staff set rules but close their eyes in front off beggin, spamming, trade abuse (which 3 are very easy to demonstrate and also to constat in game by anyone...) chaos is coming till harrasments, abuses and so on.
it is not recreating, transposing the irc mentallity and way of acting that succes will come in a game (talking about the ignore. ignore is never a solution: it makes stronger the agressive one and parano the second one. Lack of trust and so on go with it. And the spirit also).

GM are doing the best they can and they do great inside those limits they are working with and on with admins and dev.

So educate, inform, be strong on rules.

Those thoughts were just fast ones i got reading the post contents.

Don't go away from the real debate please

Respectfully

Regards

A parent is not a parent if they do not teach their kids and look after them. Anything can be harmful, and it is the parents' jobs to pay attention to what their kid is doing and then lecture him on the subject if they see something that he may misinterpret.

Fother J wrote:

Crush wrote:A lot of youth psychologists and pedagogues, like German bestseller author Michael Winterhoff for example, say that it is a bad idea to discuss such things with young children at all. The "no secrets towards children" philosophy is harmful to children who do not yet possess the mental maturity to cope with such things. It is much better for the psychological development of a child to keep its world view limited until the child is able to emotionally understand concepts like violence or sexuality.

It's cute that they SAY that, but kids have higher capacity to learn and comprehend than adults, and are quite capable. It's child abuse to patronize some fantasy onto children and deny them those golden years of learning, comprehension, and competency. Plus psychology is a psudo-science that bends to opinion.

I don't think it's so much an issue of what they are capable of "understanding" but more so an issue of what they can process. You are very right in saying that kids can understand these things. But however that doesn't mean it's beneficial for their mental development to learn it so early on. Of course, I do agree that you don't have to feed them a fantasy world instead. But in my opinion just don't go there until they start asking questions about it themselves.