"Kellogg_J_Kellogg;c-17452275" wrote:
The Sims is not the mechanism for doing that.
All media has the potential to be the mechanism for doing that. Parents just need to be willing to take the time to, again, discuss the media that their children are exposed to with their children and answer any questions they have. Part of being a parent is being a mentor to this little apprentice human who's looking mainly to you to show them how the world works and how to navigate it. My mom taught me early on that being a parent is a lot of time work, and showed me through her efforts in raising me and my siblings just how much a parent has to step out of themself to be anywhere near effective in raising a kid. It's not mass media's job to protect kids from the sadder, scarier, tougher, and darker things of life. It's the parent's job to discuss these things with their kids and help them to understand and handle these things.
Again, I reiterate, kids aren't as fragile as some adults think and can handle a lot more than people are taught to think as they become adults and are taught to look down on kids as inferior, weak, incompetent, and intellectually vacant. It benefits everyone, kids and adults alike, when darker, scarier, and more challenging content is tackled in movies, T.V., and videogames.
Besides, no matter how much you try to protect kids from getting scared or being sad from any piece of media, it's going to happen anyway. There were kids who were freaked out when the Wicked Witch of the West guest stared on an episode of
Sesame Street, there are episodes of
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that are downright depressing, and I'm pretty sure that there are kids who find any of the purposefully toned-down to the point of making Big Bird look like a major edgelord baby shows out there scary or depressing somehow. You can't protect them from the negative side of life or even their own negative emotions. You just can't. And you only hurt them when you try.
