Yesterday we talked about a missing Ontario boy who ran away from home after being banned from Call of Duty 4 by his parents. Today, a report is claiming that the parents fear he was "lured by gamers," which has to be one of the most ridiculous headline claims I've seen yet.
"I'm worried he has met someone online through this game. It could be organized crime or someone involved in Internet gambling. Pedophiles can stalk kids through these games," the tormented father said in an interview last night.
Brandon ran away from home in north Barrie nine days ago and has not been seen or heard from since. He left home following a dispute with his parents over the Xbox online war game, Call of Duty 4, which he spent countless hours and days playing over the last 18 months.
"I told him he wouldn't be getting his Xbox back. He said, 'Then I'm going to leave home.'"
Steve called his son's bluff and even helped him pack his knapsack.
I'd just like to make it clear that if Brandon was lured away, then he was not lured away by "gamers." What an awful thing to say. He was lured away by scumbags using games to pick up children. Not gamers.
I really hope this latest incident is not going to be used by the media to portray gamers as kid-hungry pervoids who stalk Xbox Live for children. Judging by the focus on Brandon's "obsession" with CoD (and really, he's a friggin' kid; all kids are obsessed with stuff), I think this is going to be yet another sh*tstorm attack on gaming.
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Contest:
10:11 AM on 10.22.2008
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Stellar parenting Steve. Use your kids xbox and log on to live to receive the idiot parent perk
That being said, I really hope the kid is alright.
It's called calling his bluff. In normal circumstances, it makes the kid realize that he's not going to accomplish anything by running away, since the "threat" of running away is usually to worry the parents into giving him what he wants. When he sees that the parents aren't worrying, his threat has failed and he gives up.
It's not entirely their fault the kid is stupid enough to actually go through with it.
Yeah, you know how the Don likes to get together with the Goodfellas and play some CoD4. On the side, they lure children away with it *shakes head.*
On to the father thing though -- don't even try to blame the dad. Every kid, every, has threatened to run away from home, and if your mom pleaded with you to stay, that would make you [an ass] a totally different, and much more spoiled, person than you'd otherwise be.
It's not like the guy drove him to a bus station, bought him a ticket to BC, and told him to "just go!"
Of course, it's almost certain that he was really lured away by ... _Canadians_.
Canadians are responsible for nearly all crimes committed in Canada and are not to be trusted.
He is probably just hiding out at his friends house playing on their xbox waiting till his parents get good and worried before he goes back.
I'm surprised the economic crisis hasn't been blamed on gamers yet.
The responses to this story are depressing me far more than the actual story is.
"I'm worried he has met someone online through this game. It could be organized crime or someone involved in Internet gambling. Pedophiles can stalk kids through these games."
Look at what you've done, Chris Hansen, LOOK AT IT!!! You gave parents another excuse for being bad parents!
Seriously though, if you can't control your kids, be mature enough to acknowledge the fact that you are, in one way or another, lacking.
Ok dad, look here: PARENTAL TIMER. It's on the Xbox. Use it.
This is a perfect example of bad parenting. The source of the problem stems right to the parents themselves for letting a 15 year old kid have a 17+ video game, then they took stupid steps towards fixing the problem, and ultimately helped the kid pack his own things.
Now Gen, you are obviously not a poker player because you dont truly know what a bluff is. Whats one of the basic rules about playing poker with a young rookie? Dont bluff him because he's probably silly enough to call your bluff without a second thought. The parent tried bluffing his kid, the flaw in this is that its a 15 year old teenager. Teenagers act impulsively and without adult rationale, so making it EASIER for them to get out is the worst thing to do.
Overall this is not a problem with 'gamers', its a problem with online perverts and bad parents.
"Gamers" don't lure kids, fucking losers and people who should be shot lure kids.
Did the kid take a gamecube with him? Maybe this is just a case of Bro Rape....
And how if the XBox was taken away, dud he get lured away? His XBox friends would not have been able to talk to him?
And thus we have scientifically proven the connection between games and everything that bad in the society.
If you're going to actively push your little angst-machine away, chances are good that he's not going to find it too difficult to just up and leave your dumb asses. That's what happens when you put the idea in his head that you don't really give a shit about whether or not he stays or goes, even if you didn't mean it that way. How the hell is he supposed to know any better? From his perspective, it looks like you guys are being unreasonable douche-bags. Couple that with the perceived invitation to get lost if he doesn't like the way things went down, and follow things to their logical conclusion, you colossal idiots. He very well may be a thin-skinned pussy, but that's all the more reason why you shouldn't be inviting your kid to go fuck himself if he doesn't dig the regime.
So to his parents I say, gaming may have been the catalyst that set this debacle in motion, but it's ultimately your hair-brained attempt at edgy parenting that drove your son away. Hell, it's arguable that you made a mountain out of a molehill when you took away his console in the first place, given that the matter of academics wasn't addressed at all, and your sole concern seemed to be your child's decreased interest in sports. Sure he may be playing sports less, and he may be getting up in the middle of the night to play videogames, but as long as his grades aren't suffering, do you really think that there was any real cause for concern? What I see happening is that your child's interests and the expectations that you have for him are diverging. It tends to happen at this age. And in the absence of any real negative effects, I don't think it's anything to worry about. So my advice to you would be to stop being such damned over-protective (yet somehow still wholly ineffectual) parents, ease your expectations of him down to a reasonable level, and give your kid some room to breath. He's not a baby anymore.
If he is found, I couldn't imagine the embarrassment he'd have to go through the rest of his life with his parents and friends. After all, he did run away because of one of the stupidest reasons possible.
I'm seeing a lot of criticism and name calling, and very little suggestion as to what they should have done. If you're going to tell someone what they did was foolish then you could at least have the sense to propose an alternative.
I still think the kid is a jackass and deserves to die or be touched or whatever. And if he's 15+ he'll be alright on his own. I know people who moved out around that age that are doing just fine.