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Using a Calm, Warm Approach Helps Parents Limit Violent Video Games

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Laczniak asserts that children's time spent with violent video games, like first-person shooter Homefront, is impacted by parents' behavior.

Russ Laczniak has no doubt in his mind that video games are linked to increased behavioral problems. A professor of marketing at Iowa State University, he was still left with the question of how and if parents could change those consumption habits.

"We basically wanted to see how their tendencies, in terms of dealing with raising their children, might influence their children's ultimate play of violent video games. We did a national sample of approximately 230 parents. We talked to parents and children."

They looked at three different techniques: a warm relationship where children can openly communicate, a restricted relationship where parents set and enforce rules, and anxious emotional involvement where parents become overprotective of their children.

The children of parents who fell simultaneously in the first and second categories played violent video games less frequently. 

On this News Buzz edition of River to River, host Ben Kieffer discusses the study with Laczniak.

rtr151016_violence.mp3
Host Ben Kieffer talks with Russ Laczniak about violent video games and parenting.

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River