As you are aware, there was a recent crime spree in our area, they weren't gang related or kids who were driving through our town looking for fun, they were our own home grown children. These six kids told the police they were acting out a video game. A video game not Pong or Pacman like most of us were brought up on, but Grand Theft Auto. This game is rated "M" for Mature. These children were by no means mature. This game contains sexual content, partial nudity, gang warfare beatings, killing of innocent bystanders, bloody and "grotesque" deaths, and the language. You're unlikely to find a video game that uses the "F" word more liberally. Consistent, repeated use of profanity in almost all scenes. If you are really good you can kill a cop and get his gun and baton. Our children are becoming numb to violence. I know most of us do our best to protect our children from the misery that is upon us every time you put on the news or the radio. We have to deal with all the never ending infomercials about products our kids don't need to know about and the news teasers which let you know how many are dead at six and 11. I am running out of answers. I am running out of ways to protect my kids. I now have to be worried when they visit their friends for a play date. What are they watching? What are they playing? Do these parents have the same ideals or do they buy these games under stress or as a babysitter. I now understand what the hated "because I said so" my Mother used so often meant. It was a message, a message for the future that one day I will have children and I will be put in a situation where my kids will hate me because I too have to say " because I said so". Why, because they can't understand right now - they are too young. So I am asking, for they sake of our children, to please, think about the consequences of presenting your child with so much violence at a young age. Will It become a way of life? Will it eventually get boring and they will need more? I don't know. We are all these children have. I know how mad my kids get when the TV parental controls come on, but I am hoping that they can grow up with a conscience and empathy for others, not spend their days planning on how many levels they can complete by killing someone on a video game. I am just a parent who loves her kids. It is my job to protect them, but I am running into barriers when a parent of a minor child finds it OK to go to Game Stop and walk to the mature aisle and then invites my child over. Please think before you give in. We know what's best for our kids. Let them kick and scream but what I am most hoping for is that day I don't have to hear the infamous "that's not fair Johnny has it" anymore. The rest is up to you.

Michele Chambers