I know that the issue of children playing World of Warcraft has been discussed quite a lot in the past but I thought I'd weigh in with my own opinion on this. I can speak from experience, as our own daughter plays.
Initially she was bored with it but after seeing me play she decided that she would like to try it again. She plays a Night Elf Mage (the kid's got taste). Usually she plays PvP like myself but lately she has started to play dungeons. And here are where the problems have begun. Though she is technically not the best player in the world, she does learn very quickly. Only once has she been subject to abuse in a dungeon. As we monitor her play, we were quick to jump in on the situation. Where we were met with, "it's 12 and above for a reason!"
That may be the case but with parental guidance, we don't believe that an 11 year old playing is a massive problem. What we do believe is a problem is the amount of adults willing to throw out abuse. Our own daughter is unmoved by it. We have had long discussions on the kind of things she may hear, trolls, role play, internet safety and such. Luckily she is strong enough of character in RL that the things that go on in WoW don't affect her at all. And she is at that pre teen age where name calling bounces off her and that as of yet any abuse has been game related. One day this may change, hopefully it won't. But this is not always the case.
Our own guild has experienced problems with a player who decided to throw threats at a junior member. We only have 3 children in the guild. 2 of which are children of senior members and 1 who is not. My daughter is the youngest, the others are over 12. We are predominantly an adult guild, but we are very family orientated. We don't curse in guild chat and we treat the children as we would our own. We help and guide them through the game. Now a few months ago we got a new guild member who seemed a little obnoxious from the start. Within weeks he'd managed to insult just about every guild member and troll trade chat for arguments. Then he seemed to take a sinister turn. He started throwing out nasty and awful RL threats in whispers to one of our junior members. She was deeply affected by this and became quite frightened thinking this person would actually carry out these threats. Understandable, even for an adult to recieve threats like these. As her parent is a guild member, it was taken care of straight away. But our GM continued to receive threats until Blizzard actually banned the person. It was quite an episode but it highlights the problems that may occur.
We now make the kids aware of who to come to if they have a problem. The 3rd kid that plays doesn't have a parent in game so he tends to message me if he has any problems with other players. Usually I will go to wherever he is and monitor the situation and provide support. It often ends the problem straight out.
I talk a lot about the negatives of the game but I do believe that WoW has a lot of positives for kids. Being part of a huge community of mostly great players is a good thing for any child. Some players have shown immense kindness to our daughter. Plus, the tactics behind the game keep her mind busy. Stat priorites, play style of different classes, boss mechanics... they are all part of the learning process. Also, group etiquette. The tank is the leader, follow his instructions. Don't pull, be aware of your role within the group, keep up, aggro management. Be a good team player. Many group skills translate to real life. Working within groups is an important skill for anyone to learn, whether it be in a game setting or real life. And I would rather her play WoW than a console game such as GTA.
Besides, there's no prouder moment for a WoW mum when her daughter comes top of the kill list in BG!
