At home, we have a Wii game system for our two boys. As for most of their friends, these are pretty much their favorite toys. The software, however, is extremely expensive and they have to make do with a limited ‘library’.

At school, their friends’ parents face similar issues and it has become more or less common for people to install special hacks to download (illegal) games from the internet.

Our kids, of course, asked us for these hacks as well, but we told them that we think they’re a form of theft. The consequence: we now have two 7 year old boys that tell their friends that their parents are stealing. This was not our intention, of course. However true our view it may be, it seems our children and their friends are too young to handle these nuances.

I don’t want my children to have an unlimited access to whatever they want and especially not if that is created through theft. Their friends are nice kids, though and their parents don’t even understand our problem. It’s a victimless crime, they say.

Any thoughts????

Topics: children, parenting, Nintendo, Wii, Xbox, PS3, gaming, hacks, ethics, piracy