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Not long ago on a snow day, I took my son to an arcade.  He had been begging to go.  He wanted to play an old Star Wars video game.

We've helped him understand that some of the games are way too violent for him to play and he needs approval before plopping in a quarter.

My wife and I realize that we can't keep him away from every version of these types of games so, with a limited introduction and supervision, we figured we could help him understand the boundaries.

After we finished the Star Wars game, we looked around for other types of games.  We raced, rolled boche balls and shot hoops.

Later, we found a shooting game that seemed age appropriate.  The preview of the secret agent game was low on violence and big on solving a problem.  My son loves being a detective or spy.

But once we started walking through the halls and were confronted with the bad guys, it was gory.  There was simulated blood everywhere with no warning.

I told my son that we were done here since he's not old enough to play such a game.

He agreed, leaned over and said, "Let's not tell mom about this, ok?"