Is Skyrim kid friendly?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Skyrim is currently listed in the ESRB as Mature 17+. It has Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes and Use of Alcohol and fictional drugs.

Please, if you are going to buy your kids video games, use the ESRB rating, it is printed on every video game box in the front, for more information check the ESRB website.

Good luck with your kids. :D

Skyrim isn't suitable for children. They don't have the patience to level Smithing and Alchemy up to 100.

You also said you had three children. Skyrim is single-player only, and if you get them an Xbox with a good non-multiplayer game like Skyrim, they'll fight over it, overwrite each other's save games by accident, and throw game controllers across the room. (Source: I grew up with one games console and three brothers.)

The first thing you should do when trying to assess the suitability of a game for minors is look at the rating on the box, or if you haven't already bought it, seek out those rating on-line.

Whenever looking at video game ratings though, you need to consider them in the context of the agency producing the rating. The same goes for film as well as video games.

In Europe, we appear generally much less concerned about sex & drugs, while much more concerned about violence, whereas that situation appears reversed in the U.S. Elsewhere in the world you will find other priorities.

While the overall ratings are a good indication, you often have to drill down into the detail to find the real reason for a given rating:

• The BBFC's 15 rating appears to be based solely on the games violence.
• The 18+ rating from PEGi also concentrates solely on the violence, but is obviously much less tolerant of it.
• The Mature rating from the ESRB obviously covers these topics of gore and violence, but also covers the issues of sex and drugs (nothing about rock & roll though *8').

As someone from the UK I think it is unsurprising that I share the opinion of BBFC. I wouldn't be comfortable with under 15's playing this game, but ultimately it is the decision of a parent to decide whether the themes presented are suitable for their children.