In this post, I will either come across as indecisive, self-deluding or a hypocrite. I’ll let you be the judge.
One of the debates around our house this Christmas has been whether or not to get Tristan a video game for Christmas. I’m not overly fond of the idea.
The boys already love the games on the Peep and the Big Wide World website. (I too love this site, and the cartoon.) Each night after dinner, Simon asks, “Peep now? Peep now? Peep now?” with the regularity of an atomic clock. I’ll hold the laptop and move the cursor for them, but won’t let them play by themselves. I’m not sure if this is a parental influence issue or a “you’ll not be touching MY laptop with your sticky fingers” issue.
Video games for the preschool set seems to be the latest thing. I see that Leap Frog, a company to which I generally give a lot of credence, has come out with Little Leaps, a DVD/video game console targeted to the 9 – 36 months set. (Seriously? A video game for 9 month olds?)
I’ve given up a bit of ground, and we’ll be getting the Zoooos game set for the boys. It works like the Little Leaps, turning the DVD player into a video game console. Oh well, at least the games are educational. And more importantly, not handheld portables so (a) I can see when, what and how much they are playing and (b) they won’t wander away and get lost under somebody’s bed or in the closet or any of the myriad other places our toys seem to end up.
I was doing some research yesterday and came across this article from topix.net about how kids as young as eight are logging in to virtual communities:
Hundreds of thousands of Canadian children are signing up to online social networking communities where they can chat, play games and create virtual worlds. But unlike sites like Myspace or Friendster, which encourage members to leave
personal information on their profiles, social websites for the younger set do the exact opposite.Webkinz, Club Penguin and Neopets are sites aimed at kids between eight and 14. They allow members to take on a character – usually in the form of an animal or creature – and create a world for them.
Eight years old and online social networking. Yikes!
What do you think? At what age do you introduce your kids to computer games? Are they evil, or educational? Do you have a fave kids’ website?
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
We are in the same boat at our house with the 5 year old. He could spell and type at age 4 so he was quite proficient at “googling”, under our supervision, of course. He could find the Thomas website and enjoyed that for along time. He now has found the hotwheels website, and likes to play a driving game (age 5!). BUT… he is allowed 30 mins per day max of computer time, and the computer is on the main floor so we are right there.
Would I choose to allow a 5 year old to play computer games… no. But I also feel you have to let them follow their interests and aptitudes.
It’s hard to adapt parenting to the 21st century since we can’t mimic what our parents did with us!
I don’t let my kids on the computer.
This is less a hardline philosophical stance than it is the reflection of the fact that my computer is down in the unfinished, dank, spider-hosting and unsafe-for-little-children basement. I’ve been toying with the idea of moving it upstairs (it’s a desktop model) and making room for it in my bedroom so the girls can start to use it, but that would mean installing a new phone jack, which I’m not ready to do just yet.
So, to answer the question, I think 5 or 6 is early enough for some computer games or games on an educational website like Peep or TVO kids. And I’m going to keep the computer out of their bedrooms, space is limited in my little house, so my bedroom will have to be the place — with the door open and lots of help and supervision from Mommy, of course.
We let our girls use the computer. The world is online… why not start now?
Our 5-year old is proficient on the home PC (and hase been using one since about age 2.5) and our 3 year old is learning like a pro. We started her out with a disconnected mouse so she could copy her sister.
I have set up a user account for the kids (with high security and filters) on our system, my eldest knows how to boot, connect and start the browser/navigator. We have established their favourites list and of course… we SUPERVISE.
There is no random typing/searching.
Time is limited to around 30 mins and about 1-2 times per week (on weekends). There is an amazing assortment of safe sites for kids and we have purchased a couple of CD-ROM games as well which they enjoy.
In my opinion and experience, with our involvement, supervision and control I see nothing wrong with the kids using the home computer at this age.
… not to mention the fact that it blows the grandparents’ minds when they see the kids clicking away!
Snuggly Girl discovered websites a couple of years ago, I think. She’s 6.5 now. The computer is right off the kitchen, so it had an immediate payoff for me to keep her busy when I was making dinner. She loves all the PBS Kids sites. I was initially cautious but decided that they are somewhat educational and better than passive TV. This summer she found wonka.com and let me tell you the marketing works! And those games aren’t the least bit educational. We limit her total time.
But this fall, the sensation sweeping the nation’s Grade Ones is definitely Webkinz. Yes, they do encourage you not to put any part of your real name in your login. This leads to really weird user names. After playing games for a month or two, she was really eager to start the social part of it and started collecting user names from friends. It actually doesn’t work very smoothly yet, though, because on Sunday we managed to be online at the same time as a friend and she kept coming and going unexpectedly. Even after we gave up, we kept getting a message every two minutes that “Friend doesn’t want to play right now.”
Also, I need to be around and be firm, because if you play a game in the Tournament Arena, it pairs you with some random person. These other users invariably ask to be added to her friends list after the game which makes me wonder if they are predators. (They could equally well be friendly kids, but who knows.) She wants to say yes so badly. But NO! I hope that now she has some real-life friends on her list she’ll stop asking to add strangers.
Sad but true, we let J play games. Now I do not let him on my laptop as then I would have no peace.
We have our older family computer that I sometimes leave him playing games on while I go have a shower. He plays all the games at Indigo very well and I love that he has the agility with the mouse and the concept of a game. Hubby recently let him play pinball on his laptop and if that is what he wants, then fine with me.
We also have a DVD type game thing, a gift from a friend. That uses story books, it reads the book and asks questions that the kids answer. I would have rather the Leap one (more choices) but am happy with is as it is.
Enjoy which ever route you choose. Computers are good and bad and it is up to us to monitor how much time they spend on it.
Says the woman who is drawn to computer like a moth to a flame.
I let my girls use the computer. They mostly like Neopets and their games on CD.
I bought the Little Leaps for John M. for Christmas. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Mom and dad are on the computer a lot. It’s natural that our girls are interested as well. I don’t see anything wrong with it.
That being said: we’re okay with them playing at cbc kids website and occasionally the nick jr. website. As for buying them their own computer or a handheld or a video-game console… or introducing them to any social networking for that matter… that’s not going to happen any time soon.
Our kids play on treehouse, or TVOkids.com or whatnot every once in a while. They have some computer games. We have a Gamecube. All of them have proven to be positives as long as they are monitored by us – which they are.
Social networking online? Totally different. Not happening here either – not for a while. Our oldest can send email to her best friend, but I log her in and log her out.
“Hundreds of thousands”? Where did they get those numbers. That seems awfully high to me.
Sam (3.5) loves a few of the TVOkids games: Sticks and the Seasons, Castle Constructor, and Choo-Choo-Choices. Mostly drag & drop stuff or simple clicks. I encourage him for a lot of reasons. For one, he really likes to be entitled to a little computer time himself since he sees his parents using it so much. It also rounds out his play time in a fun and (sometimes) educational way. And, as Myra says, it’s an online world and this is the core of our social media now: we expect Sam’s school curriculum to require him to be computer and web savvy sooner rather than later. I may well think differently when he’s clamouring for killing games or when he’s creating some nihilistic online persona in My Space. Right now, he’s cute as a button, legs dangling off the large computer chair, face brightening when Sticks lisps “You’ve built castles before, haven’t you?”
Nathan plays a few website games but very seldom. Only when he is totally bored and I need to do something. Yeah I know bad mommy! Miranda was give acess to some Journals Last year at 15. And we have had MSN Messenger for awhile but we only let her to talk to people she knows. She hasn’t taken avatange of it yet. I debated myself about getting games for Him but we haven’t he can play educational ones at school.
Hugs