When did this start being normal?

treetrunks

think its fine to be honest. Monitor what they do and teach them what is right and wrong.

*Louise*

I don't think it's mad for kids to have them per se....but I think it's mad to let them have them in their bedrooms with no supervision :eek:

My eldest is 11 and uses the computer in the living room. He doesn't have a tv in his room, but there is a 32" one in the upper hall for him to use for his Wii. He has a personal dvd player which he uses when he is allowed to stay up later in his room but I wouldn't let him have unlimited access to numerous tv channels.

coops228

Not sure I would be happy for a child to have a computer and be able to surf without supervision. Too many things on the internet that are really not for little eyes and too many strange folk out there who pray on that kind of thing.
Supervised might not be too bad and I appreciate that kids these days need to be more computer literate than perhaps I was at that age.

But, I work with a guy who is in his 20's and when a few of us complained about his lack of writing skills, (can't even write on the line never mind spell), our boss said that it was because he wasn't used to having to write things!! I find that pretty shocking.
Is that the kind of generation we are raising? Ones that can't write and spell using text speech?

We are doing up a room for our first child and my OH was all concerned about where to put the ariel for the TV. He was soon told that I don't think so. No TV in bedrooms in this house.
He agreed that it probably was a bad idea.

Kids don't stay kids for very long anymore, what with technology and the clothing ranges in shops.
I would like my child to enjoy their youth and that might well include technology within reason but I'm not planning on being a plonk them in front of the TV type mum.
My sis-in-law has three kids who won't go outside when they visit us even though we live in the country and think I'm cruel because I won't have the TV on during the day. Tough, my house my rules. They get plenty of exercise when they come here.

RAS

I bought the girl an iPod classic for her 12th birthday; she is a musician and needed something decent on which to carry music. She uses Skype to play and compose music with her best mate who lives away. You can follow the proceedings even if you are not in the room.

However, the lad decided to explore the nether regions of the internet on his dad's computer and having the door closed raised suspicions. He did not have time to delete the history. Do not think he has ever tried it again.

It is apparent from that escapade that quite a number of 14/15 year olds at school were accessing really hard core stuff.

I rather like a story in an article on the subject, quoting a lad who spent a lot of time exploring stuff from 14-17. When he started actually dating girls, they were appalled by his ideas and after number 3, he was fighting a reputation at school as a pervert.

He commented something like, "I thought that having all this knowledge about (stuff) would make me look big. In fact, I have had to forget it all and start at the beginning; the mates who just hung out with girls are better at with them and get more chances than I do."