How young is too young for a laptop

[Jezter]

I dont care for the program.. She has NO textbooks... EVERYTHING is on the laptop.. Books, grades, reports, everything..

Oh hell no...

I cant stand the friggin thing... It's like the major focus seems to be the quality of her power point presentations versus the quality of the subject being covered...

This is so fucked up. What is the point of school anymore? If they are not taught how to use pen and paper, give speeches and presentations the old fashioned way, it is going to do nothing but bad things. If they are not encouraged and taught to read books, write on paper, search information from books by reading and not just google and wiki everything and copy/paste to PP or Word... *sigh* it is going to cause some trouble for sure.

I have a disagreement going and I want some input.

I say that a laptop for a 12th birthday is way too young. Computers should be in a family room and FFS no webcams. A 12 year old doesn't need to be on the internet at midnight in her room. That's nothing but trouble brewing.

Mind you, I uninstalled the webcam drivers and will be adding parental control software, but still.

Am I out of touch? Paranoid? Old fashioned? Overly conservative?

Or correct?

Dude, seriously, you are on the right track here. Maybe a computer isn't too bad for 12yo, but it needs to be somewhere where parents can keep an eye on the usage plus set a time limit of use per day. A kid that age needs to be outdoors playing and not indoors on computer. Wear him/herself out by playing and being a child so he/she doesn't even need to stay up all night, but sleep properly.

[Foxdana]

My kids got laptops for their 13 birthdays, I thought at least wait until they are teenagers.

[redred]

I say that a laptop for a 12th birthday is way too young. Computers should be in a family room and FFS no webcams. A 12 year old doesn't need to be on the internet at midnight in her room. That's nothing but trouble brewing.

i agree with you ,my 4 year is able to use a laptop next to an adult but no way would she be up in her room even at 12 using one

[Teh One Who Knocks]

This is so fucked up. What is the point of school anymore? If they are not taught how to use pen and paper, give speeches and presentations the old fashioned way, it is going to do nothing but bad things. If they are not encouraged and taught to read books, write on paper, search information from books by reading and not just google and wiki everything and copy/paste to PP or Word... *sigh* it is going to cause some trouble for sure.

[Muddy]

I agree as well.. But a random poll in the county had a 80% laptop approval rate, so there it is.. *sigh*

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I agree as well.. But a random poll in the county had a 80% laptop approval rate, so there it is.. *sigh*

Because for the most part, people are morons

[Muddy]

Whats funny (not really) is that I never received said poll..

[RBP]

So I uninstalled the webcam driver and windows 7 automatically reinstalled it on next start up. I guess I didn't delete the driver.

I appreciate everyone's opinions on this.

[Noilly Pratt]

I can see RBP's trepidation.Giving someone that age net access and then limiting where they can go is like giving a 6 yr old a match and saying don't light it.

Exactly. What I did to satisfy my daughter's (now age 8, then age 6) curiosity is give her an ancient 286 laptop full of DOS kids games, no possible way to get on the net, but she could only use it for 1 hour of the day. Her greatest fun was decorating it with My Little Pony stickers, and she hardly turns it on now.

She has a thing called Webkinz - which is where you buy a stuffed animal and it gives you access to a website with places to "buy" a room for the thing and outfit it, but no real names are out there, and no way to really interact except for canned responses. She's allowed an hour every 3 days on there, and only if I or my wife is right beside her. If she's naughty, it's the first privilege that is taken away if she misbehaves.

She prefers to run and play outside with her friends, which is exactly how I want her to get most of her playing - she's active, learning how to interact with others. The parents around here chatted about this and we all agreed we wanted to encourage outside play rather than sitting behind a computer - it's good when you can have this dialog with other parents in your area.

[RBP]

Sounds like you're handling that very well NP!

[PorkChopSandwiches]

My son has my old laptop (11yo) But, he has been learning php so he needs to have a dev environment. I mostly make them use the kitchen pc for internet.

[Hal-9000]

Because for the most part, people are morons

u spelt marines wrong...durrrh

[Hugh_Janus]

one of the girls I used to work with has a daughter and she had to have a laptop for school when she was 7.... and she wanted an iphone for christmas aged 8 when I was 8 I was busy playing rugby, football, riding my bike and making dens and shit.... the fuck is going on?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

And people wonder why kids can't speak in real sentences using real English, or why they can't write legibly

[Jezter]

And people wonder why kids can't speak in real sentences using real English, or why they can't write legibly

Or actually interact with other people and make small talk, socialize and work in groups... give respect to other people and listen and learn. Usch... school is supposed to teach more than book wisdom and now a big human part is missing if it all is about computers and working with them instead of working with other people.