MSP I spent most of my time outside. My Mum gave me bus fare to get to school but I used it for sweets and walked there and back.

I spent most of time in TP Woods in Huddersfield, rain, sunshine or snow.

I also had a paper round 99% of the year to enable me to afford my Battle and 2000ad comics.

Oh and if I was inside the house my Mum assumed (and asked) if I’d fallen out with anyone and why FFS

Childhood was a false utopia that never existed as remembered, and is now just used as an excuse to attack the young and claim superiority.

i had one that was a Teenage mutant ninja turtle one. i wonder how many hours i wasted racing up and down my road on it 😀

I don’t understand how a young child has to have ‘their own’ gadget.

Why can’t they share yours?

Sorry, I’m not questioning anyones parenting but..

Spoilt children anyone?

not a big fan of technokids myself personally.. but I’m a bit of a naturalistic hippy type.. I’m still feeling queasy about my boy watching TV and having ridiculous plastic squawking flashing electrical toys..
What the hell is wrong with a nice stroll in the woods fergoodnesssakes..!?

A good friend however already has his 2 year old twin girls completely at ease with an iphone and apps.. some of the apps are very educational and they are very good at navigating around the menus..

most of you seem to believe the distortion that time has had on those memories, rather than accept the truth

No, I know for a fact that I spent very little of my childhood/youth gawping mindlessly at a screen.

Ironically, I now work in IT, so spend my days gawping (mindlessly?) at a screen 😐

Yunki, its not hard to pick up a tech item nowadays and learn quickly how to navigate around as they are designed to be intuitive (more so than the past) so its not a case ‘oh I must get them into the mindset and learning otherwise they will be behind in life later on’..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14899148

…in addition what if your personal circumstances change as they are growing and you can’t afford to give them the future ipad5 or iphone6 etc etc and they somehow feel ‘left behind’ or unloved by you?

Buy it for you and let them borrow it ‘if they are good’. Share a decent spec pc.

**** giving them expensive tech toys.

right, firstly..thanks for the replies….they’ve been both funny and informative.

just to clarify..i spend about 4-5 hours a day playing with my kids..i.e jigsaws, footy in the garden, swingball, doing their homework, 1-3 times a week playing on the cbeebies website under my supervision so its not like they are just handed stuff to keep them out of my way…..like i’ve said earlier, they both have a nintendo ds that they use maybe 3 times a week.

A lot of their friends have tv’s and games consoles already and i’ve been branded a meany as i wont allow ours to have this just yet, so i thought about something smaller(admittedly, i had no idea what an ipod touch was capable of until after i posted this thread).

I’ve decided against it mainly due to the fact that i cant see them using it too much…..time to get them a camelbak instead 😉 so they can accompany me on longer rides instead.

philconsequence….love it..that is a definite..cheers

hora…this may be a rare thing on here but, i think you maybe right 🙂

In the Night Garden is scary. Hora junior just stops and stares blankly. Last night he held his ball whilst watching them throwing a ball around on screen 😯

Get them a zx spectrum and get them programming in assembly language.

i’m makka pakka…..pale, round and has ocd

according to the wife

Had you thought about Playmobile instead?

derek

thing is…..they have a world map,europe map and a map of the british isles on their walls so that whenever we talk about/hear about somewhere, they can go and research it. They both read to me a lot, practice spellings, practice their maths etc on a daily basis so its not as if they arent getting the educational help they need

actually..the more i type, the more i’m wondering what the hell i’m doing even considering such a gadget.

i apologise for wasting everyones time 😳

dont apologise 😀 i’m now daydreaming about bouncing down my childhood road on a pogo-ball thanks to this thread!

well, at least its brightened your day eh 😀

glad to be of service

A lot of their friends have tv’s and games consoles already and i’ve been branded a meany

There’s your problem. Stick to your guns and wait a few years before they get something similar – one day they will understand!
I have three girls (1 x 11 and 2 x 9 years old). Eldest got a phone for her 11th birthday (basically because she now gets the bus to school every day and we need to know if she’s coming back on it or if she is staying late) and the twins have a DS between them and will be getting an iPod Shuffle each for Xmas.
Apart from watching a bit of telly they prefer to play with other stuff over the DS.
Conversely my god-daughter has very well-off parents who simply buy her the latest thing every year and she’s a proper spoilt little brat.

Hey listen it’s not like the old days. You should encourage your kids to spend as much time immersed in technology as possible, it will give them a massive advantage over the kids who aren’t technologically literate in the same way that we have a divide between the technology “haves” and “have nots” today.

Randonjeremy unless you are going straight into programming or fault finding I don’t understand how your disadvantaged?

Modern windows are very intuitive to use. I don’t understand what is hard on pc’s to use.

I don’t understand what is hard on pc’s to use.

A PC, how quaint, you have been left behind by technology already 😉

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20104332-1/a-slobber-proof-iphone-case-made-for-babies/

Hey listen it’s not like the old days. You should encourage your kids to spend as much time immersed in technology as possible, it will give them a massive advantage over the kids who aren’t technologically literate in the same way that we have a divide between the technology “haves” and “have nots” today.

My gran bought a laptop this year for the first time at the age of 86.

Despite only gettign a TV with a remote controll a couple of years ago she seems fine with it, so bang goes that thoery!

A year or two ago my (now 7 year old) daughter dropped into a conversation that she really wanted a “DS”

“Do you know what a DS is?” I said.

“No”

Needless to say she has not got and won’t be getting a DS.

By coincidence I just went to collect something I bought from the local auction yesterday for £15 – it will be one of my son’s Christmas presents:

A few thousand bits of Meccano!

I’m going to buy my lad an MX bike 🙂

Well that’s not my point really, anyone can use an ipod or iphone or PC or what have you as a basic user – but some will become enthralled with wonder at how these things work and will want to delve deeper, maybe leading them to follow a path of discovery and end up working in the highly lucrative technology field. There’s a big difference between your nan using an ipad to check the lottery results, and learning how things work underneath the GUI.

You should encourage your kids to spend as much time immersed in technology as possible, it will give them a massive advantage over the kids who aren’t technologically literate in the same way that we have a divide between the technology “haves” and “have nots” today.

Wrong.

It will give them the attention span of goldfish.

Here you go. Buy a copy of this book for £3.75 and find out for yourself.

I can’t be bothered to read books. Summary please. 😉

Books, TV? How quaint.

Any sort of screen based entertainment is very bad for young people. Kids under two should have zero exposure. Plenty of scientific research to back up the claims.

The OP was talking about 6 year olds not infants. I was learning how my VIC 20 worked when I was 6, it helped fuel a lifelong love of learning about technology in general, and specifically how complex computer systems work.

Why can’t they share yours?

Sorry, I’m not questioning anyones parenting but..

Spoilt children anyone?

Have you ever tried sharing something with a 6 year old? Bloody hard work!

Anyway, my boy (9, respectively) has a DS – got bored, stays in its box (the DS, not the boy, he’s always escaping) and shares an iPad with me.
He prefers Lego.
Just bought this with his birthday money (over £100!)

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r90/dezb99/frigate.jpg%5B/IMG%5D

I was learning how my VIC 20 worked when I was 6, it helped fuel a lifelong love of learning about technology in general, and specifically how complex computer systems work.

and judging from your previous posts on this thread you’ve turned out to be a well rounded individual with a rational and balanced world view… 😉

It seems most peoples are arguing against technology, without understanding the difference between the actual technology and the content it delivers.

Buy a copy of this book for £3.75 and find out for yourself.

Maybe I will read it on my ipad, I have a whole library of books available to me just a click away.

What children need to learn is not how to boot up technology, but how to get the most out of the bewilderingly massive amount of information available. and how to filter the probability of viewpoints.

Any sort of screen based entertainment is very bad for young people. Kids under two should have zero exposure. Plenty of scientific research to back up the claims.

Source?

Our little one (17 months) loves her Peppa Pig. Happily points to the screen and says “bappa” and if we don’t get the hint she goes and gets the remote and the DVDs.

She also plays with our iPhones sometimes.

Surprisingly neither of these activities have turned her into a drooling vegetable. She also loves reading books, playing outside, going to the park, tearing round softplay etc

The OP was talking about 6 year olds not infants.

QED – you do not have the attention span to be able to read and understand my three sentence long post.

Source?

The book you asked me to summarise you nitwit.

Hey, whilst I’m generally agreed with the consensus that holding off getting the iPod etc. till as late as possible is a good idea, I have to admit that I wrote my first computer program when I was 7, and played quite a lot with computers throughout my teens (as well as biking, running around, scouts, music etc), and now I’m quite good at computer programming and play with computers for a living.

Although in those days having a computer pretty much meant being able to program it, at least in basic or some similar language* – whereas having an iPod, you are a long way away from being able to program it, and I think the interface is not designed in any way to encourage people to do their own stuff with it, it is very much designed as an easy media / app consumption device rather than as something to program yourself.

Joe

*I do remember when we got older asking parents for Pascal / C compilers etc. which were probably quite expensive, that is how much of a sad kid I was!

The book you asked me to summarise you nitwit.

What book? 😉

Edit: seriously does Dr Aric Sigman actually tie his opinions to some hard research and published papers? You said “Plenty of scientific research to back up the claims” so I’d like some citations.