DesertBlossom Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 My almost 10 year old is researching electronic devices and insists he wants one for Christmas. He's undecided about what exactly. I am not opposed to getting him something, however he seems to think that having his own tablet or laptop or 3ds (or whatever he's wanting at the moment) will mean he's got unrestricted access and control over it. I'm not quite ready to give him that much freedom considering he has a tendency to be a bit obsessive and impulsive and selfish. So I'm dragging my feet so far because I anticipate it would just end up being a constant battle. What kind of electronic devices do your preteen boys have? And how do you monitor and control their usage when they "own" it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Just say no. The words "obsessive & impulsive" ring alarm bells for me. Don't set yourself up for that constant battle you are anticipating. It's not worth it - no ten year old needs a personal electronic device, as you know. You don't need the upheaval and the constant monitoring. Save your energy for other things that will come along in these next few years. Puberty is interesting. If you want to, you can tell him you will re-evaluate your decision when he turns 12, or starts high school, or whatever. ETA: my son had a dumb phone from the time he was about 14 until he went to college, when my husband handed down an old iPhone 4 to him. At this point he needs the phone in order to get info from his college via text message, which is very common. He had a desktop computer for schoolwork which he also used for recreational use. It is in a public area complete with monitoring software and a keystroke logger. He still got distracted by the internet and gaming and his entire life suffered. He now has a laptop for college - but he's an adult, not a kid! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Just say no. It is the reason my youngest won't get a device yet. He's not mature enough to handle the responsibility of the privilege. If *I* own it, I can make rules for its use - when, how long, where it's stored, where it can be played....harder when it's a kid. My oldest got a ds, though, about age 9. We already had the rule of no games from 8-3, and I was fine with whatever he played on there after. But there was no internet access, just cartridges. It's harder when everything is connected to the web in some way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertBlossom Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 Okay, I am relieved to hear that. I should just say no. The other thing he's asked for is Minecraft but I don't know enough about it. I should start a separate thread for that. But ds talks about being able to prevent any younger siblings from using it, so it would have to a family gift that I own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomatHWTK Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 My oldest 3 all have tablets and personal PCs, the youngest has a PC. Tablets are for leisure, PCs are for school and leisure. They mostly self-regulate their use. If I feel they need to cut down on usage I set a limit or revoke all privileges. My kids all love Minecraft but it can be time consuming. If they all get together to start a big project I don't make them stop after 30 minutes. My DH is pretty PC savvy and keeps up with the latest games, etc. I can see needing to place greater limits if you aren't familiar with the various games and what the kids might be getting into. OP, does your DS play any games on your PC? Have you noticed any problems with him becoming too consumed? Perhaps you could trial a game between now and Christmas to see if it will be a problem for him. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Don't just say no. Electronics are not the devil, and do not cause a problem in many families. Here are our 'limits' - no non-education related use between 9 and 3 on a school day. content restrictions where appropriate encourage creative use as well as passive use have a mutual understanding that the electronics take second place to reasonable parental requests. get plenty of active, outdoor time. have a non-electronics hobby or two. That's how we handle it, and we have very similar ground rules. DS (11) has access to multiple family devices, and he has access to an iPod touch that Santa brought him a few years ago, along with an old iPhone 4 that doesn't have service (so, essentially another iPod touch) that we gave to him recently. All devices in our home are subject to our rules. It doesn't matter if they are "his" or belong to the family (the iPads, laptops, etc are family devices). And, I'll take this one step further and illustrate that we really do apply our rules to all devices in the home - even when my DSS was a teen, his phone/devices were subject to our rules, in our home. Yes, even the ones he bought with his own money. To be upfront, DS does not have access to social media (we will revisit that once he's 13), and he does not use the internet much. His use of the devices is mostly for filmmaking, creative apps, occasional youtube videos, music and audiobooks. Oh, and the DIY app. He prefers to read print books, so the kindle app gets minimal use, sadly. He plays a limited amount of minecraft, because he has pretty strict restrictions around minecraft use. If you want to research minecraft, I've found minecraftmum to be a good resource. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 We have had ground rules and have not had tons of issues. There have been times that the electronics disappeared for a week or 2. The laptops have 2 accounts. All laptops need to stay in our main area and never go in bedrooms. One for education and one for recreation. No recreation account before 3 pm and school work done. Those accounts have limiting software. No more than 2 hours recreational tech a day. That includes TV. I'm a little looser with my almost 15 year old now. At age 10, he got even less. He is getting a new laptop for his birthday and he still will not have unlimited time on it. I think there are good reasons for kids to get to be tech savvy. My son was typing most of his written work at age 10. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Oh - both my kids have phones. They're wireless smart phones - no data plan. No phones during school. They got phones because they have committed activities making them convienent for us! My dd got one at 10, but she was dancing 4+ days a week at that age (she is 11 now). If my kids dropped a bunch of activities and were more homebodies, we'd probably drop their phones too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 My kids share use of our two desktops and a Samsung Galaxy tablet. I would recommend the Galaxy for kids; it is a good tablet that does a lot, and with a wider variety than the Kindle Fire, which was my second choice. I'd also only get something for kids if I could also get a SquareTrade warranty for it. However, I would consider some blocking software. As I just posted in another thread, the combination of Qustodio (paid) and opendns (free) seems like it's a good setup for us, plus restricted YouTube access. Our Galaxy needs a new charger, so I haven't tried Qustodio on it yet, but it supposedly works for Android tablets too. You can set a password on the device, and while it can be the child's own, you can log onto it for him if you're concerned about overuse. I have no problem with taking away all screen use if the kids aren't doing chores and schoolwork pleasantly or whatever. (The blocking software helps with that too. I have several children too, and the software is helpful because I can set it to lock the kids out of all devices for certain hours, or just out of the Internet for certain hours, or a combination. They can have free access to the word processor, for instance, but limited time on Google, and I can lock all of it completely for the mornings we need to get out of the house on time for class. Plus, the filters are very good, and I get updates on what they're doing and searching for.) Also, I don't allow social media until thirteen, and even then, it's with the understanding that I have all passwords and can read anything at any time. I generally don't read their stuff but will occasionally take a glance. I respect their privacy, but I also want them to know that they have zero right to privacy on the Internet, especially while they are minors in my home. Up until now, I have not allowed devices in bedrooms unrestricted. The Galaxy has music on it, and DD likes it for falling asleep. So she would have me log on, she'd set her playlist to go, and then she'd log off in front of me. It'll keep playing even while locked. With the new filter software, I will probably be more comfortable with her taking a device to her room, but the usual caveats will apply -- time limits, Mom can check what you do, no locked doors, and Mom doesn't knock. And if Mom ever gets wind that you've taken or done anything even slightly risqué or questionable, that's it for the device for a very long time. This has not been an issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Sounds like a great opportunity to teach him how to control his "obsessive" tendencies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrips Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Mine have none.; they'll be 11 soon. I've never wanted something in the house that I'd spend the next years fighting about and trying to control. We do have three pcs/chrome books that they use for schoolwork, but they are ours, not theirs. they are out in the house, but it's not for the kids to play on. They can do their math, Latin, type papers, and do research. I can restrict times/websites but I'm letting it open for now to see what they do. I can track it and then have conversations with them if I dont like something I see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Just say no. The words "obsessive & impulsive" ring alarm bells for me. Don't set yourself up for that constant battle you are anticipating. It's not worth it - no ten year old needs a personal electronic device, as you know. You don't need the upheaval and the constant monitoring. Save your energy for other things that will come along in these next few years. Puberty is interesting. If you want to, you can tell him you will re-evaluate your decision when he turns 12, or starts high school, or whatever. ETA: my son had a dumb phone from the time he was about 14 until he went to college, when my husband handed down an old iPhone 4 to him. At this point he needs the phone in order to get info from his college via text message, which is very common. He had a desktop computer for schoolwork which he also used for recreational use. It is in a public area complete with monitoring software and a keystroke logger. He still got distracted by the internet and gaming and his entire life suffered. He now has a laptop for college - but he's an adult, not a kid! :iagree: :iagree: :iagree: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestavern Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 We have had issues for a few years with ds and electronics. Personally I dislike them for kids. I would much rather my child be doing more constructive things with his time. And it's been a battle of wills since he began using. We finally wrote up a contract stipulating the rules that we all signed. Knock on wood it's going much better. He gets one hour a day. So if you do go ahead with it, I would be very specific about usage. Oh, and Minecraft? Crack for kids. We finally had to shut it down for good. My son was very unpleasant when he was allowed to play that, not when he was playing, but whenever he wasn't because that's all he wanted to do. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 nm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Sounds like a great opportunity to teach him how to control his "obsessive" tendencies. Waiting for some maturity might be more beneficial than throwing him into the deep end. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 I have girls. They don't have their own computers (well, dd10 has a raspberry pi) but have been allowed to use ours. I've recently almost totally banned their use. I couldn't take the constant begging and complaining and wheedling, even with limits set. I'll even be glad at this point when our free cable runs out in January I think. They are nice girls and know how to behave, but IMO its not a benign thing, like reading or even conventional tv, and it affects behavior differently. The games are designed to act in exactally the same way VLTs do, by creating a dopamine rush on a regular basis. I've become less and less inclined to think it is a good idea to let young kids or even teens learn to control their behavior by exposing them to that, as I think kids at those ages are much more likely to have brain development affected by that, and also that is when they are developing their sense of what the real benefits and enjoyments of other, less immediately rewarding, activities are. Some kids aren't much affected, but its hard to say ahead of time, and they don't generally appreciate having the things taken away when they show signs of addictive behavior. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serenade Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Sigh. Many kids use screens productively and constructively. Many kids use Minecraft and remain pleasant young people. I'd go so far as to say most. It think it's the kids with obsessive tendencies who parents need to be careful with. I have one child who uses his device creatively, for research and also for playing games. He has plenty of outside interests as well. He is not obsessive and will stop and/or hand over his device when requested. The other child needs strict limits. While he is older than the younger by three years, playing electronics is all he wants to do. He has a hard time focusing on anything else if an electronic device is in his vicinity. He argues about handing it over when he is clearly playing too much and won't set limits himself. He has no other interests, and I feel electronics are pretty much a bad thing for him, IMO. The difficult thing in our house is that one child can use his electronics responsibility, but the other cannot. He doesn't seem to be able to self-regulate at all. It's too late for us, I guess. It's really hard to step back once these things are in your DC's lives. And while I have no problem with my younger son, for the sake of my older son, I wish we hadn't given them their own devices. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albeto. Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 What kind of electronic devices do your preteen boys have? And how do you monitor and control their usage when they "own" it. Mine had electronic kits. We didn't have this, but it looks darn cool. Teaches the child the concepts and skills behind electronics and programming. My child went from following instructions to exploring without boundaries. He'd made a garage door opener out of legos, an electric "guitar" out of a Renaissance fair bow (the wood was hollow, the string vibrated, he connected it to his electronics set and amplified the sound), and a radio out of stuff around the house simply by exploring kits like these. Computer screens and programming is fun, but so too is the old fashioned tinkering. And I think the old fashioned tinkering is a great foundation for any programming (or anything, really). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReader Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 My boys all have the Nintendo 3DS, but we allow them only in the car & very long, boring periods of waiting (for ex, waiting in the airport for a flight, or things like that). Very very rarely are they allowed to be played in the house (new game at Christmas, that sort of thing). My middle son also has his own iPad Mini, and uses it for things like playing music as the "soundtrack" to whatever lego thing they are doing, or making Lego movies, or looking up information, or as a timer for staying on track. He could, but doesn't, access the internet with it; he has a computer (we have 3 desktops, one which I share with the youngest, and one each for the other 2 boys, mainly due to school use) and uses it for internet stuff. The computers (not laptop, but same would apply if so) stay in our computer room which is a public room in the house, no door, no hiding content/what you're doing, etc. All three boys (and my husband as well) have their own Minecraft accounts on the computer, and we absolutely love it. They build, create, craft, make things...they have found several add-ons (free downloads) that allow them to do even more, including one which allows them to create "people" that exist in the game and the boys can write dialogue/scripts (such as the background characters in most video games, who say a certain phrase or set of phrases when you approach them). Very cool. I'd take the time to discuss limits, discuss that "ownership" doesn't mean he has full control, explain that limits will be enforced (for ex, if the boys misuse any of the above, or the Nintendo Wii, they forfeit their playtime for the rest of that day or the following), and go from there. There are relatively easy ways to introduce electronics while still maintaining rules/guidelines, even for the obsessives. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Our rules: buy your own; no screen time on school nights unless academics are done for the week; earn screen time on weekends (Friday to Sunday afternoon) by doing extra academics including music, language, and enriched math. Mine craft is fun. I don't think it's educational but it's a nice game. It takes enforcing. My stepkids don't earn screen time. They get it "free". But they are more normal than my obsessive, strong-willed, moody kids. So self-regulation works for them because they are eminently normal and want to continue to be perceived as normal. Whereas my kids are kind of freaks and would probably easily spend all day on the Internet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 My kids have desktop computers that sit in our living room in full sight, 3DSs that they got for Christmas last year, a Wii and WiiU (which they use to watch tv since we ditched cable). Ds also just got dh's old phone without any plan so he can play games and text (since they now are involved in a drop-off activity). The kids LOVE the electronics, play Minecraft and it's definitely their first choice for activity but we rarely have arguments because the rules are very clearly laid out. -Nothing until school is done, at least one hour of outside/no screens time is held, at least one hour of physical activity (additional to the outside/no screens). -Any chores need to be done, ds (picky eater with sensory issues) has to try a new food, brush teeth, wash face, etc. -Only during the hours of 4pm and 7pm during the week. Since they have an activity during those times every day, they get varying amounts each day but rarely that full 3 hours. -They get more on weekends but have the same rules about no screens/outside/physical activity and only during certain hours. Keeping it to within specific times is much easier than an amount of time. They can easily see when it's getting close to time to get off so there's few arguments. We don't have to keep track of time earned/time used, which with my kids I think would lead to more arguments trying to justify more time. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 DS10 has his own laptop, kindle and ipad. He is reasonably responsible on usage. DS9 would play games on his laptop when I am not looking so now he gets to use his laptop when I am around to monitor. I haven't set up the kids account restrictions on his laptop after the windows 10 upgrade. Both have Minecraft tablet edition and both don't really spend time on Minecraft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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