My kids are not quite screen time age, but at some point will be. I'd like to give them an interesting computer experience instead of just plopping them in front of an iPad with some media.
When I was a kid I had fond memories of exploring the file system, figuring out how applications worked, playing with Kid Pix, Paint, and a few games (roughly Apple IIGS, Macintosh 2, through iMac + a Windows XP desktop).
Do you have any fun old laptops or device you've got lying around that you've used to introduce kids into a desktop environment?
Any and all recommendations welcome :)
16 comments
I've been making little things for them with LÖVE. If I show them a Paint program and they say, "I wish I could draw circles," then I nod non-committally and then the next day it does circles. In this way I hope they will grow to expect to have agency over computers and not just accept what some app offers.
More details:
https://akkartik.name/freewheeling
For a long time we setup a raspberry pi with screen and monitor for our kids to use. It was perfect, the gpu wasn’t strong enough to watch YouTube but it was fun to play some basic games and get curious about coding.
We have banned YouTube on our house, without an adult watching. But I make a private playlist that has interesting videos I see, mostly educational, so when we have time to watch we watch something of quality.
At 3-5? We gave them an old dead phone to play with. They made their own laptops from a couple pieces of cardboard, and drew a keyboard and screen on it.
Ah one more hack or idea. My kids LOVE books. Our local library has the Libby App and we get tons of free books for car rides and nap time. Get it and get them a kindle fire. Then completely disable games and only enable books.
You can root a Fire, change its launcher, disable the bloatware, install the PDF/epub/etc. reader of your choice, and you end up with cool tablet-readee that has battery for days!!! I kept mine offline and copied the files I wanted through PC, so I also never had to worry about security or upgrades.
At that kinda age I opened up google-docs, set the browser to full-screen, increased the font-size and let the child "type"
He loved writing "adsdfdsfjkldf", and sometimes he'd painstakingly type his own name.
Later I implemented the classic guessing-game "I'm thinking of a number", "that was too high", "that was too low", and we talked about choosing the number in the middle:
https://github.com/skx/gobasic/blob/master/examples/55-game....
Later still things got more interesting when he could both type but also read, and I implemented a simple text-based adventure game for him to play with:
https://github.com/skx/lighthouse-of-doom/
As for him using the computer? Nowdays he watches videos of minecraft stuff on youtube, but has zero interest in coding, experimenting, or learning how it works.
That's fine, he's not me and he can have his own interests. That's my takeaway from doing computer-stuff at a young age: Not all children care about computer-stuff.
My kid has his own account, with the password something I want him to remember:. Our phone number, words he misspells, ...
I let my son, who is 5, play around with gcompris qt. I think the chess game has helped him learn.
It helps with getting the mouse and keyboard down.
I haven't had a child yet, but when I do I will be going the low/no tech route.
I was quite fond of a number of things as a child that when looking back on it knowing what I know now, were extremely detrimental to my development as a person.
In some cases the things I loved the most at the time ended up setting me back as much as a decade in maturity (i.e. gaming addiction), which is relentlessly pursued by most companies in the space today.
I don't intend to raise or coddle my children in such a way as to have them become infantile hopelessly dependent adults, and in many cases today as a parent you have to be ruthless when it comes to cutting out malign influences.
I have friends who have children, and they've taken similar spartan approaches to great effect.
Their children read, think, and comprehend material at a much higher level than their peers.
Your child wants to spend time with you. Not with a computer.
And you both will be better off for it.
So put your child on your lap and let the computer be an excuse until you give yourself permission not to need an excuse. Because they are only little once, turn out amazing, get their own lives, and you miss them like hell. Good luck.
First of all - totally agree. I work half-time so I get to spend extended time every day with the kids.
My post did not say anything about how I was going to use the computer, in fact we often do exactly what you said with his fake keyboard in between his other activities.
I also believe that it's my job to provide my children with the environment in which they can thrive and be independent. This post is asking for constructive guidance on how other people have navigated the transition into engaging with technology that all kids go through.
If you have any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them.
My parenting advice is that your attention is on optimizing a non-optimizeable challenge.
The advice is based on experience. Imagine asking this question in 2002. That’s before social media, before ubiquitous data, before smartphones, before streaming.
Your job is to grow as much as your child so you can support them when they start having adultish problems; can just stop following your agenda; and the only tool on your toolbelt is being the kind of person they want to be around.
Screen time is rounding error on the quality of parenting. Stop arguing on the internet. It is pretend work.
The only people who wouldn't agree with what brudgers is saying are obviously people who didn't have bad parents (bad, as in, resorting to any type of abuse because they are incapable of even sorting out their own thoughts and emotions)
You get trashed and I don't understand why. Many of us "here" that are pushing at the range 45-85 grew up 0-10) without smartphones, 'interweb', computers, etc. My first 'machine" was an Atari (cartridge/joystick). My second machine was Amstrad PC 1512. Although I am not a coder "I do alright in IT". My moto is that if I do alright a d started with no tech until X years old, then for someone to be as good as me in "IT/computers" they could be easily start at 2X. Definitely not at 5.
At that point the thing is to please you/free you some time/tell your colleagues that your kid wrote XYZ in "ruby on rails"/etc.
A kid wants to play. Give it YT and it will binge cartoons and Mr Beast (where its brain is "programmed". Give it a ball and go to the park and your kid will never (don't quote me) have asthma.
Take your pick folks!
Love this response. Remember that having the time and space to give to your kids like this is a luxury not everyone has.
It is not a luxury.
It is decision about who you are.