electronics and such

[emote1975]

What all electronic devices do you allow your child to use? And how often a day? My boys are 10 and nearly 8 and we haven't given in to letting them have phones or tablets yet. However, we are getting the 10 year old the iPad for christmas this year. He currently has an iPod touch and all we hear about is how the other kids have tablets. The 8

Comments

[mummoth]

There was a girl here about a year ago who committed suicide after being severely bullied and harassed for a few years because she had taken a topless picture of herself with her phone.

You could use the opportunity to set up good habits for when he does have a phone. One thing I've heard is a good idea is for the charger to stay in the parents room. That way they can't use their device after bedtime. A lot of kids will just text late into the night and not get enough sleep otherwise.

My son has a camera and we made the rule that he needs to delete a picture of someone if they ask, and to not take pictures of someone if they don't want their picture taken. If it was a device with the ability, I'd be tempted to install one of those apps that automatically sends photos to the home computer. If the kids are only taking appropriate pictures, that won't bother them, right?

My daughter had a friend over who sat on her iPod and wasn't interested in playing... my daughter had the lego out, asked me to make them tea, wanted to go outside. The girl may as well have not been here, she didn't do anything except say "Watch this!" about 45 times. So yeah, having it only at home is a great idea.

Totally not a rules thing, but did you know you can get digital comics and an app to read them on an iPad?

[emote1975]

It doesn't surprise me about the digital comics app. I'm in IT and I'm totally not a techie. I suck.

Xander's ipod has a camera and he takes sooo many pics. Mostly of landscape type things so his ipod is always full and doesn't have any memory. I have full access to everything he does on it. However, he once was able to order an audio book without us logging in. I happened to log into my banking site and saw a charge and then saw it came from his device. So that was a little troubling. We've put the fear of god in him though that big brother can ALWAYS see what you do with electronics and that everything can be traced back to you and nothing is every really deleted. So hopefully that will last a few more years.

I would be so embarrassed if that was my kid (the friend of your daughters). That's another reason we won't let it leave our homes. Dang kids.