Do You Let Your Kids Google (Among Other Things)?

Yes in my opinion you are the odd person out- okay so you were going to go after this woman for letting her daughter Google? I have an 8 year old that knows his way around the internet better than most adults. Yes he Googles, he plays on Google earth, he knows all the game sites. Both boys have ipods both have their own computers, the oldest has a cell phone. I trust them there are parental controls on all electronics but I don't believe they should be hidden from it. BTW both are good students, play all sports, spend a lot of time outside and the computer doesn't seem to interfere with that.

My 12 YO uses google. I have told her that sometimes some really strangle stuff will come up and I do keep an eye on her. My 9 YO doesn't google. I don't even know if she knows what it is. I The 9YO accesses WebKinz, Barbie.com, and other "kids" sites. The older one is now using You tube and more advanced stuff.

My daughter learned how to Google in computer class at school last year in the second grade. Isn't that wonderful? She wanted to know about something one day, and told me she was going to go Google it. I said WHAT? She said, yeah, we learned how in computer class. I kinda wish the teacher would have notified us so that we could've stepped up our child block software etc...Prior to this, she was only visiting child specific website that we had set up under her favorites tab, but Google opens up a whole new world. You have to "try" to be a step ahead of them, but it's hard. In a couple of years, she'll probably be teaching me things on the computer. Kids now are so tech savvy, and I hate it. There are kids in her 3rd grade class with cell phones and she's whines all the time about why she can't have one. I can't imagine anyone finding the need to provide their 8 yr old with a cell phone. I wish more parents felt the way I did. When I hear stories about 4th graders "sexting" each other (and it really happens moms, believe or not-I just found this out when a rep from the state's attorney's office came to our school to educate the kids and parents about internet and cell phone safety) it makes me feel even stronger about keeping my daughter away from this scary, tech culture for as long as possible. They're kids, not mini adults! They grow up quickly enough as it is.

My son is 6.5 and I let him go on our laptop to play games like the pokemon website and Club Penguin. If he wants to look something up we use Kidrex, which is a kid friendly search engine and we look it up together. Plus he is sitting in front of me in the living room on the laptop so I can look to see what he's doing periodically. We do limit time he spends on the computer though. I won't let him play on it everyday, usually on a weekend if the weather is not nice enough, otherwise he can play outside. He'll usually play when his sister is napping since he tends to be more quiet that way.

I am totally in agreement with you.

Hi M. B, I am the mom who asked about my 8 year old. No we do not allow or never have allowed our daughter to google, we have been very restrictive about the internet. When she did this we were unaware I know most people say they never ever allow their child to do anything on computer unless they are right there. Our daughter has always been a VERY obedient child, never in trouble at school, or at home for that matter. Straight A's, competitive sports, goes to church evertime the doors are open. Doesn't have "advanced friends" no siblings....all the while she was googling on the computer and we did not know it until I checked history...didn't think you were being judgemental just not sure of the situation. I've never had any reason to ever doubt that my child was doing nothing more than educational games on computer. I do not know the times she googled this but now know there are no safety measures on the internet except the off button

Wow. I absolutely agree with you, 100%. Google is not, by any imaginary stretch of the word, appropriate for children. Some of the things that pop up when I search for things are completely inappropriate... mothers who use the "trust" cop-out for lazy parenting are seriously delusional. Just because you trust your kids does not excuse you from the responsibility of protecting your children from exposure to things that are beyond their emotional maturity.

My kids do have Nintendo Wii, Playstation, and Satellite TV (I'm not a control freak about what they watch on TV- they can watch pretty much whatever, as long as it's relatively age appropriate. I wouldn't let them watch Family Guy or anything vulgar like that), and they are allowed to play on the computer but they can only go to websites that I have reviewed and allowed them to go to. I save the links to their 'allowed' websites on the desktop of the computer so they can easily get to them.

They also have Nintendo DS for when we go somewhere, and my little one (age 4) has a MobiGo. My 7-year-old has an i-pod (without internet access) but I put the music on there so nothing inappropriate ends up on it.

There are two extremes- IMO you have to allow your children to become exposed to things, but you have to protect them from things that are maturally beyond their grasp. You CAN over-protect, and you CAN over-expose, neither of which is healthy for a child.

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We got my 10yr old a laptop for Christmas for her to use to look up stuff for school, use Tutor.com on and play educational games. She also has a Facebook account that I have the log in info for as well and there are rules that her and I have agreed upon for her to be on facebook and the computer in general. She can only use the computer in the living room/dinning room areas (it's one open area) so I can always look over her shoulder when I want. I think that if kids are taught to use a computer properly, monitored by an adult....that it can be a good learning tool for kids. But I know there are parents out there that have no clue what their kids are doing on the internet and that is scary!!

She also has a cell phone which the only time it really gets used is when she is at her Bio dad's for the summer. He isn't reliable to keep phone service so I send her with a phone so I can talk to her when ever. I also send it wilt her to school on the rare occasion that she is walking home (it's a 1/2 hr one way!) and she will call me when she is leaving school.

We have the PS3 and wii, she also has a Nintendo Ds but it is all played in moderation and is a privileged to play not a right in our home. Chores, homework and the such must be done before they can be played and it's limited to 30 mins to an hour of play time per day depending if it's a week day or weekend. And that includes the TV too.

But different things work for different families so you are right, we can't judge what someone does because we don't feel it is right for our own family dynamics.

S.

If you wouldn't let you kids out in the world by themselves, then don't let them out in the world wide web (www) by themselves either. Get some parental controls set up for your internet access to keep away the accidents (or on purposes if curiosity takes over)

The answer is yes we allow our 11 and 9 year old daughters to Google. Our 9 year old has a research project on an endangered animal. So she needed to do this kind of research for school already. She has also used Google to find appropriate web sites for kids current events article write ups for school. BUT . . . . and this is a big BUT! They are ONLY allowed to Google freely on their OWN log ins, which have strong child protective software which blocks out any type of questionable content. And in fact sends us an alert if one of our children even tries to access a restricted site or any kind of inappropriate content. It works great. If anything, they complain it works too well. Blocks a lot of things that are actually fine, but I have to go in and check first. They are not allowed ever to use our computers on Mom and Dad's logins (non child-protected) unless we are working directly with them at the computer. Found out when our first daughter did her 3rd grade research years ago on Google without protective software that even her innocently searching the word "tiger" would come back with links like "have sex like a tiger" and pictures of sleazy dressed women. Ugh! Lesson learned for us.

It's funny that you post this today b/c I was doing some staff development at a middle school yesterday afternoon. As I was setting-up in the library, the teacher instructed the students to get a laptop, sign-on and refer to the "approved" search engines before starting their research. She very clearly reminded them that "Google" was NOT an approved search tool and that they were not to use it.

After the kids started, I asked her about it and she explained that it's just too "open" and that it's easy to break through the school firewalls through Google.

It's a tough call b/c in today's technology-oriented world it's "either keep up or stay behind". So... "no". I would not let my child use a search engine that isn't allowed in school either!

No!.........ive googled things that have scared me!

im not going to let her do that without parental settings to block this crazy stuff !

I have a 7 yr old and she was trying to find a game site she had played on once. Called girlsgames or something. She ended up opening a nude site. UHG. We put the controls on computer but it was really annoying. So she has to ask now before she goes to each site. She plays games on computer. She writes books and stuff like that. She has books explaining body parts and such, so i dont think she was too shocked by the naked bodies, but it was still awful.

What's the big deal that they learn about sex at 8 years of age. She might get her period and need all the information she can get. Many homeschooled kids go online for their projects.
And, I do agree with you time to play out of doors is a really good way to find out who you are. Overscheduled kids are one of today's big crimes against nature.
Let's be reasonable it's part of today's learning experience. You can block certain sites. If your child can read they'll read what makes sense to them. My littlest brother explained how a heart attack works to me when he was 4 years old. He read it in Life Magazine. He understood it which is better than most adults could do.
A few years later he snuck into my room to read The Three Faces of Eve. My mother was really mad at me. She said, "That he read it isn't so bad. The worst is he understood it." That he understood it meant he could get something out of it.
You're going to forbid a genius from being a genius. I was in college and he was in second grade.
Let us not wall our children off from developing their minds and their deep interests in life.
The only sites I want to block are those that lure kids to get on buses and go meet some aged pervert who should have been sentenced to 50 years the first time he was caught.

My 5 y/o can access www.nickjr.com, www.sproutonline.com and other sites such as those by herself.

When she or I have a question - we google it together and if the situation calls for it, for further education we may even go to youtube.com and search for it.

We've googled/youtubed bands (music), people, animals, home and water births, music videos, creation of life videos (seeing baby in womb, gestation time frame), etc...

I think curiosity should be encouraged and helped along - even if it includes sexual curiosity. The more you know, they more information you can draw on to make better decisions and to learn.