Too Young to Play Computer Games?

Hi S.,

I just got this email from the occupational therapist at the school I work at and thought of your post. I hope this helps with some of your worries. My son started playing on the computer at 3 and he is a wiz now. He only plays 30-60 minutes a day now and he will be 6. I copied the email below:

Looking for online activity suggestions for your younger students to use at home? These can help with mouse use, and many have an educational slant.

Check out these websites for your younger students – free online games, chosen by Children’s Technology Review, an online “magazine” that offers lots of technology information for children.

http://www.littleclickers.com/games.html

This site has a variety of Christmas games.

http://www.miniclip.com/games/en/christmas.php

And, this site has educational games available free for download. Look for a time telling game, money skills game, and mouse skills game, among many others.

http://www.greyolltwit.com/

C.

In my opinion.. children have LOTS of time to watch videos/TV and play video/computer games.. why not just let him play for now.

I get frustrated when we go to the library to READ and there's videos/computer and TV's reading books to kids or distracting them.

One of my friends sent me an article that links ADHD and other things to too much time at screens... I thought it was a little far fetched, but they are banning TV programming in Europe for under 3.

Hi S.,

My 3 1/2 year old loves the computer games. He mostly plays on the pbskids.org site or the disney site. I think the pbs kid site is easier and it has some of his favorite characters. They do get sucked in so my suggestion is set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes at most. At my son's preschool they give each kid 6 minutes on the computer. I don't think it matter if you use a mouse or sensor pad. We have the sensor pad on our computer but he uses the mouse at the library too.

Good luck with your decision. I never want my kids glued to the video games either!

S.,

I always let my boys have limited computer time. Mostly because they enjoyed it. They do need to learn how to use a computer but there is plenty of time for that when they get a little bit older. One website that has great free games is mothergoose.com there is a game there called Monkey Music it is a screen with different colored circles on it and a monkey. The mouse moves the monkey and every time the monkey goes over a different circle it will play a different type of music (such as piano, or guitar, or salsa, or classical etc) and smaller circles that will have sound effects when the monkey goes over them (Like dogs barking, or goofing laughing sounds, or screeching tires etc.) It basically helps them learn to control the mouse and no clicking is involved, which to me was alwayst the best part! The exact site is http://www.mothergoose.com/Games/flashGames/monkeyMusic.htm

Another thing we do is go to youtube we watch childrens stories and short videos there. My 5 year old absolutely loves the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video/song (and I think I sing it in my sleep now!) Also there is a video of There was an old woman who swallowed a spider it is read and then sung by Cindi Lauper It is just adorable! There are tons of them and my sons were very quick to learn how to click that replay button!

Don't be afraid to explore the computer together! Have fun!

My 3 year old plays on the computer. Any child will get sucked in. It is about you limiting their time. Once they learn how to play on the computer there is no turning back but now a days they need the skills of a computer. So he isn't too young but just start limiting his time now so when he gets older he already knows there is a limit set. Good luck

Its all about limits.
Limit the time and try to find games that are age appropriate.
My guy uses the regular mouse. I put a sticker on the place you click with. :-)
There are kids programs that also have their own keyboards. It keeps the kids from reprograming your PC without your knowledge (or theirs since they really don't know what they are doing)