to buy 5 year old a DS lite

[cosysocks]

Ds is five shortly, he enjoys playing games on ps3 and wii with dp, however games not educational (but still age appropriate).
My mum is selling ds lite and I was considering it for ds.
Is this going to be a big mistake? My thoughts are at least he can have educational games to play as there are none for wii and ps3? I'm just worried about him having one so young, but if he is going to play games I'd rather them be educational.
Other thoughts are a Leapster but is this just going to be cast aside quite sharpish.

Dd1 has had one since she was 4, dd2 since she was 2, dd2 has just been upgraded to a ds1, I think they are ok at that age as long as they are supervised, ours have been a lifesaver on many a long car/journey.

Will do Missyfafa - sure they will enlighten me. Nothing's coming up on google.

At sign
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The typographic character @, called the at sign or at site or at symbol, is an abbreviation of the accounting and commercial invoice term, at the rate of (e.g. "7 widgets @ $2 = $14").

However in recent years its meaning has changed (or debatably it is increasingly used incorrectly) to also mean "at" in the sense of located at, especially in e-mail addresses.

Increasingly, @ is also used as a prefix to user names (e.g. "@username") on social websites such as Bebo and Twitter to denote a link, attribution or indirect reference.

The symbol was included on the keyboard of 1885 American Underwood, the first typewriter,[citation needed]. Raymond Tomlinson, an American programmer, used it in 1971 as the natural division within the first e-mail message sent.[1]

In English, it is usually pronounced at. Its official, typographic character name is commercial at in the ANSI, ITU-T, and Unicode character encoding standards. Some historical names are mentioned in the "History" section below.

that's what I thought it meant - I thought you were using it to mean something rude, which would have been in line with the tone of your post - along the lines of . I generally call @ ampersand.

Nothing I said in my post was rude, you are mistaken. Just pointing out that computer games are more likely to interfere with social skills than intelligence levels. Anyway off to help DD fill in her entrance form for Oxford...

It's fine IMO. My Dd loved to play with her brothers one and she is only just 4yo. She's got really good at it actually and taught herself how to do the challenges etc. I don't think it's healthy for anyone of any age to be on any game console for too long, but they can be good on journeys and that sort of thing.

iPod touch would be much better. The educational games you can get on that from 59p is fantastic. Anyone who would disagree has obviously never seen one

get him a DSXl they have a bigger screen and easier to use. Then get an r4i cartridge and download games for free ;)

We bought DS1 (4.8) & DS2 (2.8) both a DS for Christmas. They were reconditioned ones so we got them very cheap!

DS1 wanted one because he has older cousins who he sees and plays on theirs. We only bought DS2 one to keep the peace!!

DS1 has got quite good at a couple of the games. DS2 likes the drawing one but is only ever interested when DS1 has his (which we expected!)

They don't play with them often. As TaperJeanGirl said, they are a life saver on a long journey!

Stands up and applauds Squaredance and Missfafa.

You have confirmed my stance on these ridiculous bits of plastic.

My DS is 5, we went on on holiday last year 6 hours in the car when he was still 4. No CD books, no DVD (motion sickness) just me and him, a few music CDs, and Radio 4. The journey was fab, he looked outside the window and fell in love with the scenery. We talked, we sang, we listened to each other, we enjoyed our adventure. I-Spy is always brilliant too.

He has never had to be kept quiet in a restaurant, he knows how to behave without stuffing his braincells with technology.

Our DC do NOT have to be kept occupied all the time, they need to reflect and interact with their surroundings.

ive bought one for my 6 yrs old for Xmas and she is on it for one hour a day.

at onceamai. I don't wish to enter into further debate with you, I've read enough thanks.

My fiancés neice is 5 and has one but she never has her nose out of it. I'd put it off as long as possible if it were me!

All games are educational, thanks to the Orric I was typing words at 2 years old, playing RPGs improves reading skills and you can learn a lot from many games.

like learning about Ragnarök, imperial Japan etc.

my son is 8 months old and he already wants to play my 360.

DD is 5, she got a DSi for Christmas. She loves it but never plays with it for more than 15 minutes at a time, as she loses interest quite quickly. Given a choice, she'd much rather play Junior Monopoly of Guess Who? with me than play on the DS. Amazingly enough, she still manages to play outside, climb trees, eat in a restaurant and all sorts of other things that don't involve the DS. Who would've thought?

onceamai The ampersand is the & symbol. The @ is called the 'at' symbol. Well that's what I have always been told.

Personally I don't think it will do any harm, as long as you limit his use and he still interacts with his friends. An iPod is probably better though because iTunes sells a lot of educational apps. My iPad is full of story books and Ladybird apps for my 1 year old ...... Oh well it keeps him quiet for a whole 5 mins.

surprised at how many under 5's have these - they're not cheap either.
DS is finally getting one for his 9th birthday. Guess we're behind the times. he doesn't even have his own mobile phone or ipad yet - oh, the shame!

Personally I think you are all a wee bit crazy letting your babies play with all this crap, a one year old for god sake. There are a myriad of lovely things to do with your children, I'm with LittleMissHissyFit , think of all that interaction you are missing out on with your children while they tune in and drop out. It's just a glorified babysitter and a rubbish one at that. What's the point of having a drawing game? What's wrong with a piece of paper and a pen? Do you think for one minute that it's not frying their fragile brains? Don't you think there is enough to take in and make sense of in reality? It has been linked to all sorts of social disorders isn't that enough for a parent to start thinking they may not be a great idea? (Many of which do not show themselves until adulthood).
BTW What does mean? It says it's no comment but it seems to rude too?

Missyfafa - I do interacting with him, I download colourful picture books and read them to him, not that much different than reading him a paper book. I don't plonk him in front of my iPad and leave him there, it is in my hands the whole time with DS sitting on my lap, the apps are colourful interactive games designed for babies with themes, words, animals and shapes similar to picture books but a bit more interactive, hardly the same as letting him play violent video games so I'm not worried about social disorders lol. This is all a very small part of the activities I do with DS, mostly for when we are out and about or on car journeys and he is getting a bit narky. He had plenty of other hands on stimulation.

My Ds got an iPod Touch for his 5th birthday last year and a DSi for Christmas just gone. They are by far the BEST presents he has had. He doesnt spend all day on them maybe an hour each day broken into before and after school. They are a godsend for long trips or if I need to get something done.

I know of children younger than he that have had them and I did think they were perhaps a bit too young. 5 seems a reasonable age.

From a parents angle the best thing is that the games are small and dont take up much space, compared to all the other plastic crap he could be bought.

here's a different angle
my DS has had his DS since he was 3. The sole reason it was bought was to try and save his sight. He has been receiving occlusion therapy (excluding the sight in one eye) since he was 14 months, as he has severe amblyopia and could see zilch out on his left eye.
He wouldn't wear a patch so his good eye was chemically blurred to make the bad one work. This was horrible and had no effect. He had special splints so he couldn't move his arms and take the patch off. This was extremely distressing.
Then we discovered the DS. He happily wears a patch to play it. Within 6 months he could actually see shapes in front of him. Two years later he can read quite a way down the eye chart.
This is one hour DS and an eye patch every day.
For us it is an amazing tool, it has given him sight that he would not have otherwise had.

Well, that's killed that thread. ;-)
..Off to go find something else to be militant about. :o