To buy my 5 year old a netbook?

[AmazingBouncingFerret]

My DS is going to be 5 in December. DH and I have been musing over the idea of his own little netbook type thing.

We only have the one laptop and DH work one. So there is no family type computer for him to play on.

I can't think of anything else that wouldnt be a complete waste of money tbh.

He has a huge amount of toys that he is very happy with and he is not into anything specific. (I know that could change between now and his birthday)

Is it too big and expensive a present for someone so young?

Has anyone else's 5yr old got one?

I too have many things on my laptop that I wouldnt want being messed with.
IMO letting my children play with my laptop would be the same as letting them play dress up from my jewellery box.
Having a cheaper not so important model would be similar as having the dress up chest with cheapo beads and bracelets in it.

It's all decided now, we are going to have a family desktop in the dining room so that solves the question of wanting DS to have a computer to use.

Doesnt solve his birthday though! Will probably do the same as last year, trip to the ThinkTank, he loves the younger childrens play area in there. Plus it's indoors, you can never guarantee nice weather in December!

I bought my 10yo a netbook last Xmas. She doesn't use it, says its slow and crap.

LMAO @ mumsarealwaysright

I'm not even going to type a response in defence of all the screaming assumptions you've made about me and my children but thanks for the laugh.

Don't see any problem with buying a laptop for a 5 year old, I bought one for my DS for his 5th birthday. He is nearly 11 and it is still perfect.

I would go for a laptop rather than a net book, as the net book gets put down in the wrong place too easily.

I carried by DS's lap top for him when he was smaller and fitted a net nanny.

He doesn't use it all day, has many other interests and physical activity.

He now has amazing IT skills.

These are the tools of our time, not the work of the devil.

i have got my 7yr DD the disney netbook. it has 2 accounts on. an adult (normal) one and a childs (disney) one. she can only go on sites i have entered into her favourites. everything is password protected. there is no address bar for her to search anything either

I think it's rather a lot of money to spend on a 5yo. You are possibly setting a precedent.

Also, I think a 5yo needs almost constant supervision/help unless you've set them up with a single website they're playing on - in which case they could probably do interactive cBeebie stuff on the telly.

I have Norton Family on ds's. It means that he can't access things like Facebook nor email nor shopping sites without my permission. If he does he is blocked and I get an email with details of what he has tried to access. Works brilliantly. It also means that I can give him access to specific sites if I want but I don't have to do a list of sites in advance.

Most 7 yr olds I know have an Ipod Touch, Xbox, Wii, Ds and some have an Ipad. Ds doesn't have any of these.

Ds could have coped with a netbook from the age of 5 but personally I think that is a little young. I wanted ds to buy his own and understand the responsibility of having an expensive item (his was £200). At 7 he seems to understand this and really looks after it.

*dementedma: I suppose all those little ones plugged into their netbooks and ipads at least give their parents time to do something else and not have to interact with them.....

That might be what would happen if you gave technology to your children, but it my home - no! Good parenting and technology can mix very well thank you. They are not exclusive in my home. Myaybe they are in yours, I don't know, but don't assume it is the case in mine*

It may not be the case in your home hulababy but it DOES go on. I regularly see small children, sometimes small enough to be in a buggy, given their parent's i-phone to play with while the parent ignores them.

Yes of course it does't have to be one thing or the other and I completely agree that technology is a bit part of all our lives now. But I can't help agreeing that it IS sad that it starts so early. In a way, I think that perhaps ICT lessons at school shouldn't start so early ie in reception or even nursery.

Of course most people are going to insist that their children spend limited time on computers and do lots of other things too and in most cases that's probably true. But unless you're v careful these things CAN become addictive. Take a 12 year old boy, for example, who spends hours and hours each day playing computer games. I bet his parents set out with good intentions limiting his use when they bought an x-box or whatever.

Technology is here to stay but I don't believe it needs encouraging at such a young age. For example, I wouldn't want my children to use google to research something before they know how to use libraries and reference books first. I wouldn't want them to learn to type before learning handwriting.

We've had children over to play who need constant entertainment, get bored quickly and want to go on the computer all the time. Children being able to entertain themselves and use their imaginations is being lost. That's what needs to be encouraged. Children won't lose out if they don't have a netbook at aged 5; by the time they are teenagers they will use the same technology as their friends. And as others have said, if you buy a netbook for a 5 year old, what on earth will you buy for 6th, 7th, 8th etc birthdays...? I think it's good for children to learn to wait for things like this.

Just my view anyway.

Dd and ds had netbooks each at the ages of 6 & 8. My Dad bought them as I couldn't have afforded to.

Prior to that they used a desktop that was in the conservatory playroom but it died. Our desktop is in our home office which the children can't really have access to as dh and I both work with children and he teaches from home. I have a work netbook and it is a condition of work that children are not allowed onto it.

The netbooks are kept in the living room, and the use is supervised.

The days of the family supervised desktop are going it seems.

Sometimes you don;t have a choice dancergirl.

Everyone said I was being unreasonable when I said that I objected to ds then aged 6 to doing homework that could only be done by researching on google.

He was told to research a famous person from a list given. We had no books on the subject in the house. Homework given on a friday to be handed in on the monday so no opportunity to visit the library etc.

I still think the school was wrong but it happens.

I will have to agree to disagree I am afraid dancergirl. It is not my own experience of growing up with a lot of technology, nor is it the experience of my own child's. I know many children with access to technology with no such social problems. Maybe because their parents know where to draw the line on useage and practise good parenting when it comes to allowing useage, monitoring and interacting with their children over such items.

IMO it is down to parenting, not the availaibility of technology withint he household.

And, as said already, there is a huge difference between a computer/laptop and a simple games console. I wpuld prefer the former i many ways for a child even though they are dearer as they offer for more scope in the wy they are used, especially creativity wise.

And no - justbecause a child gets an expensive gift for one birthday doesn't mean they always get one every year, nor does each subsequent present need to be "one upmanship" therein. Obviously some parents may chose to do this - but again that comes down to parenting and parental choice, not down to the child.

Good parenting is the key - not what you let your child have as a birthday present.

I'm going to wait and see what reviews are like of the new leapfrog tablet which is coming out in August.

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/feb/17/leappad-ipad-for-kids

Ours is a very old computer, we probably couldn't Freecycle it, so hardly a status symbol!

I have a friend who won't let her child have a computer, but makes him do his typing on an old typewriter. I find this a bit peculiar really, like someone making a child ride an old pennyfarthing. Who cares, he'll be Facebooking by 13, whatever restrictions you place on them (as indeed I continue to love my TV watching despite my parents not having one, then having one and placing extreme controls on it).

I do think children going off for an hour to play a game either in real-life or on the computer is a good thing. Mine are old enough (5 and 7) I don't expect them to be coming to me every five minutes or to see me as a playmate, I'm their mum who keeps an eye on things but doesn't in the main interfere. I don't mind whether it's on a computer for a while, or out in the garden. So, perhaps I see having time to yourself as a distinct benefit and not one to be sniffy about, unless they are out glue-sniffing whilst you are reading the newspaper.

I don't feel evangelical about computer use though, and if mine didn't have one, I don't think it would make a jot of difference. We use computers because for now they do fit into family life and are something we all take an interest in and do together (games, SingStar, chat about news-items, have competitions with each other, play online chess). If we all ended up in separate rooms not finding it fun, I would rethink.

DS has my old old laptop to play on, and he's 2. It works well enough to watch youtube videos on, but the keyboard is basically pointless. How about a second hand one?

I don't get this idea on presents. Just because something big and expensive is bought one year doesnt mean you have to carry on getting bigger and better things.

Thanks for all opinions. We're not going to buy him a netbook. We've decided on a desktop in the dining room.

Competitive parenting going mad on this thread... very funny to read though.

Buying a 5 year old a netbook sounds a bit barmy to me.

If he's getting presents that expensive for his 5th birthday, what the hell will his expectations be for his 13th...or 16th....18th....21st????

Rev084 Mumsnet at it's finest: 'My foetus has been able to use an Ipad from conception' right through to 'my kids are happy with a marble and a stick'. Love it!

I think you should rethink the Nintendo DS idea, they're a godsend for long journeys. I refuse to buy dd a computer/laptop or whatever until she starts secondary school (she's 8yo at the moment.)
I have a friend who bought all her kids laptops (because she was buying the 11 year old one for secondary school and believes in "equality"). Her 3 year old and her 5 year old had broken theirs within a couple of months. Her 7 year old's is now broken as well. She doesn't supervise them very well though and they all have Facebook accounts which I'm a bit about...

I've decided to buy him some of those Shleich dinosaurs that I remembered him yammering on about a few weeks ago. A boy can never have enough dinosaurs!