to think it sad that such young children are being bought such grown-up presents?

[allIWannaBeForChristmas]

partly brought on by the other thread, but have heard from so many people who are buying their 4/5/6 yo's games consoles/televisions/dvd players and even know of one who has bought her 7 yo a mobile phone.

am I the only one that thinks this is wrong?

The only thing i would be careful about is games consoles for young children. As i said on the other thread, my ds lite made me feel ill when i played it for a while.

I might delve into the attic and get the tennis game out [beep........beep.....] or the vectrex.

Games consoles per se aren't bad. You'd need pretty strict parameters around their use and the kind of games the child could have. DH and I are big games console fans, most of the games we play involve a lot of mental problem solving, and I don't see anything wrong with age-appropriate games that involve that.

But too much vegging out is obviously a bad thing. If you can really limit the use then I wouldn't have a problem, but only if. They are very addictive.

AllIwannabe, what does your son do with a laptop??

Nineunlovelytinseldecorations - I don't like the sweeping generalisation that you made earlier

My 7yr old is getting a Wii, actually Mummy, dd1 and dd2 are getting a Wii which will be downstairs and for the family

Don't go round saying that will happen to all kids that have these thingsw
as it simply isn't true

OMG I don't even know what a psp or a wii might be. I have no idea

I'm not keen on buying technical gadgets for dd because basically I don't want to figure out how they work... I'm still working on my cappuchino machine from 3 Christmasses back and I still haven't figured out how you froth the milk properly

Ds (8) loves computers and had a ds for his seventh birthday
But he still also does lots of Lego, reading, story-writing and drawing, as well as Pokemon card trading. He also plays make-believe stuff with his little sis and we all enjoy playing card and board games when we get a chance. He asked for Cluedo for Christmas
We held off on the ds until then as we wanted the habits of reading and drawing to be well-established
Now we find that the DS stuff is actually very sociable (friends constantly chatting about the game of the moment and re-enacting them in the playground)
I don't think all techy stuff is bad, it's how it fits in with the rest of family life
Dd is four and getting what dh (poor puzzled soul) calls Transylvanian Families
Art equipment is the biggie though, they always want more of that

I just think that they play with actual toys for such a short time, whereas they will always have technology iyswim. did you know, for example, that the average age of the games console user is 33? so why should 4 yo's hav them?

I do think that our children are growing up in the age of technology, and they are far less daunted by it than we were, and there is therefore nothing wrong with them having some access to it, but why do they need their own consoles etc?

I have bought a ds lite for my dh and will buy some games that ds can play, but I think he's too young for his own console.

Sorry, my last question was for notjustmom.

I totally agree with OP.

erm no fluffyanimal if't not my ds that has a laptop that was a quote from another post.

lol marina @ transylvanian families. Dd has a good go at the name, but calls them 'Wysavlian flamilies#

TBH - I think I would be more worried about a 33 year old playing consule games than a 4 year old. Well maybe not a 4 year old - but a 7yo

It is a bit childish surely to want to blow people to bits, or make pretend houses and families or fairgrounds, or train a dog etc etc once you are on the far side of say 18!

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Oh that's rubbish - they learn the computers so easily. And playing games on a ds isn't teaching anything about computers.

I dunnow soapbox it's escapism surely? and given a lot of games are 18+ there must be a mass market for them.

tbh I'd rather my dh was at home playing computer games than down the pub every night.

Go on then MF - tell me what I am missing out on - what are these games - what do you do?

ditto marina except replace ds for dd1

dd2 (5) asked fro a book to do sums in as her main present

We have a PC with a printer Motherfunk and they are both adept at logging into their accounts, finding their favourite websites and printing stuff off etc
Dd likes "typing"
I don;t honestly think either of them needs a Nano or a Wii for future employability purposes

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we have bopught dd1 cluedo

cranium cadoo is brill for 7 year olds too

Or a lifelong Runescape habit either

sorry I love computers (collect retro games and consoles ) but there is no way a wii or a ps3 or even a ds teaches you anything about computers

some of the logic puzzles in the games are great I agree but come on...

I think 4 is very young to be given such gifts.

I've played computer games since I was about 8 (am in my 30s) but there were so many other things to do. And less pressure to have what other children had, IME.

Children are "sold to" much more today than previous generations, IMO. Plenty of time to instil non consumerist values