to think that parents who buy their 6 yr old children i-pod touches & tv/dvd players for their bedrooms are making it hard for the rest of us?

[Karensara]

My 6 yr old has just come back from a friend's house after school, and when we got home was in floods of tears as "all her friends" have got i-pod touches, i-pods, ds lite's as well as their own tv's/dvd players. I can think of at least 3 of her friends who have i-pod touches and most of them have tv's/dvd players in their rooms. Someone I know has children who each have their own tv's/dvd players in their rooms as well as their own i-pods and they are aged 10, 8 & 6!! Ok - we live in a very wealthy area, but we are NOT wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. But I have to admit, even if we could afford these things, I think that 6 is far too young to have them. I want my daughter to play with her toys, not be stuck to a screen at such a young age. We have a Wii, computer and laptop so she does get to play Club Penguin, etc.. so she's not missing out completely. Am I just being an old fashioned fuddy-duddy and should get with the times, or am I being the sensible one. Im confused!

No SpeedyG I never was.

But actually, what I meant by having no impact was in relation to the OP saying that it makes it harder for everyone else (to say no presumably). I don't think it does.

Hmm...I disagree, I think it does make it harder for everyone else to say no, just as when our children see a child getting away with bad behaviour, that makes our job that bit harder as well.

But I differ from the OP in that I think it's just one of those facts of life that we as parents have to deal with. I also think it actually benefits children in the long term if they have to come to terms with not owning everything their friends have; it gives them a more balanced perspective on consumption.

my friend nannies a 14 month old who has her own ipod touch

I find this makes me slightly resentful as well...when ds says EVERYone in his class has got such and such and he feels left out...yet another reason to HE...!

Of course ds and/or most of the other kids are making stuff up ('yes dear of course Oliver is having his party at Legoland, and has got his own Wii - 6 of them! All to himself! Goodness' )

I think we need to distract, strengthen their sense of self in other ways and ignore.

Otherwise everyone will bow to peer pressure and he really will be the only one without his own sodding ipod.

I don't have an ipod, fgs.

Woah - roll back this thread. Someone said they hate Playmobil?????

yanbu about the tv/dvd player in their bedrooms, I agree about bing zombied out in front of a tv. Yabu about the ipod/ipod touch/laptop etc. My 7 year old has high functioning autism and has an ipod touch and his own laptop. He is obsessed with finding out information which fits in with his interests. He looks for information related to astronomy, maps of the world, dinosaurs, he is fascinated by how people live in various parts of the world. He gets a heck alot out of this technology, and I see nothing wrong with the fact that he knows how to use it gain knowledge and information about things. He is also very good with crafts and an excellent reader, which the technology helps with.He also has a large collection of books, which he studies alot. He can reproduce a map of the British isles, of Europe, Africa etc with great accuracy.
He does not have a dsi because he has no interest in computer games, although I am considering getting him one, just to have something in common with other children his age to enable him socially.
Nothing unreasonable about modern technology

13 years ago I bought my dd a pair for the first ever flashing trainers. All my friends hated me!

I don't parent with a view to making other parent's lives easier/harder. Couldn't give a fuck really.

We do what we think is best and assume everyone else is doing the same (i.e. what they think is best).

DS1 at 11 has This which he has had since he was 5yrs old, and my mum bought it for him when my dad died.

he also has this which belonged to my brother.

He also has a mini laptop which also belonged to my brother.

I say NO all the time. Sometimes this pisses him off. I then say "Suck it up, sunshine" or "Get a job if you don't like it".

Life can be hard for poor little kids with two loving parents, all of their material needs met and most of their wants...the poor dears.

all my kids 11, 5 and 1 hve tv/dvd combos in their room, my elder 2 have a wii dsi's and mp4's and dd1 has a ipod touch, mobile phone etc but believe me they have never had everything they want. it is all birthday and xmas or they buy with their own money

He also has a tv/video combi which i picked up off of freecycle and is used only with the dvd player i picked up off of freecycle or the built in video.

As a side note, what really annoys me about those Wii ads on TV - there is one at the moment where the family are all playing rock band or something - yummymummy on vocals, sexydad on guitar, cutekids on drums - is that they are all having a great laugh, but no one is actually looking at each other. They are all grinning away inanely at the TV screen.

It looks really odd somehow. Kind of disconnected.

Whereas if they were all around the table playing a nice game of monopoly city, there would be some kind of cohesion - a famiy whole.

it's a sad battle for the parents though who don't want their little girls to sing along with slutty lyrics or to raise boys who look at porn on their parent-sanctioned handheld devices from the age of 8 or 9.

People are fooling themselves if they think their permissiveness with their children's technology and media use doesn't have sweeping effects on society as a whole.

and runs away for being cheeky!!

My 9-month old DD has an I-pod mini with speakers - well, we've put one in her room with a range of classical/instrumental music on and it plays for an hour as she falls asleep. It's portable so if we go away we can take it and her routine isn't disturbed - even if there are no sockets. When we recently rewired the house, we made a point of NOT putting an aerial socket in the spare room - which is now the nursery - as we have no intention of letting DD have a tv in her room.

We have a Wii and DH and I both have PSPs and DSs. We'll see what happens as she gets older, but I don't think I'll be buying her everything her friends have - I'm a teacher, and it's fascinating to watch how the children who have everything bought for them have little concept of respecting property and taking care of belongings, while those who are told they either have to save up pocket money or wait for a birthday before their item is replaced look after them much better!

My eldest is 7 and a half, and up until now we've managed with "traditional" means of entertainment.
Yes, he is aware that all his (male) classmates have nintendo ds, wii, etc and is now starting to ask. But me and dh are still resisting !

Tarty, we have lots of family games and the dc love them!

OP you have to choose yourself what you do/donot want your kids to have. My DS is almost 6 and there is no way in hell that I would put a tv/dvd in his room. He has a cd player there which he can listen to stories on etc. He does not have a DSlite but we do have a Wii which is in the living room and a laptop also in the living room which he uses ocassionally. I would not be happy about him having too much stuff in his room where it is more difficult for me to monitor how much/what he is watching or playing. At the moment he is happy with his CD, toys and books.
We also live in a posh area and many of his friends have everything but he understands we have rules in out house that are not necessarily the same as that in his friends house.

The thing is, when we think of children having too many things, we usually mean the things that other children have, not the things that we, in our loving wisdom, have provided for our own children.

One thing that has emerged from this thread is that from the pov of several other MNers you, OP, are one of those parents who are potentially making their parenting harder by providing technological toys that they do not. Yet I noticed that you did not phrase your title: 'Am I making parenting harder for others by providing a Wii and a laptop and a TV?'

It's human nature: excesses are what other people commit.

I haven't read all the thread - I can see your point of view but I do think YABU.

My DD1 aged 13 is the only child I know not to have her own laptop and yes it does make it difficult but that is my problem not the other parents issue.

DD1 had an ipod (not touch) for her 12th birthday - althoigh DD2 got one on her 6th when we saw how much it was used....

TBH I also don't really have children that constantly bitch about what other children get or use that infoemation as a method of working out hwne they will getthe same item.

DD has never once, in her life, uttered the phrase "little jane has X so when can I get one".
She has come back bursting with the news of what one of her friends has but it never translates into "...so when can I..."
Friends of hers have ponies, and swimming pools and ski trips etc.

I would love to think that I have raised a totally envy free child but I suspect it is more to do with
"mummy, Jane has a pony all of her own"
"how lovely dear. We have a dog. People who have pets are very lucky arn't they"

or "mummy , Penelope has an i-phone"

"does she really. How very lucky she is. You would not have room for an i-phone as your bedroom could not fit another thing in it. Why don't you run along and tidy it"

[caaawww]

Can we have a fuddyduddy corner?

Dd is 6 and doesn't know what an Ipod is.

She knows what a wii is because she played on someone's at Christmas.

I don't care what other people buy their kids, though I reserve the right to be judgeypanty about it. I have a house full of Playmobil, maybe they judge me for being a dustcollector with that. Meh.

I'm sure sooner or later dd will ask for an ipod, and then I'll ask her what it is, she'll reply she doesn't know, and I'll say "well then". (in a harumphy voice as I get the Scrabble out)

megapixels - as I sid 7y DD does have an iPod. What sort of music does she have?

Well, quite a range on there at present including (just looking at her playlist on iTunes):

Disney
HSM and Hannah Montana
TakeThat
Robbie Williams
Vampire Weekend
Take That
Alesha Dixon
Ting Tings
Scouting for Girls
McFly
The Beatles
Elvis
Now that's what I call music
Pop Party
Musicals: Mammia Mia, Joseph, Sound of Music, Oliver, etc.
Fratellis
Jamie Cullen
The Noisettes
Paola Nutini

plus others...we add to it all the time, either when we get CDs or if she likes new songs on the radio we might download them from iTunes.

I can;t see the harm in DD having access to music. Having an iPod sat on a docking station is IMO no different to having any other form of music player - be it a CD player or, from my childhood days, a record player and tape deck.