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Is 5 too young for a nintendo ds

28 replies

billyog · 12/09/2011 10:05

When my mum asked my ds what he wanted for his birthday he said he wanted a ds. I didn't know he knew what one was, in fact he didn't even know what one was but his friend in school has one so probably heard it there. I told mum he was probably too young and i'd see if there was a more age appropriate alternative but before I had chance gd had gone out and bought the ds. Dh was not happy but I didn't want to make too much of a fuss and appear like an over anxious parent by asking them to take it back so it arrived in the post complete with super mario came. He LOVES it. Its scarey how much he loves it. He would play it all day every day if allowed but current rules are 15min on sat and sun but for the rest of the week he just talks about it and asks 'is it the weekend yet?'. My husband and I are not computer games people, never were so we might be over reacting and I konw he would certainly be introduced to the gaming world eventually and we would have got him a ds at some point but I just keep feeling 5 is too young. Perhaps if we didn't restrict it so much the novelty would ware off a bit and it is proving to be a rather useful bargaining tool. I'm sure when ds is7 and dd is 5 I won't have this anguish. But I am tempted to put it in a high cupboard for a couple of years. Any thoughts appreciated.

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
SoupDragon · 13/09/2011 12:05

"I kinda wanted to instill a desire to read/learn and not portray it as a negative thing eg if you read (boring) you can play your ds (exciting) perhaps i'm being too idealistic"

Reading is horrendously dull until you can read good stories independently though.

fluffles · 13/09/2011 12:10

5 is maybe a bit young ideally but i don't think you can reverse it. he has it now and has the awareness of it.

but 15mins is way too short a time - think of it like the most engrossing novel you ever read.. ok, it's fine to say don't read/play for 8 hours straight and finish it in one go, but rationing to 15mins is just teasing...

i would say 30mins on a school night and 1hr each weekend day is more reasonable..

melodyangel · 13/09/2011 12:24

We brought DS2 a ds when he was four as DS1 lent him his gameboy and he promtly deleted all the saves causing the most enormous fuss from DS1. He loves it and would play on it for hours if we let him so now I just put it away in the week and let him have it on sunday mornings - he has to come in and ask for it so I can check it isn't 5 in the morning - learnt that the hard way.

I found by just taking it away in the week means he gets on with other stuff and we get a long lie in on a sunday with out him watching TV and asking for more crap stuff he's seen advertised.

Oh and he was the most popular kid at school for a week when they found out he had a ds!

One downside I found this week though is his school have said they can bring ds/ phones, that sort of thing in for golden time, free-play time, now he's in year 3. Cue massive fuss when I said no. Angry

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