Giving a 10 year old his own laptop

[BlackDwarf]

Old thread ahoy!

Saying that, I'd like to have some input.
My partners first child was bought a netboot for Christmas. She's 7. She's also home schooled. I went and put a copy of Edubuntu on it, and it's been absolutely brilliant.
Chrome and a parental control addon seem to be doing the trick regarding web blocking so far, and she's always monitored when she's on it (She's got links to the Disney website, Cbeebies site, and some other browser games thing.

[Domestic_Ginger]

My four year old has starting using our pc. I leave him on the cbbc website or typing (he loves writing peoples names and it seems to help him recognise the letters; we do help him with spelling quite alot but he cana write a few peoples names) and come back to find him trying to log into my MMO!

My biggest worry is that he is going to lose alot of practical skills by using computers. People do not understand how things work anymore and fo rthis generation I assume its goin go tbe even worse. There are supposed to be peopl ewho think eggs come form cows or such like.

[nalaing]

I don't think its absolutely necessary, I think books is the right way to teach the children remember there's too much in the world wide web that is uncontrollable. But you're a good parent you, just supervise him.

[naimeocie]

I think that is good idea. But, please don't encourage him to stay for long time on laptop.

[Jace007]

For any kids pcs/laptop, i would highly recommend setting up the DNS to OpenDNS, You just need to make 2 simple Changes to your Kids computer, And all their traffic with go though openDNS filters that will automatically block bad sites. Also Manually configure A Full virus scan on a weekly basis. Just having the Antivirus without is running a scan is abit of a waste. Also make sure Windows Automatic updates are install as soon as they possiable.

[mikerr]

I think I mentioned opendDNS 3 years ago when this thread was new

But since then openDNS now has a family filter version which is pre-setup - just change DNS to 208.67.222.123

[MrNeil]

my oldest boy now 9 used to play battlefield 2 when he was 4 (GASP !!) some might say but this helped him being creative and made his own battlefield maps which each map he made was able to connect to each other via a road network and he also colored in the vehicles in there right colors from different BF2 mods I don't let him play BF3 or COD games though ..
He now has his own computer for 2 years now knows the names off 150+ military items (alot of family members in the military ) ,does karate,Astronomy,reading countless encyclopedia's and fact books,and play's the cello Oh! and thrashes me on Wargame European Escalation .My 6 year old also has his computer and is following his older brother ...

If supervised this can be a great thing for children and in my case it's doing wonders

[Jace007]

I just woke up man, not my fualt lol

[tallship]

Regardless of how you approach these matters from a social perspective, you have to consider the machinery too.

Judging by your post I'm sure that you're laying out a good framework and foundation, but not just kids mess up - so have a method for cloning the HDD so when the inevitable happens you can run a restore and have him back online in ten minutes.

Here's an added bonus. Your kids going to get attached to certain files (pictures, and text), and if you take a snapshot of the drive as it is when you first present him with the machine he'll learn more about the valuable lessons you laid out above if, upon restoring his hard drive and OS, he loses all of his coveted files when the box is restored to the baseline.

You can say, "I told you so", over and over and it won't be driven home until a virus actually whacks his system and you have to restore it back to day one, losing all of his fav pics and such.

He'll have a tangible aspect, no longer theoretical (it can't happen to me), in nature.

We can talk about it all day but when it's a reality for him, the light bulb goes on

I hope that helps!

Kindest regards,

.

[wilsonik]

With all Club Penguins Moshi Monsters etc if you decide to upgrade your child account to paid version (subscription) remember to cancel the subscription as quite few of them renew automatically. I thought if I pay through PayPal it will not charge me again... I was wrong, it did.