Raising kids plugged-in/unplugged

If you have kids, how 'plugged in' did/do you raise them, and if you don't have kids, how 'plugged in' or 'unplugged' from technology and all its addictive gadgets do you plan to raise them?

Coming from the 90s we were easy, we had TV, we had computer usage with games, with no internet up till 1999/2000, and that was pretty much it. We had a few handheld video games but no TV video games, Nintendo was not allowed in our house or any other system from that time. I don't think we even had a boombox until I was about 8 or 9, that's definitely one I'd do differently but then I'd also do music differently than it was when I was growing up. But that's a story for another time.

If/when I have kids, they'll watch TV, and they can use the computer but won't have their own, and they won't be using the internet until they're older, but they won't have cellphones or blackberries or whatever hell the else every kid 'absolutely NEEDS' that the companies get rich off of. And the younger they are the less they'll have access to.

This is something that I was surprised to find my friend in Canada and I both agree on. We were raised very differently, she didn't watch TV as a kid and so roamed around the woods and explored the outdoors, then when she got older she played a lot of videogames but still has a life outside of them, which is more than can be said for some kids. Us on the other hand, we didn't explore and we didn't leave the yard, and we DID watch a lot of TV though it was never our babysitter. All the same we were often left to our own devices and had a lot of fun without any assistance from something that plugged in or ran on batteries. But she agrees, her kids are also going to grow up knowing the outdoors and using their own imaginations.

My kids would be abreast of all the latest technology, but I will be monitoring them.

Ally didn't have her own computer until she was in H.S. I think and we've never had video games. She bought her own cell phone.

I'd like to think I wouldn't go total Amish on them. But I'd like to make them a little less plugged-in than many kids today are.

Supernova wrote:If you have kids, how 'plugged in' did/do you raise them, and if you don't have kids, how 'plugged in' or 'unplugged' from technology and all its addictive gadgets do you plan to raise them?

Coming from the 90s we were easy, we had TV, we had computer usage with games, with no internet up till 1999/2000, and that was pretty much it. We had a few handheld video games but no TV video games, Nintendo was not allowed in our house or any other system from that time. I don't think we even had a boombox until I was about 8 or 9, that's definitely one I'd do differently but then I'd also do music differently than it was when I was growing up. But that's a story for another time.

If/when I have kids, they'll watch TV, and they can use the computer but won't have their own, and they won't be using the internet until they're older, but they won't have cellphones or blackberries or whatever hell the else every kid 'absolutely NEEDS' that the companies get rich off of. And the younger they are the less they'll have access to.

This is something that I was surprised to find my friend in Canada and I both agree on. We were raised very differently, she didn't watch TV as a kid and so roamed around the woods and explored the outdoors, then when she got older she played a lot of videogames but still has a life outside of them, which is more than can be said for some kids. Us on the other hand, we didn't explore and we didn't leave the yard, and we DID watch a lot of TV though it was never our babysitter. All the same we were often left to our own devices and had a lot of fun without any assistance from something that plugged in or ran on batteries. But she agrees, her kids are also going to grow up knowing the outdoors and using their own imaginations.

I was online in 1983... getting grounded in my room included my own phone, stereo, tv, cable, puter.

and that is what you say NOW SN... but in 10 yrs, who knows what technology will be like. some say we wont have computers cause everything will be done on cells. and parents LIKE having their kids have cells cause they can find them when they are out. It isnt like if your kid is hanging at the mall they can find a pay phone and call home to check in. there are no pay phones anymore.

wants2laugh wrote:

I was online in 1983... getting grounded in my room included my own phone, stereo, tv, cable, puter.

and that is what you say NOW SN... but in 10 yrs, who knows what technology will be like. some say we wont have computers cause everything will be done on cells. and parents LIKE having their kids have cells cause they can find them when they are out. It isnt like if your kid is hanging at the mall they can find a pay phone and call home to check in. there are no pay phones anymore.

No, but every business DOES have a phone, I didn't get a cell phone until I was about 23, I always was able to call home.

My son has quite a few "gadgets." But he's the type of kid who I don't have to "un-plug." He would rather be out and about doing active things.

There are times I have scolded him for being a rude texter. That's his biggest technology fault.