I hate to burst your bubble, but you do realize that when you want to lock yourself in the toy room, they will be adamant about wanting to spend all of their time in there. That is, until you decide to let them have the toy room, start your Skype at the other computer, and about halfway through they will become a bored of whatever they wanted in the toy room and chaos will descend. Kids always want to do the opposite of what you want them to do, especially when your livelihood is at stake. Of course, with your household I’m sure you’re already aware of that. But it is always good to have hope.
Our empty nest has two tvs. Second son convinced me to buy a new, bigger, better tv. Which came in very handy when hubs had cancer it kept him occupied and allowed him to watch whatever he wanted, including "r" movies that are wildly too violent for me. We each have a smart phone, and tablets, and I have a laptop that is primarily mine, but hubs borrows it on occasion. I also have a Switch and Nintendo 3ds, and a few older gaming from Nintendo. I'm with Lola, nothing better than subtitled Kdramas! I knit and have gotten very good at knitting and reading subtitles.
Back in the dark ages when our kids were all still at home, about 20 years ago, we had one tv, one computer (which eldest bought with his paper route money, so it was his) and various gameboys, and a few Nintendo game machines. They rarely argued over the tv station, or whose turn it was because one raised voice and it was off limits the rest of the day. Eldest son used to have LAN parties all the time. He could fit 6 friends around the dining room table, and three up in his room. Not one of these kids had a laptop, (were they even invented then?). I would supply pop, homemade pizza, chips, cookies and they would normally play all night. I would get up in the morning and find boys sleeping all over the house. One boy loved to sleep under the dining room table? The big game then was Doom. They would borrow my boombox, crank up the volume and just had the best time, playing Doom. Boy howdy do I miss those days.........
I live by myself yet I have a desktop for zoom, a laptop for most of my internet stuff, a net book for the bedroom when I need to watch tv in bed and two smart tv's one in the parlor / day room and one in the bedroom i.e. the other room in my one bedroom apartment. Plus a tablet and a smart phone.
When I was a kid, I was in charge of all of the other kids, it was my job to do all the things parents do, except give birth. I am making up for not having a great childhood by having it now that I am retired.
I am glad I don’t have kids cos I’m sure my way of resolving computer issues would not be popular—I would take them all away. As a teacher especially, I don’t agree with their access to all that screen time. IMO Waffle, Lucy, and even Mae, are too young to be spending all that time on line. I’m sure their teachers would agree with me. If you are not a teacher you don’t understand what happens to a child’s attention-span and people-interactions when they spend so much time on line.🤷🏼♀️
I will stop here, because I’m sure this is not a welcome opinion.
I think the problem lies in showing kids how to use online time in the productive manner and having ability to not to waste time while using the Internet, which as I reckon isn't that easy. Up until I finished primary school, the social media and online resources weren't developed that much and using all e-devices was forbidden in the building, except for emergency calls, so we didn't feel the need to stay online. However later it started to be necessary, as more of the education supporting materials started to be digitalized. Therefore, my teachers took the approach of "useful" rather than "no" online activities in school.
I was lucky, because since my junior high we were encouraged and allowed by teachers to use our phones during classes when they ordered researching stuff that was related to topic or for our upcoming presentations. Large parts of history, social studies, geography, biology and maths (also on English lessons of those subjects, as I went to bilingual class) were filled with informative YT videos supporting what the teachers were talking about. This is how I started to watch history channels on YT and had widely expanded my knowledge.
And staying online was vital for socialization - I was missing lots of intra-class information, rumouring and announcements not having facebook and access to class group on Messenger back then. Another ways we had to interact with the help of being online on breaks was either joint social media browsing (mainly girls) or co-op mobile gaming (mostly boys).
P. S. Sorry for posting twice, when I was saving the first one my browser crashed.
I think the internet is appropriate for junior high and above. In K-3 the kids just want to play games. If you assign them something and are not directly watching them, even the best kids go elsewhere. They haven’t been taught appropriate ways to use the internet at home, and most parents don’t realize they need to be *taught* how to use and not use it. They need to be blocked from accessing all the age-inappropriate material out there. No one would give a second grader a book that shows violence, sexual situations or foul language, but that is what waits for the unwary. *sigh*
The problems you guys have today as soooo different from the ones I had with my kids. One TV, 4 kids, all wanting to watch what they wanted to watch. When I was a kid the neatest gift I ever got was an old black and white 12” that I could have me my room. Blessed peace in a home that was never peaceful. Segway...Saying all that, let me explain what my husband does at the museum. He’s the AVI tech. That means he’s in control of all the screens, video’s, etc. Something breaks, ie, usually the big screen showing a battle, he’s there. Luckily he can control it, and most everything else from his office. I kid you not. He’s the first one in and he sets it to open from home so that it’s up and running when he gets there. He’s also a gifted musician. Let me describe his office, which was a previous dinning room. His desk has 4 screens. His keyboard has 4 screens PLUS a 60” one over the 4. He got that one for free when they did the reno at work. He has a massive desktop, a crazy keyboard with all the bells and whistles, and god knows how many laptops/iPads. He fixes and keeps them all. I HATE his room because it’s always hot. Very hot. You don’t run that my equipment in one room without it being that hot. To him it’s the right temperature and he won’t turn on the heat in the house because its “warm enough.” I have to show him the thermostat that’s set at 72 and show him how it reads 60. Oh, also, our roommate has a PSsomething and a tv. The master bedroom has a tv. My craft room....has a tv. My sons room...well, his disabled and lives to game, so you can imagine. Still, with all this crap you know what ticks me the most? Google. He wired up the whole house so we can say “okay google” and it will do our bidding. Except it won’t. Ever. I kid you not I came home from the store today, said “okay google lights on” and it replied something in German and played music!!! My hubby likes German, understands German, I, do not. As usual this is longer than I thought it would be but eh, I’m putting off cleaning, lol.
More TVs means there are more remotes I have to remember how to work. I can barely operate one so I tend to use only one of the TVs. There are only 2 of us but we have 4 TVs, which isn't so many according to you and other commenters. We have no gaming systems, but I have one desktop computer and MrP has a laptop. We each stick to our own.
I really don't know how someone can get along without a desktop. Since everything is done online now, like paying bills, doing taxes, banking, etc., I'd hate to have to do it all on my phone. But, I remember when I first had a CRT computer and it was big and heavy. Dial up was finicky and searches were slow and cumbersome. We've certainly come a long way in a few short years. And don't forget how huge those first large-screen TVs were that seemed to weigh a ton. Son's new one in 2003 about gave the delivery man a hernia when getting it into his 2nd floor apartment. All those beasts must have really filled up landfills when folks got rid of them a few short years later.
I had a 27-in CRT that must have weighed 70 lbs. I drove that thing back and forth to college every break. Now, I find most laptops too heavy to carry around. My load capacity is definitely going down.
Dog sitting at my sisters. Last Monday when they left, she was giving me the tv remote instructions. "HDMI 4 is where netflix is," she says. "AND YOUTUBE!" the 5 year old grandson adds exuberantly. Haha, I'm too old for youtube.
22 year old: phone, tablet, Nintendo switch, computer with 3 screens (plus 3 computers/monitors in the attic that aren’t used or don’t work)
General: 3 tvs, Xbox 1 (think there are more gaming stuff up there, but it’s not used. Boys have switched to computer gaming.)
So you don’t have to worry that you have too many devices. We long ago switched to quantity to prevent arguments. I do not want to discuss the number of gameboys, psp’s, etc. we’ve bought over the years. We still have them, plus many, many games.
That's a respectable count. We also went through many, many Game Boys growing up. My brother had a bad habit of dropping them. But my mom always replaced them, even though we didn't have a lot of money. I guess she knew what I just figured out. Screen time is better than listening to your kids fight.
When we were in kindergarten and primary school, there were only 4 devices at home: TV, parents' mobile phones (not yet smartphones) and dad's laptop, which he used also for gaming purposes and sometimes let us play on, (that's also my first gaming memory - pinball on Windows XP and simracing in RACE 07 with a gaming steering wheel). As our need were small back then, and we had huge restrictions on how long we could play, there were no problems, despite three (and later four, in both cases dad included) of us using 1 laptop.
This started to change around the time I was ten. In that time, we (with one of my bros.) started playing World of Tanks, and after few days we had also dad drowning into the game (yes, dad contributed to the game's "typical player" [a man in his 40's] stereotype). This is when the devices limits started to grow - one hour, two, four a day, and then unlimited (as long as our school grades were good). With this, the queue of players started to be problematic. Our acquisition of (smart)phones and Xbox one (which happened when I was 11) didn't help much - we were always predominantly PC gamers, and those other devices could only minimise the pain of waiting for the other to end his turn. At that time, when there was nobody occupying the laptop, the one who wanted to use it was usually shouting "I tap the computer!".
Fast forward to me entering the junior high, and things started to change - dad announced we'll be having a PC. Sadly, soon after it appeared, the laptop stopped functioning, but for a few months we could finally split the queue and play together. That's why soon a second PC appeared, as dad figured out he in fact appreciated gaming with us or just watching us play (obviously, we were always better than him). We were also keeping our school files and presentations there, so when I was about to go to high school, dad agreed (after convincing mum) to buy the third PC. It was supposed to be just for me, and allowed me to configure it in gaming spec. I'm extremely grateful he did that and thanked him for it many times, yet I don't know the reasons behind his decision (maybe because I'm the oldest or had the best grades?).
Other family members also acquired more devices, which turned to be pivotal during covid, so currently we stand at:
Common: TV (not smart - it's from 2007), oldest PC (de facto "owned" by my youngest brother), tablet (long time unused), second PC (de facto "owned" by my other brother), printer/scanner, Xbox One
Dad: job laptop, private phone, company phone, company phone to be used abroad. When he's willing to game, he "borrows" oldest PC
Mum: phone (her entertainment and hobby lies in sewing, crocheting and knitting, as well as garden surveillance)
Me: third PC, smartphone, laptop (bought from my own savings), old phone (serving as MP4), PS Vita (long unused)
Younger brothers: both have phones, and older of them has also laptop (a present from aunt and uncle)
To be fair, she often comes in the evenings, sits on the couch and accompany us when we are watching the news or movies. We joke that "the cat's coming for her daily portion of TV" :)
growing up when we complained that our parents weren't treating the 3 of us "fairly", my dad would say that "Peace was more important than justice."
Those words are very true. I live by them every time I can't figure out who started it so I just put everyone in time out.
The eighth circle of hell...
Or James’ house when the Wi-Fi is down. Tough call
Hell would be quieter.
I hate to burst your bubble, but you do realize that when you want to lock yourself in the toy room, they will be adamant about wanting to spend all of their time in there. That is, until you decide to let them have the toy room, start your Skype at the other computer, and about halfway through they will become a bored of whatever they wanted in the toy room and chaos will descend. Kids always want to do the opposite of what you want them to do, especially when your livelihood is at stake. Of course, with your household I’m sure you’re already aware of that. But it is always good to have hope.
Why must you wound me so deeply with the truth?
Bu the truth is giving you great writing material! There is always an upside, if you look hard enough. :)
After reading “Our Newest Addition “ and all the comments I’m convinced I found the real reason for the Chip shortage 😉
Our empty nest has two tvs. Second son convinced me to buy a new, bigger, better tv. Which came in very handy when hubs had cancer it kept him occupied and allowed him to watch whatever he wanted, including "r" movies that are wildly too violent for me. We each have a smart phone, and tablets, and I have a laptop that is primarily mine, but hubs borrows it on occasion. I also have a Switch and Nintendo 3ds, and a few older gaming from Nintendo. I'm with Lola, nothing better than subtitled Kdramas! I knit and have gotten very good at knitting and reading subtitles.
Back in the dark ages when our kids were all still at home, about 20 years ago, we had one tv, one computer (which eldest bought with his paper route money, so it was his) and various gameboys, and a few Nintendo game machines. They rarely argued over the tv station, or whose turn it was because one raised voice and it was off limits the rest of the day. Eldest son used to have LAN parties all the time. He could fit 6 friends around the dining room table, and three up in his room. Not one of these kids had a laptop, (were they even invented then?). I would supply pop, homemade pizza, chips, cookies and they would normally play all night. I would get up in the morning and find boys sleeping all over the house. One boy loved to sleep under the dining room table? The big game then was Doom. They would borrow my boombox, crank up the volume and just had the best time, playing Doom. Boy howdy do I miss those days.........
I live by myself yet I have a desktop for zoom, a laptop for most of my internet stuff, a net book for the bedroom when I need to watch tv in bed and two smart tv's one in the parlor / day room and one in the bedroom i.e. the other room in my one bedroom apartment. Plus a tablet and a smart phone.
When I was a kid, I was in charge of all of the other kids, it was my job to do all the things parents do, except give birth. I am making up for not having a great childhood by having it now that I am retired.
YAY! Cross-stitching for the win!👍🏼☺️
I am glad I don’t have kids cos I’m sure my way of resolving computer issues would not be popular—I would take them all away. As a teacher especially, I don’t agree with their access to all that screen time. IMO Waffle, Lucy, and even Mae, are too young to be spending all that time on line. I’m sure their teachers would agree with me. If you are not a teacher you don’t understand what happens to a child’s attention-span and people-interactions when they spend so much time on line.🤷🏼♀️
I will stop here, because I’m sure this is not a welcome opinion.
BTW, I have a phone, which I use like a phone, and an iPad. When I taught I had a school computer also.
I think the problem lies in showing kids how to use online time in the productive manner and having ability to not to waste time while using the Internet, which as I reckon isn't that easy. Up until I finished primary school, the social media and online resources weren't developed that much and using all e-devices was forbidden in the building, except for emergency calls, so we didn't feel the need to stay online. However later it started to be necessary, as more of the education supporting materials started to be digitalized. Therefore, my teachers took the approach of "useful" rather than "no" online activities in school.
I was lucky, because since my junior high we were encouraged and allowed by teachers to use our phones during classes when they ordered researching stuff that was related to topic or for our upcoming presentations. Large parts of history, social studies, geography, biology and maths (also on English lessons of those subjects, as I went to bilingual class) were filled with informative YT videos supporting what the teachers were talking about. This is how I started to watch history channels on YT and had widely expanded my knowledge.
And staying online was vital for socialization - I was missing lots of intra-class information, rumouring and announcements not having facebook and access to class group on Messenger back then. Another ways we had to interact with the help of being online on breaks was either joint social media browsing (mainly girls) or co-op mobile gaming (mostly boys).
P. S. Sorry for posting twice, when I was saving the first one my browser crashed.
I think the internet is appropriate for junior high and above. In K-3 the kids just want to play games. If you assign them something and are not directly watching them, even the best kids go elsewhere. They haven’t been taught appropriate ways to use the internet at home, and most parents don’t realize they need to be *taught* how to use and not use it. They need to be blocked from accessing all the age-inappropriate material out there. No one would give a second grader a book that shows violence, sexual situations or foul language, but that is what waits for the unwary. *sigh*
The girls clearly take after you, since I did not see one reference to a personal device for Lola!
Lol, forgot about her. She has a phone, laptop, work, laptop, and ebook reader.
hahaha - I won't tell her you forgot about her....
The problems you guys have today as soooo different from the ones I had with my kids. One TV, 4 kids, all wanting to watch what they wanted to watch. When I was a kid the neatest gift I ever got was an old black and white 12” that I could have me my room. Blessed peace in a home that was never peaceful. Segway...Saying all that, let me explain what my husband does at the museum. He’s the AVI tech. That means he’s in control of all the screens, video’s, etc. Something breaks, ie, usually the big screen showing a battle, he’s there. Luckily he can control it, and most everything else from his office. I kid you not. He’s the first one in and he sets it to open from home so that it’s up and running when he gets there. He’s also a gifted musician. Let me describe his office, which was a previous dinning room. His desk has 4 screens. His keyboard has 4 screens PLUS a 60” one over the 4. He got that one for free when they did the reno at work. He has a massive desktop, a crazy keyboard with all the bells and whistles, and god knows how many laptops/iPads. He fixes and keeps them all. I HATE his room because it’s always hot. Very hot. You don’t run that my equipment in one room without it being that hot. To him it’s the right temperature and he won’t turn on the heat in the house because its “warm enough.” I have to show him the thermostat that’s set at 72 and show him how it reads 60. Oh, also, our roommate has a PSsomething and a tv. The master bedroom has a tv. My craft room....has a tv. My sons room...well, his disabled and lives to game, so you can imagine. Still, with all this crap you know what ticks me the most? Google. He wired up the whole house so we can say “okay google” and it will do our bidding. Except it won’t. Ever. I kid you not I came home from the store today, said “okay google lights on” and it replied something in German and played music!!! My hubby likes German, understands German, I, do not. As usual this is longer than I thought it would be but eh, I’m putting off cleaning, lol.
More TVs means there are more remotes I have to remember how to work. I can barely operate one so I tend to use only one of the TVs. There are only 2 of us but we have 4 TVs, which isn't so many according to you and other commenters. We have no gaming systems, but I have one desktop computer and MrP has a laptop. We each stick to our own.
I really don't know how someone can get along without a desktop. Since everything is done online now, like paying bills, doing taxes, banking, etc., I'd hate to have to do it all on my phone. But, I remember when I first had a CRT computer and it was big and heavy. Dial up was finicky and searches were slow and cumbersome. We've certainly come a long way in a few short years. And don't forget how huge those first large-screen TVs were that seemed to weigh a ton. Son's new one in 2003 about gave the delivery man a hernia when getting it into his 2nd floor apartment. All those beasts must have really filled up landfills when folks got rid of them a few short years later.
I had a 27-in CRT that must have weighed 70 lbs. I drove that thing back and forth to college every break. Now, I find most laptops too heavy to carry around. My load capacity is definitely going down.
Age does that, James. Ask me how I know...
Dog sitting at my sisters. Last Monday when they left, she was giving me the tv remote instructions. "HDMI 4 is where netflix is," she says. "AND YOUTUBE!" the 5 year old grandson adds exuberantly. Haha, I'm too old for youtube.
You say that, but my father-in-law basically lives on there now. There isn't a video about fixing things that he hasn't watched.
Our device count:
Me: phone and iPad
Husband: computer, phone, tablet, iPod
26 year old: phone, tablet, desktop (he bought)
22 year old: phone, tablet, Nintendo switch, computer with 3 screens (plus 3 computers/monitors in the attic that aren’t used or don’t work)
General: 3 tvs, Xbox 1 (think there are more gaming stuff up there, but it’s not used. Boys have switched to computer gaming.)
So you don’t have to worry that you have too many devices. We long ago switched to quantity to prevent arguments. I do not want to discuss the number of gameboys, psp’s, etc. we’ve bought over the years. We still have them, plus many, many games.
That's a respectable count. We also went through many, many Game Boys growing up. My brother had a bad habit of dropping them. But my mom always replaced them, even though we didn't have a lot of money. I guess she knew what I just figured out. Screen time is better than listening to your kids fight.
When we were in kindergarten and primary school, there were only 4 devices at home: TV, parents' mobile phones (not yet smartphones) and dad's laptop, which he used also for gaming purposes and sometimes let us play on, (that's also my first gaming memory - pinball on Windows XP and simracing in RACE 07 with a gaming steering wheel). As our need were small back then, and we had huge restrictions on how long we could play, there were no problems, despite three (and later four, in both cases dad included) of us using 1 laptop.
This started to change around the time I was ten. In that time, we (with one of my bros.) started playing World of Tanks, and after few days we had also dad drowning into the game (yes, dad contributed to the game's "typical player" [a man in his 40's] stereotype). This is when the devices limits started to grow - one hour, two, four a day, and then unlimited (as long as our school grades were good). With this, the queue of players started to be problematic. Our acquisition of (smart)phones and Xbox one (which happened when I was 11) didn't help much - we were always predominantly PC gamers, and those other devices could only minimise the pain of waiting for the other to end his turn. At that time, when there was nobody occupying the laptop, the one who wanted to use it was usually shouting "I tap the computer!".
Fast forward to me entering the junior high, and things started to change - dad announced we'll be having a PC. Sadly, soon after it appeared, the laptop stopped functioning, but for a few months we could finally split the queue and play together. That's why soon a second PC appeared, as dad figured out he in fact appreciated gaming with us or just watching us play (obviously, we were always better than him). We were also keeping our school files and presentations there, so when I was about to go to high school, dad agreed (after convincing mum) to buy the third PC. It was supposed to be just for me, and allowed me to configure it in gaming spec. I'm extremely grateful he did that and thanked him for it many times, yet I don't know the reasons behind his decision (maybe because I'm the oldest or had the best grades?).
Your dad had the right idea! You could have had an entire LAN party in your house without anybody bringing you over any other computers.
Other family members also acquired more devices, which turned to be pivotal during covid, so currently we stand at:
Common: TV (not smart - it's from 2007), oldest PC (de facto "owned" by my youngest brother), tablet (long time unused), second PC (de facto "owned" by my other brother), printer/scanner, Xbox One
Dad: job laptop, private phone, company phone, company phone to be used abroad. When he's willing to game, he "borrows" oldest PC
Mum: phone (her entertainment and hobby lies in sewing, crocheting and knitting, as well as garden surveillance)
Me: third PC, smartphone, laptop (bought from my own savings), old phone (serving as MP4), PS Vita (long unused)
Younger brothers: both have phones, and older of them has also laptop (a present from aunt and uncle)
Cat: nothing (yet)
Cat: nothing (yet) 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 Just wait!
To be fair, she often comes in the evenings, sits on the couch and accompany us when we are watching the news or movies. We joke that "the cat's coming for her daily portion of TV" :)
Jeez, with all these technological warehouses everyone has I feel like a Luddite.
Me: Phone, tablet, laptop. My tablet is so powerful that I hardly use my laptop.
Wife: Same.
Plus: One 64" TV which my wife uses to watch true crime and genealogy programs. Oh, and shows like America's Worst Cooks. 😆
That's it. Compared to the rest of you, I feel like I'm living in the Stone Age. 😂
However, my kids and grandkids have bought enough technology to be a major revenue stream for Samsung and Apple.
Any chance you were on a Delta flight today? With 3 children?
All. The. Passionate. Screen. Opinions! Clearly they are addictive even to think about, ja!