It's almost freakish how much my three year old can do with the iPad.....he's been using it since he was two. The number of apps available to kids that age is astonishing also. I've no doubt it is part of the reason he's already reading a bit. A seven year old will be teaching you things about it......
I would have thought that at one time. My son is almost 3. The grandparents got him one of those Mobi ereader/tablet things over Christmas. We really don't let him watch much tv at his age and try to keep him active outside or with educational stuff like match games and alphabet flash cards, stuff like that. But since I'm kind of a tech geek myself I wanted him to experience some technology (because hell most every other kid will be familiar with it by the time he reaches school so no reason for him to be behind in that area) so I was okay with it. It's got a touch screen and the top of it slides up and it has a keyboard underneath. I figure there are some word games and match games on it so at least he could poke at the screen and think he's doing something. So he has it like a day, and then that night he comes up to me and says "Daddy, I need the keyboard!". I didn't even know he knew what the hell a keyboard was, lol. I help him slide the Mobi so he can access the keyboard and he starts hitting keys to match letters in the game. I start watching him for a bit, and he is just flying through it. When he got tired of the game, he was quitting, switching back to the main screen, choosing another game, choosing his difficulty and playing another game. This was all done through the touchscreen. It was like it was second nature. It kind of freaked me out. And I don't think it's unique at all. Since then I've seen that my nieces and nephews (all within a year or two of my son) have been using the ipod touches and smartphones my sisters own. My nephew (just turned 4) figured out that you have to enter a password to buy something in some of the apps, so he'll ask my sister to "PLEAASSE" let him buy something for a game, and then once she enters her password he starts buying other stuff while he has access. So yeah.... I was totally wrong about what kids can do with this stuff.
I'd go with the Kindle Fire. It's a neat little device, and you can still side load most Android application's so you're not just limited to the kids apps that the Amazon App Store offers. Just keep in mind that some kids like to hit that "buy" button and Amazon makes it easy for you buy stuff. No parental controls on it (if that's even an issue) . You could always just deregister the device after purchases.
That's the newest generation, being natural with these electronic things from the start. Curious to see how this turns out, will they play outside as much as we did? Are they all gonna be IT freaks? Will girls be as good with that stuff as boys? How will they do in school, will they actually be smarter, being exposed to these devices? Generation tablet, here we go.
Same here. I was just playing nintendo while everyone else was on ps1. Bought it myself too after working selling newspaper subscriptions at 15. Funny thing is that is so much easier to buy your nephew things. Kids are so expensive that when i have kids, i just hope that buying a tablet like a fire is an option for even myself.
Yea I forgot about the buy button. There should be an option for it to ask me for the password, but then again amazon is probably smart enough not to.
I know a lot of people think its a cheap excuse for buying kids electronics, but its true. I think exposure is always good. And if I were to get him an ipad there is no doubt he'd know what to do with it more than I would.
Get him a cheap laptop. They start teaching kids PC skills in Kindergarten in public school these days. There are tons of games online that he can play and like you said, he already knows how to use it. From personal experience: my 6-year-old son has access to both and he uses the laptop more. Your field of work doesn't lend itself to the 'I was broke!' category. I did this in the 90's as well. Probably the most money a kid can legally make at 15. I worked with 15-year-olds that made $200-500+/week. I'm surprised that you didn't have a PS1.
Thanks for the input. Yup I once made 120 dollars one evening in about 3 hours. but i was referring more to my parents not being able to buy a system for me. Everytime I asked they would just laugh. I consider myself pretty lucky because I did have ALL the necessities. I did buy a ps1 and then a ps2 a year later while i worked at dominos .
Not joking at all. I bought an ipad for my wife when it came out. We bought a second one (refurbished) when my kids would never let my wife use it. I take my family on at least one international trip a year, and its great for keeping them entertained on a 13+ hour flight. It keeps everyone sane.
I think a Fire or an iPad would be ideal. Obviously the iPad is larger, but the Fire would be fine for most applications. The price tag on the iPad would give me pause, but at least you wouldn't have to worry about getting 3G on it. I've got a 4 and a 2.5 year old, and we're looking at getting an iPad 2 when the 3 comes out if they drop enough in price. My daughter already has a LeapPad, which is a 5 inch learning\game tablet (we're getting our son one for his 3rd birthday). It's amazing to me how quickly she adapted to using it. She drags things around, shakes the LeapPad, takes pictures, edits pictures, and navigates easily through the different applications she has on it. Both kids understand how the iPod works and have been flipping through the pictures on our phones for a while too.
Man, these things suck! That crummy grey paper always rips when you're really pressing down hard to draw a picture of when you walked in on your dad and his six 'special friends' wrestling naked in the bedroom.
