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Thanks for the info. My son and daughter (5 & 2) like to play flash/shockwave games on:

http://www.noggin.com/

http://www.nickjr.com/

http://pbskids.org/

I have an Xbox and wish there were more kids games for it. I will be buying a Wii next.

That's nothing.
I thought of a MythTV box in a DORA office, playing Dora the Explorer videos and sending mail with Eudora to people in Eudora.

"We're completely 'standards compliant'. Pretty much."

Seriously ( although the above is true ), your kid should be doing lots of work with crayons and more traditional, tactile stuff... as well as spending some very heavily supervised time exploring a very basic MacPaint-style program on the computer... or a website or two. I cannot heap enough praise on some of the Flash apps ( god, I never thought I'd say it ) on Noggin or Sesame street. The animated coloring book apps ( with Oobi, the greatest googly-eyed hand ever ) are really fun and exciting, and a lot of the other games really focus on counting, letters, and memory skills... and they're just fun, too.

Really, you want your kid to get a head start reading ? Read them books every ( every ) night.

You want them to be artistic ? Sit down with them for a couple of hours every ( every ) day and do some coloring, painting, banging on drums.

You want your kid to be physically fit ? Spend some time with them every day throwing a ball, playing tag, playing with animals, riding a trike/bike, going for a nature walk.

You want your kid to be familiar with technology ? Well... just try to stop them, really, they're going to figure out how to work just about any electronic device around if they have any normal amount of curiosity, but if you want to give them a head start or a push in that direction, the same basic advice follows. Spend time with them in front of the computer... after you find some stuff you think is age-appropriate that they might enjoy, like a paint program ( hint: pattern fill tools and shading tools give kids a charge ) or a Flash game with their favorite Muppet or whatever... later you can introduce them to model rockets, electronics kits, 'food science' kits, science kits, and much later, simple programming tools.

Eventually, you may find that your biggest challenge is unplugging your kid and getting them to run around outside like people used to do back before cable and Tivo and Playstations. So programming your kid to like and do physical stuff might be your first goal... but there's nothing ( IMHO ) wrong with showing your kid how to use a computer. Personally, I'd recommend a Mac with a one-button mouse and a seriously locked-down user account ( with only the apps they might use enabled, and a carefully-picked set of bookmarked websites ) and you sitting there next to them, and limiting the duration, and not pushing it at all if they're disinterested or frustrated... there's plenty of time later for them to spend behind a screen. They should be playing with other kids as much as possible, really... balance is always good.

And yea. You should see a four-year-old kid's reaction to a model rocket shooting 600 feet in the air. BIG eyes.

" Educating kids with bedtime tv is evil."
You ever try educating a kid a bedtime? ;)

Nothing educational about the TV; this is more of a give-and-take thing. You have to reward a little... not too much, as we know children need boundaries... but is this really a battle that is worth fighting, and is the outcome really that evil? I've got a wonderful child, and if he has been good there's no reason not to reward him with a movie request now and then. Too bad he hasn't seen many and therefore only knows for sure that he likes Nemo.

My son is learning both from us and by using a computer at places like http://pbskids.com/, http://noggin.com/, and http://nickjr.com/. Sure there are some good kid TV shows on during the day and you can grab a quick shower while he is watching Dora, but TV is for the most part entertainment, and the adults and computers get to educate throught interaction.

Now I am with you somewhat - if I lived alone I may not even have a TV, but I don't live alone, and the TV is on at least half the time during the day. Anyone have any constructive suggestions for limiting TV time for youngsters in a house where that's an unpopular option?

Oh, and to get back on topic: the VCR is dead because, back in the day, we had 4 broadcast TV channels and it was more important to capture what little content we liked. Now we get 150 channels of crap on the satellite and there is almost always something on that can be entertaining, so no need for a VCR to bring the content-level of the TV more in line with our liking.

Like when my son and I watch a Tivoed episode of Oobi or Maisy, or take in Finding Nemo or Potty Time With Bear together... or those evenings after the boy goes to bed, when my wife and I stay up and watch Surreal Life and some good movies ( actually, right now we're working through The Sopranos ).

In all seriousness ( although, maybe sadly, we do all of the above, and my son is an expert on the Noggin and Sesame Street websites ), my post was *designed* for the "Funny" rating it now has... still, it is true that Tivo and Netflix are my two favorite entertainment sources. I'd probably give up my horses first, if only because they're more expensive...

I'm only posting on /. because I'm at work, what else am I going to do? Oh, yea, right...

Like when my son and I watch a Tivoed episode of Oobi or Maisy, or take in Finding Nemo or Potty Time With Bear together... or those evenings after the boy goes to bed, when my wife and I stay up and watch Surreal Life and some good movies ( actually, right now we're working through The Sopranos ).

In all seriousness ( although, maybe sadly, we do all of the above, and my son is an expert on the Noggin and Sesame Street websites ), my post was *designed* for the "Funny" rating it now has... still, it is true that Tivo and Netflix are my two favorite entertainment sources. I'd probably give up my horses first, if only because they're more expensive...

I'm only posting on /. because I'm at work, what else am I going to do? Oh, yea, right...

Like when my son and I watch a Tivoed episode of Oobi or Maisy, or take in Finding Nemo or Potty Time With Bear together... or those evenings after the boy goes to bed, when my wife and I stay up and watch Surreal Life and some good movies ( actually, right now we're working through The Sopranos ).

In all seriousness ( although, maybe sadly, we do all of the above, and my son is an expert on the Noggin and Sesame Street websites ), my post was *designed* for the "Funny" rating it now has... still, it is true that Tivo and Netflix are my two favorite entertainment sources. I'd probably give up my horses first, if only because they're more expensive...

I'm only posting on /. because I'm at work, what else am I going to do? Oh, yea, right...

That's nothin'.

You should see my two-year-old navigate noggin and nick jr. on my flat-panel iMac. It kinda freaks people out to see him in action- he never misses a target.

His appleworks drawing skills are pretty mind-blowing as well. Those color palette squares are *small*, but he hits the one he wants every time, and he knows what all of the tools do. "Look, dad, I draw a circle!"

Damn kid was working the VCR ( and remarkably, the remote ) months before he figured out point-and-click on our "hard to use" one-button mouse. We have locked up the tapes to keep his TV viewing down, but he's figured out that we TiVo Maisy, though we already keep the remote out of reach or he'll be watching South Park ( his other favorite cartoon, sigh ). I'd say he knows how to play PS2 games as well, but I'll wait until he decides to do something with Spiderman *other* than make him jump off buildings ( OK, I'm worried about the kid, I'll admit... ) to make that claim. His cousin's GameBoy Advance is more his speed.

The computer does cut down on his TV and video game time, though, for what good that does... we make a real effort to get him outside- I worry about other kids his age, though, parents have got to make a serious effort these days; we're going to have a generation of couch potatoes that make the current crop of adults look like frickin' exercise buffs.

Interesting. So, let me ask you a question? When you are looking through TV Guide (or your Tivo directory, or whatever), and trying to decide what to watch, do you read the descriptions of the shows/movies you are considering?

Because that's what these rating sites are. They are automated summaries of the type of content a site contains, for use by viewers who are interested in seeing some types of content but not others.

Speaking as a parent, I see a big difference between my four year old being exposed to some of the really nice kid-friendly stuff that's out there and some of the really nasty stuff [no link provided, use your damn imagination] that's out there. If you don't, well, let me say, as politely as I can, that `we disagree'.

And yes, this does indeed mean that:

• some things are objectively bad
• children should be shielded from some things
• it's not only `okay' for a parent to exercise some control over what their child is exposed to, it's their responsibility to do so