How young should kids get computers? Do computers belong in the crib ?
It doesn’t take much imagination to see that much of the blame lies with permissive and indulgent parents. Consider this section drawn from the paper’s report:
Yunice Kotake, of San Bruno, Calif., recently purchased a Fisher-Price Knows Your Name Dora Cell Phone for her twin year-old daughters. But a few days later, she returned the play phone to a local Toys “R” Us, after she found that the girls seemed to prefer their parents’ actual phones.
“They know what a real cell phone is, and they don’t want a fake one,” Ms. Kotake said.
This passage is troubling at so many levels. Ms. Kotake has twin year-old girls who are not satisfied with “play” cell phones. The real phones are so much a part of their lives that “they don’t want a fake one.”
I think this is certainly a parenting problem. Of course a 7 year old doesn’t need a real laptop. What for? Of course kids know the difference between a “real” one and a “fake” one. Already, a 9 months, Lydia loves to play with the remote control. At times, this is annoying, so her Grandma Maxson bought her a play remote one time. Does she like to play with it the same way? Nope. Lydia knows we use one and that is the one she wants.