I have kids 2 & 3 years old. They want to use the computer just like mom & dad. I have been opening WordPad and letting them type, but they’re likely to hit all sorts of control key combinations. Is there an application that gives little kids fun stuff to do but requires a password to get to any other computer function?
I don’t know of such an application, but I doubt it. Even if something advertised that it did that, I’d have a hard time believing it.
Would you consider getting them their own computer? Old ones practically fall out of the sky if you know where to stand. While we’re on the subject, consider a DOS computer - they’re easier to maintain and fix. Hell, I’d probably find one to give you myself if you were standing right here - I must have 15 of the suckers right here in my shop…
There are lots of ways you can protect your computer from your kids. Go to any software dealer and they’ll sell a number of products which will block kids access to your stuff. But the easiest way to deal with this issue is to only let the kids mess around on the computer when they are sitting on your lap.
I found out the hard way you have to be REALLY careful with kids. They are a lot slicker than people give them credit for.
While they learn what you teach them, they are also watching. So while you set them on say the couch to watch tv or nap, they are really watching EVERYTHING you do to your computer. They are memorizing EVERYTHING you do.
So when you are gone they copy you. Trouble.
I actually used to test software for an educational software company (which I think is out of business now) - and as well as testing to make sure the program did what it should do, we’d also make sure that it could handle small hands randomly typing (and smashing) into the keyboard. My guess is that most other children’s software companies do the same.
Yes, a kid could accidentally hit the right control keys to allow the password interface to open up, and then accidentally enter the password…but it was not likely.
I think we were 4 and up (but I don’t quite remember) but look for software aimed at children.
When my daughter was two, I opened Word, set the font size to 50, and taught her to type her name, then mama, papa, her brother’s name. A few of those sessions seemed to make her happy. At three we graduated to a few simple preschool video games on an occasional basis. I also liked to scan some of her “artwork” and send it to grandparents. She would help me type in a message. At four she was on here own with preschool games and her two year old brother hung out and watched happily.
So my advice is to gently ease in the computer world. My kids get far more out of the three dimensional world.
I’d be more worried about kiddie drinks around the keyboard than their ability to destroy your motherboard. And - hey, if the little buckaroos do hit the correct combination of keys, causing the demise of your computer - you’ve got some computer gurus on your hands!
Show them some fun stuff on this website:
My four year-old son has had his own computer in his room for two years now. He’s had broadband Internet access for those two years as well. I am fortunate in that I am a computer professional, so locking the machine down (as well as limiting where he can go on the Internet) isn’t a problem. That being said, I keep a Ghost image of his machine out on my server because he will inevitably kill it again. I started him on Windows 98, which he messed up once or twice, but it’s been no problem since moving him to XP.
My point is that if you know what your doing, you can put together a machine for your kids that will be virtually impossible for them to break. Start with nothing less than XP and learn how to work with security policies. You can keep them out of just about anything that’s going to cause a problem. As for Internet access, he can get to Nick Jr., Disney Playhouse and one or two other sites, but he can never get to any other domains. Perfectly safe I think.
I can also tell you that this four year-old can very literally use a computer better than a great many of the adults I see at work every dqy. He frankly amazes me at what he figures out on his own, and what he remembers seeing me do, as a previous poster said. It’s very true, these kids’ brains soak up knowledge and experience like it’s going out of style. Absolutely amazing.
As for what you let your kids do on the computer (not the question that was asked I know, but very much relevant)… There are a ton of fantastic educational games out there that I would highly recommend. I don’t worry about my son playing with his computer for an hour or two a day because I see him learning things on his own that blows me away. My wife and I like to watch from his doorway to see what he’s doing, and it’s a great feeling when he’s figuring out all sorts of puzzles and such on his own. With the help of some of these games I had him doing simple addition and subtract over six months ago. He’s known the alphabet cold since he was a little under three, and he’s starting to get the idea of reaiding now.
I know most people here are concerned with software malfunctions, but teach them to treat the hardware gently too. My sister’s kids have killed two CD-Rom drives so far.
There used to be something called Babykeys–freeware to install on your computer so when the keys were pounded, interesting shapes/colors appeared. (If you had a color monitor.) Sounds, too, if I recall. I still had it 8 years ago on my DOS computer, so the child could pound away as I was pounding away on the other computer. Great for the alphabet, learning shapes, learning colors.
About age 4 he graduated to the windows computer and things like I Spy. But I think there’s lots of software for little ones. Naturally, they should be supervised, you can’t just leave them alone with the computer for hours and hours.
He did once, during a session of random mouse-clicking, undelete my email program while I was sitting right next to him, doing something on my laptop. However, it was backed up. (This was lucky–there were things on there that weren’t backed up, like the novel I was working on. So after that everything was backed up.)
We got a 2 and a 3 year old on their own computer in this house too.
Win 98 with no internet connection.
Get the their favorite game started and let them do the rest. It`s really not a problem as far as screwing things up, they pretty much follow the game commands and take it easy on the keyboard and mouse. Most of the games they play only let you enter key strokes that are relevant to the game. That or the keyboard is non-functional during the game play and just the mouse is used.
A software you might want to consider is Roxio GoBack. It creates a file using 10% of your HDD capacity, and stores a series of safe points when the HDD was not writing. If the kids send your PC sideways, you choose a point in the past which was prior to things going goofus, and revert the hard drive to how it was back then.
It works equally well to un-screw a failed program installation, or a virus that gets past your anti-virus. They have been bought by the nice people at Norton (Symantec), so I don’t know if you’ll see it in a store under the name I’ve listed. I got mine at CompUSA for about $50 IIRC.
I’ve got two boys, 6 and 4. They’ve had computer access since they were 2. It’s just amazing how quick they pick stuff up. Both sons could type their names (and other words) at least a year before they could write them. There are tons of educational games out there for the very young, although no specific ones leap to mind.
The biggest issue for the very young is that they’ll inadverntantly push stuff with the mouse, moving or restarting the start bar being the most common. That and they would power it off without shutting down first.
My kid’s been banging on the computer since he was old enough to reach the keyboard. Never had a problem with him destroying stuff, since I just created an account for him with restricted access – the worst he could do would be to drag some folders from his Home directory to the Desktop, but that’s a non-issue IMO. And nowadays, he’s too into playing his preschool edu-ware to even do that.
I have no problems unleashing him on the computer. He can log on his account, start his games rolling, and put it to sleep when he’s finished, all without any input from me.