What do you guys think about parents who limit their kids computer and console time?

[Recon97]

That's pretty awesome, playing games together with your kids is incredibly important IMO. And it doesn't even have to be an "educational" game, just making sure that you are involved in your kids' hobby and that you point them in the right direction from time to time seems vital to me. Too many parents just drop their kids off in front of the TV or in front of the PC/console.

Now that's a good parenting.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Was different in the old days where all the kids were outside...Cos computers couldn't run anything but Windows/Alternatives+Business Software

[Misanthrope]

Was different in the old days where all the kids were outside...Cos computers couldn't run anything but Windows/Alternatives+Business Software

 

I'm old enough that I was a kid during those times and let me tell you: playing outside and such was fucking overrated, I was often bored to fucking tears and didn't go back inside because all my Atari and NES games were dull and played them too many times but I literally hated that there was nothing to fucking do. I'm glad that my kid will have access to all sorts of entertainment and knowledge from a young age instead of being so bored that he'd get in trouble by putting firecrackers on glass bottles and such like I did when I was young.

[Victorious Secret]

We would go play at the park, watch movies, and these days we play a disgusting amount of hockey in rec and pro leagues even though we aren't kids anymore.

My parents never really cared, I just didn't do it. After a certain point I had to focus more on school and my gaming became non existent. Months at a time without touching it. You simply get busy with more important stuff.

I tell my brother that he gets one hour a day BEFORE homework. I don't want gaming to be his reward so he rushes through learning. And I bought the damn thing, so my parents agree with my rules of setting times.

He gets weekends as much as he wants provided he has no exams, and it works out well enough.

Each situation will be different though. Parenting styles are not universal. Comes down to the kid, the personality of the kid, and the understanding of the parents.

[Jack.EXE]

I started with an hour a day limit, but they soon saw that I developed a passion for tech, and that the industry had begun to advance rapidly in this direction.

It's a life skill to be able to build, work on, toy with, and code for, computers.

[Jumper118]

i don't see why they limit going on a computer. if that is the case they should also limit the time you do homework. 

[frostin1990]

I'm old enough that I was a kid during those times and let me tell you: playing outside and such was fucking overrated, I was often bored to fucking tears and didn't go back inside because all my Atari and NES games were dull and played them too many times but I literally hated that there was nothing to fucking do. I'm glad that my kid will have access to all sorts of entertainment and knowledge from a young age instead of being so bored that he'd get in trouble by putting firecrackers on glass bottles and such like I did when I was young.

Maybe your childhood neighbourhood sucked   my was so awesome we had huge acres of jungles near the outskirts of cities (which does not exist today) playing outside was a thrill and we would play 6 to 8 hours on weekends huge group of friends it used to be so much fun than what has turned out nowadays with internet IMO..or maybe it is nostalgia....

[Misanthrope]

Maybe your childhood neighbourhood sucked my was so awesome we had huge acres of jungles near the outskirts of cities (which does not exist today) playing outside was a thrill and we would play 6 to 8 hours on weekends huge group of friends it used to be so much fun than what has turned out nowadays with internet IMO..or maybe it is nostalgia....

Just like not all persons are people persons not all kids are sociable like that: I hated other kids and interacting with them.

[KirbyTech]

That is overkill. I have always been allowed to do as I please in anything. And I must say it has worked out really well. I am better off because of my father having that rule and often telling my mother off. 

[SurvivorNVL]

My mother and grandparents never limited me on the computer or console, but then again when I was growing up I was constantly sick and near death many times so they let me enjoy it and have fun, but that spiraled in to a passion and then I spent years of spending every-day learning as much as I could over and over of new stuff that came out in the tech industry and all of it.  So, I think if I ended up as a parent I would probably introduce my kids early and teach them leisure time on it and research time.  By 3 they shall do advanced calculus  But, yeah.  I think parents that limit it and say for them to go out and have a real life - aren't understanding the possibilities of the internet and computer.  All it takes is one little spark of a kids imagination and they could be the next Elon Musk or Bill Gate's.  Or they could just get addicted to an MMO and Cat-videos and use twitter for selfies, but meh.

[Photonic]

I am very lucky to not have any sort of restrictions and i am mostly on my computer all day the only time i go outside is to walk my dog

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

My parents limit me to 1:30h a day. They even put a program on my computer that enforces it. If I wanted I could probably bypass the program, but if my parents would find out they would take my computer away. They also said that they're going to keep it like this until I'm 18 D:

[dizmo]

 Suggest one thing to do at night INSIDE. ONE THING.

Chess.

Cards.

Monopoly.

Some form of craft. You can start pen turning, for example.

Read. You know. Actually learn something and expand your mind.

Learn guitar.

Exercise. Mass up.

 

There. 10 seconds and I've thought of 7.

[WolfDeville]

Chess.

Cards.

Monopoly.

Some form of craft. You can start pen turning, for example.

Read. You know. Actually learn something and expand your mind.

Learn guitar.

Exercise. Mass up.

 

There. 10 seconds and I've thought of 7.

 theres only 3 things there that are worth doing (guitar, reading and exercising, although I don't see exercising as entertainment ) but would get extremely boring after a while....

 

Everything you mentioned (except ) can be done on a computer lol...

[Albatross]

Wise.

 

A child should not spend all his time playing video games or sitting on the computer (unless the later is productive work). They need to make their kids go outside and play, or hang out with friends, or study. That said, parents who only allow their children several hours of computer time or game time a week are just absurd and overbearing.

[dizmo]

 theres only 3 things there that are worth doing (guitar, reading and exercising, although I don't see exercising as entertainment ) but would get extremely boring after a while....

 

Everything you mentioned (except ) can be done on a computer lol...

Dear god you're single minded.

It can, but you know. Human contact. Is a thing.

I feel so sorry for you.

[WolfDeville]

Dear god you're single minded.

It can, but you know. Human contact. Is a thing.

I feel so sorry for you.

 lol???

 

So you're saying people are always gonna be there there to play Monopoly with you whenever you're bored? LOLLLL HAHAHAHA.

 

I'm not saying people should be on the internet 24/7, it's unhealthy, but theres nothing wrong with spending time on the computer when theres nothing else you feel like doing. The internet is FULL of knowledge and can be used for educational purposes.

[ionbasa]

So this post may be long, but thats because I care enough to educate you.

 

I'm actually going to start off with a story, this story start about 6 years ago. I was a freshman in high school (grade 9). Before high school, I didn't play too many games. My main interest was flight simulators and racing games. I picked up on that because it was my father and uncle's hobbies. Originally it wasn't a problem for me, but I soon realized that people at my school played online video games with each other. At the time COD (whatever xyz flavor) was in style. So after convincing my parents, I was allowed to start playing COD and other games. For the first part of the 9th grade, this didn't affect me too much if at all. I got good grades mostly As and some Bs.

 

Well, I eventually started to become sucked in, and couldn't stop playing for a sensible amount of time. My mentality changed from "I should do my homework to keep up in school" to "I need to get done with homework as fast as possible so I can go play video games with my friends". As you can imagine this caused my grades to plop down to a C average. For the most part this continued into the first half of my sophomore year (grade 10). And thats when I had an epiphany. I got a D in my french class. And here in California to transfer to either the CSU or UC institutions, you need two years of foreign language, with a grade of a C or better, no exceptions. Well this made me realize how much of a distraction video games can become. I ended up having to retake French II during summer school at the end of my grade 10 year. Honestly, it was the most embarrassing thing I have ever dealt with in my life.

 

Then my junior and senior year I loaded my schedule with Advanced Placement and Honors classes, stopped playing video games excessively, and managed to get my GPA up to 3.8. Guess what, it payed off in the end.

 

Don't get me wrong, video games are fun, but even now a college student I only play for 2-3 hours on a friday afternoon and saturdays.

So I'm going to have to side with your parents on this, they do know best, regardless of what others may tell you in this thread. The last thing you want is your grades to suffer as a result of playing video games.

[rutwik]

So this post may be long, but thats because I care enough to educate you.

I'm actually going to start off with a story, this story start about 6 years ago. I was a freshman in high school (grade 9). Before high school, I didn't play too many games. My main interest was flight simulators and racing games. I picked up on that because it was my father and uncle's hobbies. Originally it wasn't a problem for me, but I soon realized that people at my school played online video games with each other. At the time COD (whatever xyz flavor) was in style. So after convincing my parents, I was allowed to start playing COD and other games. For the first part of the 9th grade, this didn't affect me too much if at all. I got good grades mostly As and some Bs.

Well, I eventually started to become sucked in, and couldn't stop playing for a sensible amount of time. My mentality changed from "I should do my homework to keep up in school" to "I need to get done with homework as fast as possible so I can go play video games with my friends". As you can imagine this caused my grades to plop down to a C average. For the most part this continued into the first half of my sophomore year (grade 10). And thats when I had an epiphany. I got a D in my french class. And here in California to transfer to either the CSU or UC institutions, you need two years of foreign language, with a grade of a C or better, no exceptions. Well this made me realize how much of a distraction video games can become. I ended up having to retake French II during summer school at the end of my grade 10 year. Honestly, it was the most embarrassing thing I have ever dealt with in my life.

Then my junior and senior year I loaded my schedule with Advanced Placement and Honors classes, stopped playing video games excessively, and managed to get my GPA up to 3.8. Guess what, it payed off in the end.

Don't get me wrong, video games are fun, but even now a college student I only play for 2-3 hours on a friday afternoon and saturdays.

So I'm going to have to side with your parents on this, they do know best, regardless of what others may tell you in this thread. The last thing you want is your grades to suffer as a result of playing video games.

Well it comes to your own responsibilities which I have, I do my work and use my free times to play games or hang out here at LTT or YouTube to learn something new.

[ZacDaMan72]

When my mum used to tell me to get off the computer I didn't and after the second time she tried she stopped bothering lol. I didn't bother gaming though. Now I have my own computer I just get off if I have to do something eg. dinner, wash car etc.

My parents didn't really bother moderate my computer usage because I usually got good marks and still do. I do think parents should moderate usage depending on what you did on the computer and what the effects are (but be reasonable to an extent).

[Thebman712]

I ised to have a 2 hr timer on my xbox qnd i sucked.

Now though i have free fange i just have to be off it at night

[STRMfrmXMN]

Control freaks is what I think. By 16 if my parents had said "you can only play games for 4 hours a day on the weekends" I'd have told them to fuck off.

 

Then again, I don't ever plan to be a parent, and as far as I'm concerned most parents are assholes to begin with. My dad cock-blocked me through high school on the rare times I managed to actually get a girl to come over to my house, how I didn't kick him in the balls and slam the door shut, I will never know.

So much agree.

Internet - only allowed to use it when she's home (she gets home from work at around 7 PM so no Google Docs etc. until then) and 90% of the time I ask her to turn the router on she says no. She doesn't pay for the internet service BTW, my stepdad does. She won't even turn the router on for him.

 

Girls - only female friends/girlfriends she's liked are my lesbian friends.... She'll tell me "oh that girl is great, you should talk to HER" and I'll be like "she's gay" (I'm a member of the Gay-Straight-Alliance club at school so there's many of these sorts of friends in my arsenal) and she'll be like "no more of her then" (she's kinda homophobic). She's given me a "no" on every girlfriend I've had over. 

 

Want to kick her in the metaphorical balls sometimes....

[Fred Castellum]

Parents can set whatever time limit they want. If they find it appropriate to restrict your usage time to a hour a day then so be it. 

 

The difference here is if they learn what your more suited for or not during this time.

 

My family has come to the conclusion the place perform the best is in front of a monitor with tons of data thrown at me. And that's why I sit here everyday... 

[dizmo]

 lol???

 

So you're saying people are always gonna be there there to play Monopoly with you whenever you're bored? LOLLLL HAHAHAHA.

 

I'm not saying people should be on the internet 24/7, it's unhealthy, but theres nothing wrong with spending time on the computer when theres nothing else you feel like doing. The internet is FULL of knowledge and can be used for educational purposes.

That's actually not at all what I'm saying.

You're quite daft.

[KingKeith55]

I have to do my homework or whatever before I can use the computer, after that I can go on as much as I want.

 

It works because it motivates me to actually do it rather than procrastinating.