Computers and kids

This weekend I noticed for the first time that my son (nearly age 5) was requesting regularly to use "daddy's computer." His favorite web site is www.pbskids.org, which has games and exercises linked with shows like Sesame Street, Clifford the Big Red Dog, TeleTubbies, etc.

I bought a trackball mouse for the kids to learn on last week. Ironically, our son has gotten pretty good at using the keyboard mouse that comes with our notebook. Today he was using this mouse to move the arrow around the the screen (not an easy exercise at first), then using the trackball mouse to click on icons.

It wasn't until age 17 and my senior year of high school when I started using computers. Mr. Kolcheff, who was assistant principal then, advised my parents that computers would be important in the future. Consequently, I took a 2-hour class in 12th grade. Back then, the computers were large main frames and would be like dinosaurs compared to what I'm typing on now.

My wife complimented me on sharing my computer with our kids today. (We only have one working computer, so I can't get other computer work done when the kids are playing on it).

In my mind, for them to learn how to use the computer is like when I learned to drive. Driving is a life skill that in many ways makes life easier. Without knowing how to drive, one is often handicapped at some part in one's life.

Certainly we'll need wisdom in teaching our kids to not waste time on the computer and in using good judgement in the choice of web sites that one visits. While the kids are currently playing educational games, they'll need to be careful to not get into more violent or sexually graphic material.

Computers are double edged swords. They make self-organization and work production much easier a good portion of the time. However, they can also depersonalize the world sometimes.