Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school How much do you let your toddlers surf internet?

DD 2.5 is now really into browsing web. When she wakes up she immediately goes to look for a computer and by the time I get there she already opened it and the browser and her webpages from the bookmarks. She does not really read yet but has no problems sight reading and guessing from the letters what says where. She is good about closing it when we tell her 1-2 min in advance so she can finish what ever she was doing. Internet time does not make her cranky like watching tv or DVD so that's is good, I think. I deleted all not so child friendly bookmarks like news as she was opening those too. What else could I do? She is not writing yet, thank good for that, and can not use google, I deleted youtube. She also started to calling grandparents with skype. Should I restrict her time with the computer? She seems to prefer it over anything else now. She also likes to "write" with word, browse her baby pictures and play music.

PS. this is the only forum I could ever ask this question, Thank you!

We don't set limits and it's never been a problem. DD loves using the computer, but if you're doing something interesting nearby she'll stop in a minute. What I did was to set up a separate browser for her. I changed the default search engine to a kid-friendly one, and I bookmarked a bunch of fun websites.

For a while, we had different login for DD4 when she started using the computer at 2. We had our own login to get into windows and then she knew to pick her icon to get into her desktop. DH did this to control what she could get into and to ensure she didn't do anything damaging to our desktop. Google has a system for kids called Glubble that lets you control where they go, although we didn't use it for a real long time.

There's also a cool, free program called Tux Paint that DD LOVES.

Other good sites: starfall and poissonrouge

We have never set limits on DD's computer use and have had no problems. After a while, the novelty wears off and although your DD will probably always be interested in the computer and the web, her intense interest will probably wane a bit as time goes on.

You probably have a good feel for if your child NEEDS a limit. I have a DS9 and a DD5. My son started figuring out the computer about this age and was absolutely obsessed from day 1. We had to set time limits from almost the beginning because he would do it all day long. As a preschooler, I thought he should be doing a wide variety of things throughout the day. So even if he was doing "educational" stuff, I limited it.

My DD5 though is really just moderately interested in the computer and has never needed a limit to this point. I let her come and go from the computer. She has always gets off on her own in a reasonable amount of time.

My DS6 used to LOVE surfing the web when he was 3 :-) He was totally fascinated with the fact that he controlled what he wanted to find....we made a collection of word cards for him that we kept next to the computer...they were words that were his favorite topics/interests (train, bus, weather,....) we had about 20 of them and then next to the word we took a clipart picture and glued it so that he could see the pic and read the word....he would go into the computer room on his own, pick a word card he wanted to look up, go on the computer and type www.yahoo.com and then would type in his word card word into the search engine and then at the top of the screen would select video and watch videos all afternoon of his favorite things (we were there right near him of course...you never know what bizarre and strange videos can come up!)

DS was 2 when I wrote a little html file for him, so he could open that and have all of his approved links right there. One of the first words he read was "LOADING" ...thanks to the dialup connection.

I didn't let him use a search engine by himself that young, but he did play some Sesame Street games, and I don't remember what else. He also loved just to have Word open so he could type things and change the fonts.

Now (at 10...) he still loves kind of random online things like Google Maps. A couple nights ago he was clicking around Australia looking for kangaroos.

I love this question. My DD loves the computer and has been independent on it since she was around 2: opening browsers and using drop down bookmarks to get to her websites. At first I was concerned about her getting into adult material and did look into software, but choose not to block her at this time. If you use Firefox there is add-ons for the browser, opening a port with only kid friendly approved sites, including starfall and PBS. The software even tracks where the user goes and if I remember correctly how long they spent in the site.

As for timing them, I thought we might need to do that because she was becoming obsessed with the computer but her interests changed and spent less and less time on the computer. Sometimes we go for days, even weeks without computer time.

I started my dd on the computer at 3 yo. I found some appropriate sites for her and put them as buttons on my toolbar. I don't let her browse anywhere else.

I also set up a separate login for my DS at 3 and put the buttons on the toolbar that were appropriate for him. I purposefully did not even say the word Google to him because I didn't want to get into that.

I also would like to add that my son is one of those kids who can get obsessed with computer time and playing with the Wii. We let him play a certain amount per day and he can earn extra time with good behavior or being extra helpful. Also, I find if we are on vacation and I'm more lax about the rules after a few days he is not quite so obsessed.

Thank you for all the insights. At this point we decided not to restrict her computer use. It has been working well. She can freely use it as we have 3 laptops sitting in our living room. After I removed all the not child friendly bookmarks she has been staying on her own websites. I'm sure we will have to reconsider other options when she can write. At this point she can only read a bit.