Definitely up to five years ago, many of my friends who had what it took to jump on the computer bandwagon acknowledge one thing, when it comes to children using computers, make sure they know the basics first i.e. the three r's.

I guess it falls in line with using calculators before you can workout mathematical equations yourself i.e. the calculator dumbs you down and likewisewe now have word processors being blamed for poor handwriting skills.

However,a computer, or at least using oneand being able to navigate an operating system now seems to beseen as a discipline in its own right. Would you have any reservations as to when a child should getfamiliar, even ifthis goes against the school curriculum,or are you more likely to see using computers as a tool towards learning thetraditional three r's?

Personally I cringe seeing my children in front of the PC when they can't even do long division yet.

As a parent shouldn't it be up to you to strike a balance? My 9yr old niece is a whizz on the computer, she is miss internet professional. But at the same time she still has to practice her spellings the traditional way, she does alot of drawing on paperand her writing is very much up to par. If used in the right way a computer can be extra help not a hindrance.

The thing is it may get impossible for kids NOT to use a computer entirely.

You have colleges and universities nowthat will not accept work UNLESS it's typed.

It should at least be a choice.

well my 1yr old blessing if forever tapping pc keys and now reaches for the mouse

a good balance between handwriting and pc skills

at my uni it was achoice but you knew it looked better typed,

schools should disable the spell checker on word so kids and uni heads know the correct spellings. most spell checkers are using american english as opposed to English english. distinction ought to be there

encourage pc skills as for some kids it may keep them keen in learning

Incognito,

I remembered taking one of my nephews to the library to watch the magic man. When the magic man asked the 20 some odd kids what did the do for the summer three( including my nephews, he's and he was in a swim camp) out the 20 of them only said something about doing something different over the summer. The rest was "played video games and/or did the e-mail. As I was listening to these kids telling about their activities, I'm like" Didn't these kids have summer jobs, go on a trip , a movie ....."or anything else beside doing that?( Unbelieveably some of them was old as 15 years old wanting to see the magic).

It just amazed how many of these kids just had their faces in the games. While I'm not saying that there is anything worng with playing with them, there is a problem if that is the only thing they know, which is what it seem to be these days. It also seem that it's just a babysitter for many of them and that isn't what it should be. When my nephews were outof school one of the things that my sister made sure of is that she didn't let these things dictate their day. She wanted them to show them that there are other activities that are just as fun and where they don't have to become couch potatoes. Putting your focus on just video games/computers can be problematic because they can become addicted to them.