Toddler Geek

[NorthernZel]

A little amusing tidbit from earlier today:

Suppose you are a little 4-years-old Lil'Zel who has been allowed to play a couple of age appropriate online games for half-an-hour. You play a racing game, and this reminds you that you are very fond of your (non-collector's-item) Hot Wheels toy cars.

Reminded of this, you ask mom (in this case, me ) : "Mom, are there any Hot Wheels games on the computer?" and mom starts saying: "Um, honey, I don't really know, but..."

Before Mom is even finished talking, what are your actions?

a) shrug and keep on playing that game you were playing?
b) ask mom to help you search for games?
c) close down window, open another window and GOOGLE THE DAMN THING YOURSELF?!

Yup, Lil'Zel chose action C. And more amazing - Google is NOT our start page. He found himself the Google icon in our toolbar, activated it and tried to enter a search using the Hot Wheels logo on one of his cars as reference. Unfortunately (or rather, luckily - Gawd knows what sites he might have been redirected to) he knew that he had spelled "hotwheels" wrong (he's only familiar with caps) so he had to ask me to enter the right search words.

Methinks it's time to install some parent monitoring software

[Mishi]

What a clever boy!
I think that if all the CS.com kids got together, they'd take over the world (or maybe just cyberspace) quite easily. I found that Jazzy (also 4) had gone through the Outlook setup on her non-internet connected computer and was in the process of typing a letter. She was most annoyed when it couldn't send.

[draggar]

There are some cool Hot Wheels games for the PC - and yes, he is very clever.

(I'm guilty of having some)

[Squeaksmyalias]

I found that Jazzy (also 4) had gone through the Outlook setup on her non-internet connected computer and was in the process of typing a letter. She was most annoyed when it couldn't send.

I've said it once I will happily say it again, Mishi your kids are awesome.

Zel, you had better watch your little one, he's one smart cookie.

[TheSHAD0W]

O__O

I have to tell people GIYF, over and over, and your son is already using Google-Fu! That's awesome!

[Seshat]

Yay for Lil'Zal!

(And yay for parents who parent. )

[Der Cute]

start locking your pc when you walk away from it.

[fireheart]

Wow, that's a smart kid.

Although my parents....not so much. Two anti-viruses on the one computer and they don't put passwords on Outlook....

[monolayth]

Anytime my son touches my computer I have to redo settings. It is not cool when you have to call people because your toddler changed things.

[NorthernZel]

Thanks for all the good advice.

Lately I've set up a separate "account" on our PC which Lil'Zel can access (with me having admin rights), set IE security up to max and made a lot of shortcuts to safe gaming sites for pre-schoolers.

I've also made it something of a training tool - one of Lil'Zel's favourite sites allows him to search for specific genres of games (for instance, if you want to look for a game that has something to do with firetrucks you type "firetruck" in the search field and it redirects you to a page that contains firetruck-related games).
When Lil'Zel asks for a specific genre, I spell the word and then make him write the word on a piece of paper, whereafter he can type in the search word by looking at the word that he has written himself.

[Nurian]

I have some nieces that are really young. Could you name that site?

[Kogarashi]

I might have to do the separate account thing soon too. Oldest is 4 and a half, and getting too smart for her own good. Thankfully she still knows to ask before starting movies, but she knows completely how to operate the TV and DVD player. She hasn't done much computer time unsupervised so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if she knows how to work the mouse well enough to open up IE if she so chose.

Once we have the spare parts for one, the girls are getting their own non-internet-connected computer for typing at the like.

[dalesys]

Methinks it's time to install some parent monitoring software

So they can control what you do online?


The English language, she is not anyone's friend, not even the English...


There ain't nothin' like a Dane, nothin' in the world...

(My gr-gr-grandmother was from Copenhagen... and my ex's Oompa.)