I realise times have changes and we all (or most of us) use our computers to assist in researching many things and it is now an integral part of our daily lives.

The question I have, though, is how much is too much time playing games on the net and what do other parents encourage their children to do as an alternative these days?

My 8 year old son seems to spend all of his free time (a lot of course) attached to Fantage or other online kids gaming sites.

I have told him to find other things to do but within a day or two he is back at it would potentially spend hours each day (during the holidays) and many also on school days with these online platform and other kids game sites.

I also wonder about the sites themselves and how "virus safe" they are?

It just doesn't seem healthy to me and I am considering whether or not to set up a list of all the gaming sites he uses as banned in my router security until he can use it more judiciously? Or am I expecting too much of him to control himself, after all he is only 8?

An observation I have had both he and in Australia is that it seems to me a lot of kids these days have far less physical "toys" and instead use the screen and virtual world as their "fantasy land". In other words someone else's fantasy. Is this better or is it destroying their ability to think and use their imaginations and if so, what can we do about it?

Two related issues I guess? The time they spend, what is reasonable and is the technology damaging their ability fantasy play using their own "creations" or in other ways? The impacts on physical outlets such as sporting activities is an obvious one but my does spends most days doing 1or 2 hours Taekwondo so I don't think that one's an issue for us.

Thoughts and ideas anyone?

No idea always been told that older people that plays PC games it is a + it is healthy and help keep there minds alert

with kids would have thought that would also help development in eyes, hands, mind coordination ?? and better than sitting in front of a TV

Yes, games do help us old coots with mental agility, BUT, with younger humans it does not destroy their mind but stops the process of real life learning. Without real life experience learning, the game replaces that experience with a programmed outcome. So the more the kid play, the more the game replaces the learning experience with programmed outcomes. When presented to real life issues, the kid can only relate to what was learned from the game.

Maybe difficult for oldies to say........ now a day Pilots, racing drivers and so on all lean part of there skill by computers, in my day there was no such things as computers, very few people could afford or had black and white TV's

for sure at 8 years old in my day I had mastered double de-clutching without crashing the gears on a tractor, milk cows, how to kill and butcher pigs, harvest and so on, that was the way of life back then, now a day it is computers..

Guess is also about Parents and the time they have to do things with there kids, communication skills is also very important which you do not get from games on computers

Thanks for the comments so far. Plus and minus on both sides but interesting Noone has commented on the demise of physical toys? I am leaning towards more monitoring and direction in terms of what he is "playing" so it is a better learning environment and experience. Limiting the time each day is another option but if he's just going to watch Telly for hours instead .... hmmm....

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