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Would/Do you let your teen have the computer in their room?

Would/Do you let your teen have the mac in their room?

  • Yes

    Votes: 120 70.2%

  • No

    Votes: 51 29.8%
  • Total voters
    171
viccles said:
I've had a computer in my room most of my life. No parent controls, nothing. I was trusted to use it wisely and I always did. Wasn't interested in anything naughty :eek:
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My son was downloading loading tons of nude pictures of women.

Then he would draw them.

He has won a couple of Art awards and is now attending an Art school for media art and animation.
 
NT1440 said:
Lol wow thats actually a great idea!

I hope my kids (later in life, im 17) will share the same interest in technology I do.
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I like how parents these days have lost hope on technology and think it is all a mess, they claim, it was a privilege when I grew up.
 
Some people here aren't seeing things from their children's perspective. Look back at your own childhood and determine everything that your parents did to raise you whether right or wrong and how you reacted from it. At age 10, I already knew at least a little about the birds and the bees (with bad advice from my older brother) and had a computer in my room. In middle school, I already knew about predators and pedophilles both online and in the real world. Around high school was when I had a decent smart phone that wasn't used or parental controlled.
Apart from a few hiccups, I manage to not be addicted to porn, not be a bad influence, and not get assaulted sexually. I'm about to be a college graduate and starting a very happy relationship with someone. Not to shabby considering I was past back and forth between aunts, uncles, schools, juvy, churches, etc before I actually lived with my mother. Heck, I'm having to teach my grandparents how to be responsible online sometimes.
You can't put your kids in a box their entire life. They have to learn from their mistakes and figure out how to get out of the situations you are afraid they are getting into. Otherwise, they won't make it out there. As a parent, you have to provide guidance.
 
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Just for the record, I'm 18 and I used a family computer until I was about 10 or so. Then I got my first laptop, but I only had very limited internet access. By the time I was 13 I had a desktop in my room in addition to a laptop and I didn't have any restrictions then. Ever since then I've had a computer in my room and it's never been an issue. If I had been doing badly in school or spent too much time in my room, then perhaps my parents would've been stricter about my computer usage, but those weren't issues for me :)

With today's issues of cyberbullying, online predators, and "online radicalization", I understand why parents would be concerned, and my parents did want to know what I was doing online (and I showed them--I had nothing to hide!) but that doesn't mean you can't trust your kids. Since this thread was posted in 2008, I wonder if people now see "computer in your room" as something a bit dated. Now young kids have smartphones that function as computers and have all the access to the same things a bedroom desktop can provide. Except it's with them all the time, all day long.
 
I've never had a computer in my room. Or a TV.

I still don't have either one in the bedroom.
 
I had a computer in my room since I was 10 I believe. Internet access since I was 11. Laptop since age 13. Cell phone at age 14 (granted pre-smartphone and just before the texting era... camera phones barely existed and color screen phones were just taking off).

Granted, that was the late 90's and the internet was a very different world than it is today. Social networking did not exist, but I did have AIM :rolleyes: I got some nasty IM's when I broke up with my 6th grade girlfriend which my mother has saved to this day.

If I had kids I'm not sure what I would do in terms of computers or cell phone. I see very young kids with iPhones these days, I think my cousin got his around 10-11. On the one hand you want them to be safe, on the other you don't want to impede their technology skills or social life.

At the end of the day I would presume it has to be weighed on a case by case basis. Some children are more responsible than others. Education is a must and some level of monitoring should probably be provided.
 
Abstract said:
I don't mind at all, although I don't have my own kids. I think I'd probably set up a rule like above. I mean, eventually, your kids will have to know what porn is. The curiosity is kind of good, actually. It's normal.
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Porn is the least of my concerns.

I can name a dozen far more dangerous topics.
 
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