relax it works!

[angie]

i just thought i would share this moment with everyone we have been HE since march this year so sometimes i am quite nervous of doing the right thing,
even though i trust my son (age 7) to make decisions i become twitchy when he said he wanted to play the PC now that he has internet connection, that was three days ago, (anyway i reasoned that because he couldn't read too well he would be safe) and all he wanted to do was play games, that's alright, isn't it?
anyway he downloaded and played all the free games that interested him, first night he was up until 11.30 pm, next morning he was up again at 5.30am.

The second day he played until 8.pm with a 7.am start.

today we had a 8.am start then around lunch time we had to go shopping...he took a book to read in the car...he doesnt usually do this.
when he came home he got his camera out and began to take photos of a butterfly, (he doesn't usually do this either!) he then downloaded them onto his PC...
then he began playing again and i suppose i wasn't taking much notice when he called me to say look mummy at this move i thought he might be playing some shoot/kill game...he was playing chess!!...and the most amazing thing is neither I nor his father have ever taught him how to play!

[Sandra Dodd]

HA! That's a great example!

It's a beautiful vision of a life-changing time.

[Meredith]

My 7yo has been learning chess through the Nick Jr games site. I didn't realize that was one of the games she's been playing until she came running up to me to tell me she'd figured out the knight's move! Both my kids have picked things up like that, playing computer or video games. Mo, especially (the 7yo) enjoys figuring things out rather than being told or shown, so those kinds of games are really perfect for her. Lately she's been enjoying a program that lets you create simple animations, even simple games, and another that lets her write and illustrate short stories. She's figured both programs out mostly on her own - and I've been amazed at how much she's learned from playing games about things like plot development and writing dialog. She's not much of a reader (although she knows how to read) so she hasn't learned those things from books. Its made me look at games a bit differently. Many of them are much richer than I had previously realized!

[Flywithme]

Ohhh, could you share those websites? I'd love to be able to show them to the kids that are interested in that sort of thing!!