Limiting Kids' Computer Time? 100
Bibu asks: "As a parent of three, I have to spend a lot of effort to keep my kids away from the computer. Until now, we had a Linux box in which a little cron script would just shutdown the machine after half an hour, when the kids were using it. Does someone on Slashdot have a fancier solution? One that keeps track, controls the total time per user per day, and would warn the user of the upcoming deadline (e.g. in five minutes their time is up)? Since we just moved to Mac OS X, solutions for that platform are preferred."
Hacking is not a crime! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hacking is not a crime! (Score:1)
Here's an idea... be a parent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's an idea... be a parent (Score:4, Funny)
I agree wholeheartedly. My parents used tools known as enhanced youngster examiners to monitor my siblings' and my behaviour. These remarkable devices (also known as EYEs) allow the enforcement of all kinds of policies, not just those related to computer use, allowing the parent to ensure that their child's behaviour is appropriate at all times. Used regularly, they can even distinguish between time spent on the computer playing the latest MMORPG and time spent browsing educational web sites and learning new things, allowing the amount of computer time permitted to vary with the way the time is spent! Best of all these devices are available free to nearly all parents, and require very little ongoing maintenance. I highly recommend them!
Re:Here's an idea... be a parent (Score:2)
Little ongoing maintenance? Mine cost me almost $200 per year! Of course, for that price I get the use of two of them, but still, hardly fair to call them "free"...
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Concentrate on making sure they do other things too - encorage them to do their homework, or some kind of exercise, etc. If they're doing that, they're not on the computer. If they don't need to be doing other things, why not let them decide what to do?
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Spending time on the computer doesn't do any harm. Not spending time doing other things can, so that is what you should deal with.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
You're right. I wish there was a device that could measure time accurately, instead of having to rely on our internal estimates. It would also be cool if this time-measuring-device could emit a sound, or otherwise notify someone when a certain time is reached, or a time period has elapsed, so that you wouldn't have to keep looking at it.
But I guess I'm dreaming - such a device is clearly in the re
Re:Why? (Score:1)
I never understood why some parents seem to have such a huge need these days to control their childrens' time and outright "program" it. Sure, it is important to encourage them to do varied things and get out some and excercise and stuff like that, but isn't it a bit overbearing to tell them what to do on time that is clearly their own time, supposing that they've already done their homework, cleaned their room, done the dishes, mowed the lawn, walked the dog, painted the fence etc?
Allocating one's own fr
WHY!?!? (Score:3, Funny)
Yet, they left me the $#*!@) alone, and I played with it and played with it, and I'm a computer programmer today.
Let the kids have some #$)#@ing joy in their life. If they're on too long, then take them off yourself.
Perhaps, OMFG, they're actually DOING SOMETHING USEFUL, like filing emancipation papers!
Re:WHY!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Get some programming software and such and let them play with that as much as they want, and show interest in the "cool" programs and stuff they come up with. Come up with different "challenges" for them to program a solution for.
Have a ghost image of the PC standing by when they accidentally wipe out a file. The "Play" PC should not have anything important on it and if they do accidentally wipe something out, let them explore how to fix it and let them help with restoring it.
Limiting their online time is what you really need to do, and it's easy if you have a router or a gatway, just disable the port that that PC is on except for the times you want to allow them on the net, and keep the router in a separate room, or locked up somehow. And when they are on the net, never be where you can't see the screen and when you are done supervising their internet time, disable the port again.
Computers of them selves are nothing but tools, they can be good for kids. Look how well most of us slashdotters turned out.
In all seriousness, it's not the time on the computer that needs to be limited, it's the time spent at different activities on the computer that needs to be monitored.
Re:WHY!?!? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Even if you buy them books on whatever language they're learning, they will still need google to look up questions once they get more advanced.
I see the internet as a necessary extension of a computer, instead of stopping their internet usage completely, why not just monitor it? If they spend too much time on instant messaging/irc/game websites, tell them that you will have to limit their usage if they continue to visit thes
Re:WHY!?!? (Score:1)
Even if you buy them books on whatever language they're learning, they will still need google to look up questions once they get more advanced
heh..i find this comment really funny considering i learned BASIC in the early 80's before i even knew what a modem was.
damn i feel old..
Re:WHY!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know this might sound unusual, but instead of assigning your kids the "30 minutes alotted compartmentalised computer enjoyment period", you could stay by the computer with them?
If you think they're spending too much time on the computer, why don't you just take them all outside and play an outdoor sport?
Re:WHY!?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think they're spending too much time on the computer, why don't you just take them all outside and play an outdoor sport?
You know, this comment is very insightful, especially for fathers (single or not).
Squirt guns, water balloons and general playing mayhem is a great thing to see when you have a bunch of kids to entertain. Everybody ends up laughing and they won't forget the experience.
Why limit their time?/What do they do? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why limit their time?/What do they do? (Score:1)
It's called Windows.
Re:Why limit their time?/What do they do? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I feel for his poor son... He'd get about 10 minutes of bug fixing in a night, 5 minutes of features, then 15 minutes of compiling before the system forces a shut down.
Re:Why limit their time?/What do they do? (Score:1)
parenting? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:parenting? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:parenting? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:parenting? (Score:1)
As a child of parents who used to do this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Arbitrary time limitations should be a short-term thing rather than a permanent policy, because you're doing your kids a disservice by managing their time for them, which is a life skill they need to acquire on their own. Making sure your kids' work is done and that they're being social with you on a day-by-day basis is much more effective, and they won't hate you for it.
Re:As a child of parents who used to do this... (Score:2)
Re:As a child of parents who used to do this... (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, computer use was limited to 10 minutes per day. I should point out that this was inclusive of both recreational and academic use. Have a paper due tomorrow that you need to type up? Hope you can type the whole thing out in less than 10 minutes (minus the two to three minutes it took windows to boot up, and the additional five it took for word to start). The internet was pointless as we had an old modem (probably 14 or 28k) and it would take longer to actually sign on and load a page than we were allowed to use the computer.
In the end my Uncle bought me a computer and pretty much told my dad to fark off and gave it to me dispite is oppositions. I can still remember waiting until everyone else fell asleep at night and sneaking out to hook up my modem to the phone line, using NetZero to connect when it was still actually free to do research for school or ssh into the schools server to write and compile my programming assignments.
In the end, all the rules really made me learn was to hate my father and to have a sort of innate gut reaction that most rules are completely asinine (a gut reaction that actually seems to pan out most of the time upon fruther logical examination) and only exists as something to get around.
Remember, it only takes 1 or 2 asinine rules imposed on your kids before they'll assume ALL of your rules are completely without a point and ignore everything you say instead of just the stupid stuff.
Re:As a child of parents who used to do this... (Score:1)
I bet you never do this to your own kids (if and when you have them). I consider myself blessed that my own father was much more understanding about my computer time growing up.
Our first computer was an IBM XT that must have cost him an arm and a leg. He spent the time to teach me how to use the computer, and allowed me and my brothers to use it as much as we wanted to. Of course we had to learn to share with each other, and the taking away of computer privledges was a punishment worse than any spanking
Re:As a child of parents who used to do this... (Score:2)
Re:As a child of parents who used to do this... (Score:1)
There was no internet in those days, and I had no modem (wasn't allowed to hook up a phone line) to log on to my friends BBS.
Despite the fact they were against it, I kept experimenting, programming, installing differe
And finally, an answer: (Score:1)
That's not the question (Score:4, Informative)
Now, back on topic: cron's a good start, but AppleScript can help you. Schedule the command osascript -e "display dialog \"You have five minutes left on the computer\"" & sleep 300 && osascript -e "tell app \"Finder\" to log out" - it's probably a little cleaner of an interface that way. Ampersands sic: the single ampersand causes the first command to run in the background, so the timer starts ticking as soon as the dialog appears. The double ampersand waits for the five minutes to finish. (This isn't the idea behind the different syntaxes, but it's close enough for our purposes.)
Re:That's not the question (Score:1)
Don't tell him how to parent his children? I didn't, it's just my opinion, and don't think that you can silence me by saying that "nobody" wants to hear what I have to say. You're only speaking for yourself.
Re:That's not the question (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:That's not the question (Score:2)
Re:That's not the question (Score:3, Insightful)
You're qualified to offer an opinion regardless. Being a parent doesn't escalate you to some grandious level of wisdom or insight. It means you are capable of combining sperm and egg. Congratulations on doing something dogs and hamsters can do, too.
Further, if you're asking for advice of any kind on here, whatever judgements or questions are raised about any aspect of i
Re:That's not the question (Score:1, Troll)
It means you have actual experience parenting. Which means your opinion counts more than some armchair expert Slashdotter who still hasn't really grown up and thinks restrictions on his 'rights' of any kind is 'sooooooo unfaaairrr'...
Re:That's not the question (Score:2, Insightful)
Is there some magical thing handed out to parents that makes them infinitely more wise and experienced simply for having spread their legs and dropped seven pounds of gooey baby? If so, why are so many parents apparently not receiving this magical gift and doing such a shit-poor job at it?
Religious fana
Re:That's not the question (Score:2)
Don't be ridiculous (parent vs non-parent) (Score:2)
Nobody wants to hear your opinion about parenting based on your experiences as a child.
Maybe you don't want to hear it. Perhaps you should let the submitter of the question decide what he does/doesn't want to hear. Oddly enough, that is not your decision to make.
If you're a parent, you're qualified to offer an opinion (not impose one). If you're not, don't tell this guy how to parent his children.
I find it both amusing and disturbing that people who manage to procreate think this imbues them wi
Re:Don't be ridiculous (parent vs non-parent) (Score:1)
Re:That's not the question (Score:2)
On a slightly alternate path it is certainly someone's right to state how not to raise your children. Taking it to an unnecessary extreme if you think that beating your child is
Re:That's not the question (Score:2)
I love hearing this argument.
I have the wisdom not to go out and knock some chick up. I may at some point CHOOSE to reproduce, but I consider both financial stability and a detailed understanding of developmental psychology as prerequisites to that decision.
The fact that someone has managed to satisfy a basic biological urge that even single-celled organisms can manage, doesn't really say much about their ability to raise their "fruit of
Re:That's not the question (Score:2)
Re:That's not the question (Score:1)
Yeah, but we can let him know he's being a grade-A ass and what to expect out of a relationship with his child in the future.
Responsible Parenting (Score:4, Funny)
Works on everything: Overly complicated (Score:2)
OTOH, I agree with most of the previous posts- all time spent
C'mon! (Score:1, Offtopic)
obligatory rtfm post. (Score:1, Redundant)
man shutdown
man crontab
man sudo
# should have you nicely set up it.
Is it obligatory? (Score:2, Informative)
"Until now, we had a Linux box in which a little cron script would just shutdown the machine after half an hour, when the kids were using it. Does someone on Slashdot have a fancier solution?"
Re:Is it obligatory? (Score:1)
$mac_solution == $linux_solution
I think you saw some good answers already (Score:2)
On a related note, and perhaps you are not looking for opinions on this, but if your children are doing their homework, eating their vegetables, finishing their chores, etc. then limiting their computer usage will probably feel like more of a punishment than a guideline. You might have better experience monitoring them in person, rather than scripting something. This is, of course, un
I can't WAIT until your kids get older (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:I can't WAIT until your kids get older (Score:1)
This is easy (Score:4, Funny)
Half an hour? (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, your kids already know how to boot up knoppix, temporarily shut off your cron script, reboot, play games, turn the script back on, and shut down the computer before you get home. And if they don't know it yet, they'l figure it out. Nothing motivates kids like excessive and arbitrary restrictions.
When I was a kid, my parents did similar things. It only served to make me angry. The time I spent using the computer was a lot more useful than, say, the time I spent running around outside or reading school books for no reason. I figured out pretty quickly how to defeat their various computer-time-limiting methods.
Good luck.
P.S. I have to know... is this Ask Slashdot a troll? Did the editors approve it because they knew people would get riled up?
P.P.S. Yes, this answer is offtopic. Saying this is worth burning some mod points.
Re:Half an hour? (Score:2)
Re:Half an hour? (Score:2)
Exactly! I can remember when I was a kid, the height of parental control was.. the keyboard lock. Anyone remember those? Funky little cylindrical key which switched between allowing the keyboard to be recognized and not? That one had me foiled for maybe a few days, until I decided to take the computer apart and see how it worked.. and realized it was quite simple to just disconnect the wire - the default state was
0.5 hours?! (Score:4, Insightful)
They'll notice that you're allowed to play on the computer more than they are, and for longer stints, and they're going to get resentful.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Re:0.5 hours?! (Score:2)
Huh? Is this how you act as a parent? This is modded insightful?
As a parent, I spend more time on the computer than my kid. I can also drink a beer at dinner, stay up later, watch more TV, and drive. You know what I say to my kid when he complains that I do things he can'
Re:0.5 hours?! (Score:1)
Quite a stellar bit of reasoning there, Plato.
Re:0.5 hours?! (Score:2)
The more you repeat it, the more the child will get used to the schedule, and the less likely it is that your child is going to use the computer as a tool for anything but email and instant messaging
login.conf (Score:5, Informative)
accounted true
daytime time
to
where accounted turns accounting on and where time is the time in seconds but can prefixed in the unix way i.e. 2h is 2 hours.
daytime limits the total wall clock time allowed per day. You can also set per session limits (sessiontime) and total times per week (weektime) as well, if you would like as well.
use the command warntime to set the end of time warning, but it may send this to the login tty rather than to X (or whatever the mac graphics are).
For the exact format take a look at:
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2001/01/17/FreeBS
A technical solution isn't needed. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Their own consciences should govern such things (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Their own consciences should govern such things (Score:2)
Kids do self-destructive things. Not the ones without consciences. Not the irresponsible ones. Kids. Left to themselves, they'll watch twelve hours of television a day, li
Re:Their own consciences should govern such things (Score:1)
Also - few people seem to be considering the age of the children. My 18 month old can already push a chair to the computer, climb up on it, and switch the computer on. She doesn't talk yet (except mama/dada), so she's not quite capabl
Re:Their own consciences should govern such things (Score:1)
You are wrong because:
_x_ Amazingly Bad Analogy
Kids that play too many video games can not do well in school, grow up antisocial, or get fat. Kids that find guns or play with electricty had a strong chance of dying Slippery slope surrenders?
a Batman movie which he wouldn't normally be allowed to watch. Batman? BATMAN? Even mormons and fundamental islamics wouldn't
Stop them at the router (Score:1)
Pool timer + UPS... (Score:1)
Apps (Score:2)
It looks pretty robust, probably takes advantage of a fair amount of the features built into Windows, by the looks of some of the interface screens.
Mac Minder and DG Complete (Score:3, Informative)
Michael. [michael-forman.com]
I am not a parent, but, I have a LOT of friends... (Score:2)
Basically, as I am sure others will no doubt point it out, YOU have to take responsibility. Don't rely on the box. I can honestly say that _I_ haven't heard about any of my friend's kids have a problem with spending too much time in front of the computer. No doubt it hapens in some cases, but
As an aside, I can
don't restrict them unless they do bad in school (Score:1)
Back through the mists of time... (Score:1)
Forget it (Score:2)
Do you have any real reason why you want to limit time?
Kids don't have cars. If they had a chaffeur to drive them around at their request they stil wouldn't use it. IM is the wonder product for people of their age and I'd suggest you be careful in trying to l
overvalue exercise? (Score:2)
I'm not a sports fanatic by any means, but what's wrong with helping your child balance physical and intellectual disciplines? Your post seems to suggest that children should be allowed to dismiss any modicum of moderation; I think this is a
Re:overvalue exercise? (Score:1)
And the guy did say "Encourage, but do not force." I don't think the rant was about encouraging a sense of balance between physical and mental abilities - rather, valuing physical abilities over mental ablilities.
How times have changed... (Score:5, Insightful)
My parents were never rich. But they did want me to have a good education. In the 1980's, everybody and their brother just knew that the secret of a good education was to get your kid(s) a computer. Now, of course, the leader of this charge was mainly Apple, with their IIe and IIc lines (the Mac had just barely come out, and it was expensive and not targetted toward kids), Radio Shack had their Color Computer line, Atari had the 600 and 800, and Commodore had the Vic-20 and 64. Hardly any of the schools had computers - I remember when my elementary school got its first Apple IIe, they wheeled it around on a cart, and each class got it for a week. Our school was small enough that we managed to get it twice a year (!). It was popular enough, though, that in a couple of years they openned up an Apple "lab" next to the school library, with about 20 Apple IIe's for the kids and teachers.
Play your games, learn typing, learn spelling, play with LOGO, and if you really knew what you were doing, you could play with BASIC.
Those were the days - me and a few of my friends all had computers. One of us had a Timex Sinclair (ugh), a couple of us had C64's, I personally had a TRS-80 Color Computer. None of us cared about incompatibility - we played with BASIC, traded code written down on paper or printouts - I remember the effort we put in to get a maze drawing program working that a friend of my friend who lived nearby, who had a TRS-80 Model 4 (power!), had given him. We were in the 5th grade. Our computers were hooked up to TVs in our bedrooms, and we were hooked.
A couple of years passed, most of us had floppy drives by then, and a few of us got lucky: we begged, we pleaded, and we got modems. Not anything fancy, most of us got 300 baud manual dial/pickup things - one of the lucky guys got a 1200 baud screamer. This was in the 7th grade. We BBS'ed and had a blast dialing locally when we could. I had a friend who was a little more daring (and in high school) at the time, who had a phone junction box outside his bedroom. He managed to get it open, jack into someone's line, and would dial long-distance to LA, and bring back rare downloads from places like the the MetalShop BBS (I still have a printout of those files I traded with him, somewhere)...
We surfed the beginning - I later discovered things like TymeNet and such, but never managed to get internet access (not possible unless you were really lucky and went to one of the local universities or colleges) - that had to wait. But BBS'ing was where it was. I was a kid, and still I managed to get that dreaded evil of parents: Porn. Yeah, it was black and white or 4 color at best, blocky, and not the greatest stuff - but yeah, I delved into teh 3v1L. We all did. We all had fun. We went to school, we came home, we hacked our machines. I still have a lightgun I fashioned for mine out of junk parts, a toilet paper tube, some cardboard, and a magnifying lens - grafted onto a joystick. We coded. We learned. For all of it, we got an education, learned to program, improved our grades, and stuck with it through school...
Today, I am proud to say I am a professional software developer. I am proud of my skills, in software, and in hardware. I continue to increase my knowledge of these magical boxes daily. I don't know where I would be today had my parents never bought me one so long ago.
My parents never limited my time - unless my grades got low (yeah, I had problems just like every other kid). That would happen, my computer would be taken away for a while - that forced me to be a better student, to study more, and to keep my grades up. I learned how to use my machine to allow me to make my grades better, to learn how to learn. My computer was always in my room, and eventually, I got others (just before leaving high school in 1991, I had three computers in my room, two of them "networked" via the serial ports - the third was a laptop).
All I am trying to get at here is how my life would have, could have,
Get BumperCar. (Score:2)