Introducing kids to the world of PC

Associate
Joined
22 Jun 2018
Posts
1,578
Location
Doon the watah ... Scotland
My son is 6 at the moment, soon to be 7. Whilst he is happy prodding at mobiles and tablets for simple games, youtube etc, he's itching to go at the PCs in the house.

Also at school, they are starting to talk about making little powerpoint type documents and research of animals and what not.

Is there are good way of introducing him to desktop / laptops ?

I don't really want to let him loose on my PC login, so is there are good way/setup of doing it. Its almost like I want a kids version of windows. Super simple, but enough to do simple tasks.

I dont have a mac, but could setup a linux machine rather than windows.

Any ideas ?
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Oct 2009
Posts
13,823
Location
Spalding, Lincs
Add a user account (non-admin), so settings etc will require admin password. I think you can get adult content blocking add-ons for most browsers. Show them the basics, how to turn it on, what the main things do, where to find/put pictures etc.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Oct 2014
Posts
3,064
Location
East of the Middle
At that age a raspberry pi would be awesome. They are such versatile little things and with Google apps for education they can pretty much do anything for school with them.
 
Associate
Joined
25 Oct 2014
Posts
220
My son is 6 at the moment, soon to be 7. Whilst he is happy prodding at mobiles and tablets for simple games, youtube etc, he's itching to go at the PCs in the house.

Also at school, they are starting to talk about making little powerpoint type documents and research of animals and what not.

Is there are good way of introducing him to desktop / laptops ?

I don't really want to let him loose on my PC login, so is there are good way/setup of doing it. Its almost like I want a kids version of windows. Super simple, but enough to do simple tasks.

I dont have a mac, but could setup a linux machine rather than windows.

Any ideas ?

When my daughter was five and a bit i bought her a dell windows PC. Bit less than 400 pounds.

Windows lets you set up an age based account.

She is now 8, writes her own stories on Word and tutors her friends at school when they struggle with PC's.

They are like sponges and work it out for themselves:)
 
Man of Honour
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
29,509
Location
Surrey
Kids love games. So just start teaching them the basics of being able to turn it on, login (maybe their own account) and how to get to a few games websites. my kids loved the friv.com website when they were younger as it has loads of games to discover. Once they understand the basics they will be able to learn everything else gradually.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Jan 2007
Posts
6,167
Location
Dorset
I bought my eldest a second hand laptop, set it up for him with filters on web browser, and off he went. He was 8 at the time, now happily creates word, excel, and power point projects by himself - in fact he now helps my wife out with excel lol

Much easier to let them have their own machine, keeps yours safe and sound.
 
Soldato
Joined
23 May 2016
Posts
3,719
Location
North Essex
I got one of those atom based tablet/laptops for my wife for £60 to stop her bothering my pc.

was a bit sluggy at first but after running decrapifier scripts its a decent little unit now and I intend to let my daughter loose on it as soon as she can handle the idea of it.
 
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