Nintendo DS feedback - Page 2

[Brittee]

Originally Posted by Indigomama

I think the biggest issue i have with it is that the kids will literally get together and then play their ds's together.

Wait until they are older, then they will get together to listen to their ipods!

One of the things I like about my ds, (I am 26 and a gaming geek married to a 27 year old gamer) is that the games usually offer cooperative play, meaning that my ds will send a minigame signal to my husband's ds and then we can play against each other in a mini battle. We haven't tried the full version, and we can only afford one game cartridge, but we really enjoy it when we are waiting to do things. Also on long car rides, one person plays while one person drives. The only thing I dislike is the price of games. It's hard to come up with the money, even for used games, so I like to rent first if I can to make sure it's a worthwhile purchase.
I can understand your hesitance if your dc has an aversion to the end of his technology time, and I want to second what a pp suggested about it being on the weekends. Some of the games are very educational, in a fun and interesting way, and it is very easy to get sucked in.

[redpajama]

My 5-year-old got one for Christmas. My 16-year-old nephew outgrew his and gave it to us with quite a few games to give to our son. I have mixed feelings about it, as he loves it SO much that it can be hard for him to break away from. Here's how we've handled it:

1. Although my nephew gave us 6-or-so games for it, we only gave him one game. We didn't want it to be endlessly entertaining. He has Mario Kart, and that's it. (Unfortunately, we are learning that he has a really incredible capacity for playing Mario Kart).

2. We also let him "earn" his time--up to 30 minutes a day--by doing other things like reading, puzzles, chores, et cetera.

3. If he "freaks out" when his time is up, or simply doesn't turn it off when we tell him it's time (we're reasonable and let him finish his lap/game/whatever, and we always warn him that he has 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 1 minute), we put it away for awhile (from several days to several weeks).

And this is what gives me the most pause. When we put it away for a while, he doesn't seem to ask for it--he seems to accept, relatively easily, that it's just not an option. But when it's a part of his daily-or-nearly-daily life, he seems obsessed with it. This makes me want it to just go away indefinitely. We won't likely get rid of it, but right now it's "away" (going on 3 weeks) and I'm not in any hurry to get it back out. In fact, the plan was to give him another game for his birthday (a week ago), but it had been away for a couple weeks at that point and he wasn't asking for it, so we opted not to bring it up by introducing a new game.

Anyway, I don't think it's a horrible idea, but I also often wish we hadn't given it to him. If your child self-moderates pretty well, and you're comfortable with him playing it a bit, I don't think it's a terrible idea, and it sounds like he would certainly enjoy it.

[meemee]

my dd asked for a ds. actually now dsi. for the amount of work she has done (asked mostly friends and others which one to buy, what games to play) i feel she deserves the DSi.

i will perhaps give the first month or so of unlimited play. but before i did that i would let her know that i would not like her to spend too much time on the DSI because of eye and finger/wrist issues.

she understands. now she plays on my facebook those games and she self regulates.

but she gets the plans and restrictions done way before she starts.

plus dd is part of the new communications age. she gains technological knowledge it seems by osmosis. i may struggle for a week but seh will do it as if she has been doing it all her life.

[EFmom]

Mine got them when they were about your child's age. Although I fought it, it hasn't been the end of the world. We are much more restrictive about screen time overall than most of their peers' parents, but we have high levels of restriction about lots of things. So we let them DS for a hours a week. I think it's pretty harmless and they enjoy it. It does come in handy for things like waiting in the doctor's office.

I have to agree with your husband that I think it does sometimes suck to be the only kid without something. That doesn't mean that I give our kids everything their colleagues have, but I do sympathize with them.

I know that I used to actually think that if we gave them enriched, art and music filled, academically challenging lives that they wouldn't crave all the same crap their friends had.

[mom_2_carson]

For those who have time limits, what are the limits and what's the age of the child. I'm looking at getting one for DS's bday in March but want to figure a few things out first.

And, school me on the DS, is the DSi worth the extra $? What do I need to know? DS has played on a cousins once and he keeps asking for one without the "pen", I'm assuming he's talking about the stylus, but is that the original DS not the one that's available now, right? I've never been into video games before, I have a lot to learn!