Letting your kid on SP

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Hiya

I was telling my blokey the other day that when my son is old enough, I would have no problem with him posting on the BoM or going in to chat in the FAI.

The thing is, everyone on here is really friendly and we all try to be good when we know there's younger people around. I wouldn't let him go on any other chat rooms or anything!

So....good parenting move or bad?

 

Well, they'll certainly learn stuff...

I would personally recommend against letting him go on the chatrooms until he's...I dunno, 14, 15. Posting on the forums is probably safer (mostly because all the argument's contained in the AoDA). It really depends on the age you define as "old enough". There's certainly some people who post more risque stuff from time to time, too.

As for trying to be good when there's younger people around - well, there's been no evidence of that because there haven't been any really young people around before. Most of us teens in the chatroom grew up together (aww, how soppy), so it was a consistently shifting age group (I can think of myself, Octy, Aik, CJ and Slith off the top of my head). There hasn't really been a "second generation" here, so to speak.

Though it'll be interesting one day, perhaps, when my little Deathmagelings start posting and have flame wars with Octalots and Taluntoids.

Oh, and if you're having him go the chatrooms, steer him away from Sorvo. He corrupted me.

 

I think i'll keep him away from Tak as well!

I was think about 14/15 age wise

 

That's the age when I became active on SP and the chatrooms, so I don't see why not... (OTOH, I'm probably a bad role model )

 

Yeah, just look at DM. An exemplary young pirate and all because of being here since 15.

 

Deathmage... Join Date: Sep 2001... Current Age: 19... Registration Age: 12

That's actually pretty impressive, not sure I'd want a kid reading some of this at that age (e.g. Barmy's gem of a thread on "private" areas ), but hey... they get worse in school... fo' sho'!

I'd say make the kid figure it out on his own; if he is into this kind of stuff he should find SP eventually. Though I am of course not accounting for the fact that he probably already knows because of his mother. In which case I say something about age 15, young enough to be inspired here (!) and old enough to have some maturity (I hope).

 

I admit I find the Somalian incident quite dramatically interesting.

Imagine!
"You go to bed this instant, young man!" "No way! I'm going to post on RBP #926 some more! In fact, I'm going to start a Poll: 'Is My Dad DM A Doodlehead?' !"

I actually joined a few days before 911. My activities were restricted to the BG2 forums for quite some time...
I only became prominent in the forums when I began chatroom activities. Why do you think I've only got ~1400 posts?

 

I agree with Montresor - BoM is one of the nicest places to be on the net.

Tbh, I have never considered joining a forum/chatroom before I found SP (maybe I'm picky, but I tend to be careful about where/how I spend my time, and have no desire to waste it on rude or pointless places) and now I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon.

This place is... polite. And safe. Decent. A proof that people can communicate to each other in a mature, civilised way - and that there is no topic too odd not to be babbled about.
(There were some err... avoidable threads *looks Barmy's way* but for me they were exceptions confirming the rule.)

So yeah, were I a parent right now, I would let my kid join as soon as it can read/type coherently... and I manage to explain to it to avoid the Alleys until it grows fangs .

 

Ok, this is getting old, but what have you been taking Lore and where can I get some?

..pretty soon no-one's going to believe that you're not using anything if this keeps going on

But seriously, I'm not even bothering to find any other forums than this. Especially the forums that there is in my native language contain far too many crazies and idiots.

The moderators do wonderful work in here and the community is just wonderful. Honestly this is the only place I've found (although I haven't searched that extensively) in which you can exchange opinions with the widest variety of people, who are generally...well at least not completely insane and definitely not idiots (although, perhaps I should humbly exclude myself)

 

@Iku-Turso: There are plenty of places with a wide-variety of people and relative lack of idiots. These places, however, are very rarely child-safe or child-accepting.

@Silvery: BoM is fine for a child of any age, IMO, just keep him/her away from posting in AoDA/AoLS.

 

This, I would say, is an important point. Really, how often do you see a post here that won't have already been topped by a discussion at school? Even BA's seemingly infamous thread ideas are not too far from what said child will have already come into contact with, regardless of whether their parent realises this or not.

 

I am unimpressed with this unprovoked defamation of my impeccable character by various members of this board.

On topic... yeah, let your kids on. I'll take them under my wing.

 

I suppose that's one way of getting parents to ban their offspring from frequenting these boards.

 

My son is daft enough at the age of 16 months without you getting your hands on him!!

Seriously though, my thinking is that I don't want to stop him going on-line otherwise he'll just hide what he's doing. At least on here I know he won't get talking to a load of 'unsafe' people (didn't want to say weirdos coz i know a lot of us already are!).

This site is a perfect place for kids to go on-line in a good environment. With all the awful things you hear, horrer stories about kids meeting people in the 'real world', I think that this is the only way to stop me going mental when Ashley hits his teen years!

Also, I've loved the time I've spent on here, you guys are all fab x

 

Awesome.

 

You missed the second part of my sentence .

And again, nothing. Not a thing. Not even coffee.
(Although I have been told to possess the emotional intelligence of a three year old... maybe that's tripping illegal substances sensors )

IMO, I'm Way Too Childlish for most of RL, as it is today.

 

Sorry 'bout your damn luck, SP, you're getting no second generation spamm... err, posters from me.

 

I joined in 2001, April 20th, so I was 12.
And just look at me now!

SP is an amazing site though, I've loved my time here and enjoyed speaking to the people here. I am more active on the chatrooms than on the forums nowadays (When I can get in) and have found it to be a sheltered harbour amongst the vast internet seas of inappropriateness.

Saying that, I've been gaming online with people of varying ages from 9 to 70 from when I was eight and my friend first got internet. Soon after I got a computer, then internet a year after. Was exposed to quite a lot at once