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Around age 5ish, mostly Storybots. Ruff Ruffman. A few other shows handled it well for younger kids.

Once a bit older, maybe 7-8, I setup an old laptop with debian and allow-listed network connection, etc. Let them play with it and gave them learning activities.

Lemmy will say, give them an old desktop with linux.

I would say the same. No ipads or smartphones. Give them books on coding. Build a pc with them. Learn to solder.

I saw one comment about baking and that reminded me…

If you let your 6 year-old bake, you don’t teach them oven safety then leave them to it. You do it together.

The same is probably good for tech and internet. Do it as a together thing. And that means also cultivating good habits yourself. If you sit watching porn all day and writing hate mail on Facebook, telling your niece she’s not old enough for it yet, she’s going to see and want to try.

What is ((thing)) for? How do we use it? The answers are learnt in watching and in doing it together. I know the internet is famous for children learning all sorts of things by themselves (including good things). But I think for healthy development, this still applies, and when they’re ready for The Great World Beyond With All Its Pitfalls And Evils, they’re more ready.

At what point is a mouth ready to drink from a firehose?

‘Old enough’ is a troublesome concept. I’ve met parents in their 40s who I wouldn’t say met the mental competence minimum to be capable of informed consent, so age isn’t really the measure.

If you want to give a kid the chance to learn tech but not be messed up by it, the best advice I’ve seen is to keep it isolated and user focused. The computer is a place they can go to when they demand its utility, not with them all the time and demanding their attention. The computer is a tool to let them do something else, not a way to cure 30 second windows of boredom with a stream of content. No internet or uncontrolled content, only curated software with no social aspect so they aren’t open for exploitation. The internet is basically a ‘no’ for maintaining sanity and safety. They’ll get access to all sorts of things as they get older/gain autonomy, so you won’t have to worry about when it’s appropriate to give them access.

Some of the kids game sites like coolmath are still around. Lots of quick games that designed to be fun, beaten, but not drain your soul.

Also turn off the adblocker at some point. Kids gotta learn what’s an ad and what’s not.

Doesn’t directly answer your question but relevant:

https://www.waituntil8th.org/

"The Wait Until 8th pledge empowers parents to rally together to delay giving children a smartphone until at least the end of 8th grade. Let’s protect the elementary and middle school years from the distractions and the dangers of a smartphone. Banding together helps decrease the pressure to have a phone at an early age. Ten years old is the average age children get their first smartphone. You can change this!

Smartphones are distracting and potentially dangerous for children yet are widespread in elementary and middle school because of unrealistic social pressure and expectations to have one.

These devices are quickly changing childhood for children. Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on YouTube.

Parents feel powerless in this uphill battle and need community support to help delay the ever-evolving presence of the smartphone in the classroom, social arena and family dinner table. Link arms with other parents to wait until at least the end of eighth grade for a smartphone!"

I used a thin client, HP T610+, and installed Windows XP POS.

this is a point-of-sale version of windows xp that’s basically XPSP3. it comes with Ethernet, WiFi, touchscreen drivers, etc. works really well actually.

I firewalled it from internet access and allowed my kid to surf the intranet I host along with standard 90s 00s kids software.

• reader rabbit
• Disney interactive games
• encarta 98

I also used a kid keyboard that deviates from the typical 102 keyboard. no function keys etc.

you could do the same with an old x86 laptop too, recommend using a dual core CPU if possible though.

to ensure nothing is broken, I used software called deepfreeze from Faronics. it freezes the system and restores the system after reboots. just to make it clear, this means any changes to the “c” drive will not be permanent.

to keep the save files I used a some batch scripts/shortcut trickery and re/store them from the NAS when the apps start and end.

in the end it’s sitting in my tech closet after my eldest lost interest after a year. Now I’m waiting for my youngest to break it out again.