I just want your extra time and your... kids

Growing up I thought that song was the inner dialogue of a television set, with these words:

You don't have to be beautiful
To turn me on
I just need your body baby
From dusk till dawn
You don't need experience
To turn me up
You just leave it all up to me
I'm gonna show you what it's all about

You don't have to be rich
To be my girl
You don't have to be cool
To rule my world
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
I just want your extra time and your

Kids

I thought it was a very thought-provoking piece on the American TV culture... I was a bit disappointed to find out it was just Prince trying to woo every girl on the planet.

Having two young kids it is hard to resist the siren call of the television.  When it comes to hearing them whine or fight over toys, or playing Barbie or babies, you quickly start to wonder if it can be THAT bad for them to watch another movie...

Now that they are old enough to reasonably operate a computer, I've been trying to get them to do that more than watch TV.  It gives me a break (until they start fighting over who's turn it is) and they are at least doing something interactive.*

What can young kids do on the computer?

There are numerous websites out there with tons of free games your kids can play online.  Most of them are Flash, which is great for people like us who run Linux.  However, be sure you are running Adblock aggressively or they will be inundated with ads.  While I'd like to teach my kids not to be impressionable about advertisements I've found A: I'd rather not have to at all, and B: I can't.  Ads are cool to them.

Here are some of my daughter's favorites:
NickJr.com   (Watch out for ActiveX games, but most of the videos won't play on linux.  This is good)
Playhouse Disney (The princess area draws the girls, but is essentially without content.)
PBSKids.org  (This has increased by vast steps recently, but watch out for videos.)
Noggin (A lot of crossover from Nickjr.com, but the videos tend to work better)
Sprout Online (A lot of crossover with PBSKids.org)
Lego (There is even a princess section with decent generic princess content, or at least non-Disney non-Barbie princess content)
Polly Pocket /  Barbie  (All of the 'everythinggirl' sites are full of unabashed advertisement, I will frequently find the girls watching TV spots over and over again, ARGH!)

Some things about these sites:
Watch out for the video sections.  Vege city.
They will browse away, close the window, right click in flash, etc.  and need your help.  The browser isn't the best platform for kids gaming.  You'll also have issues with ActiveX, Windows Media Player, etc.  This gets better as time goes on, though, they will figure out what they can and can't do fairly quickly.

Ubuntu has some great kids games in its software repository, just open up the Synaptic Package Manager and search for Pygame and Childsplay.  Childsplay is a bit more polished.  Make sure you get some extra modules for both to get all of the good games.  Childsplay has some great games for very young kids to help them learn how to use the mouse and keyboard to interact with the computer before they graduate to complicated things like using a flash game.   Other good ones are  Tuxpaint (a paint program for kids) and Frozen Bubble (a bit advanced for my kids still).  The quality varies significantly, but there are great free games in the repositories, for all ages. 

'Cause letting your play on the computer is WAY better than sitting them in front of the TV... right?...

*Note: be wary of websites, there are many with hidden video sections that just substitute the TV with a 3 inch TV on your computer that shows a 3 minute clip with 2 minute pre and post-roll ads.  Some even have video clips of the TV ads that your kids will love to watch over and over again...