If you’re not aware, Leann and I have two kiddos. Right now, Josh is six and Jackson is four. Saturday, for the first time, Josh played a math game online at home that he has at school. The game required a username and password, both of which Josh remembered, although they use cards at school. As a geek dad, I was so proud!

The computer I had as a kid

This got me thinking about the different decisions parents face now than they did when I was growing up. In my family, we were fairly early adopters of the home PC, and although I was on BBS‘s back in middle school, my kids have access to the entire Internet almost a decade earlier than I did.

For example, both of our boys have Twitter accounts. Right now, however, it’s just Leann and myself (mostly me) posting funny things they say to each of their accounts. I occasionally have fake conversations with them online, complete with @timjpriebe, @joshuapriebe and @jacksonpriebe. These conversations replicate funny conversations we had in person.

But at what age do I let them start updating their own Twitter accounts? Twitter has no limit of their own, although Facebook limits the age to 13. Should Leann and I let them have a Facebook account when they’re 13?

Both of the boys are aware that I work on computers all day. Jackson doesn’t know what a website is, but Josh is starting to get the idea. So as the children of a web designer (the S in T&S Web Design does, after all, stand for Sons), total avoidance of the online world isn’t really a feasible possibility. What do we let them do, and when do we let them do it?

I’d love to hear from other parents on this, as I feel like I have lots of questions, but none of the answers.

Parents, what have you done that has and hasn’t worked?

After your doodle of the day is over in 15 days, I do fully expect a long list of why your wife is awesome. Or you could do the list before your doodle days are over.

Since I’m on a visual kick, I decided to make my list out of pictures. And, of course, I would be in major trouble if I didn’t out-do my list of doodles.

So, with no further ado, here are thirty-eight reasons why my wife is awesome, in no particular order:

Josh with his newly opened robot computer game, Machinarium

This Christmas, one of the gifts I got last minute for Josh, my five year old, was Machinarium, which I’ve blogged about before. It’s a game with fantastic artwork and robots as the main characters.

Naturally, it came as a download. But as smart as Josh is, I was pretty sure software without some physical representation. So while in Dallas for Christmas, I used my dad’s printer that will print on CD’s, and made a decent CD and case for it.

Josh opened the gift Christmas Eve, and he seemed happy enough to get it. Later I found out there was some confusion, and he thought it was his three year old brother Jackson’s game. He was even happier once that was cleared up.

I decided to use the game as a father-son bonding activity. So I told Josh that as long as he behaved, we would play it every Sunday afternoon for an hour or two.

The first Sunday we played, I did feel my patience being tested a bit, as I let him guide me in what to do. I did give him suggestions, but let him decide how to play the game. The game had some hint options built in, which I was fine with using. I did try to get Josh to actually figure things out before we resorted to the hints.

On the sixth Sunday we were playing the game, we beat it. Josh went ahead and gave some feedback on what he thought about the game.

Overall, the experience was fun for both of us. It was nice to bond over a game that you actually had to think to play. I was fairly impressed with how well Josh did. If you’re a father, I would highly recommend playing through a point and click game like Machinarium with your five year old.