Second Life for Kids?

My two nephews have fallen in love with Second Life. I meet their mom every morning for breakfast, she puts the laptop on the kitchen table and we have breakfast together sitting in my bar. They are both well above average intelligence and have had no trouble understanding some of the buildling concepts I've tried to explain to them about Second Life. When I say they are above average intelligence I mean to the level that one of them spent a weekend calculating the volume of the planets because he was bored with first grade. They could easily pick up the building environment of Second Life and want to be able to build on their own but the fact that it isn't rated G is a huge problem - they are only six years old. I am comfortable with them looking over their mother's shoulder at breakfast because we never go anywhere but the beach bar I built on my PG land but obviously neither their mom nor I want them to have access to the rest of the grid. SOOOOOO my question is - does anyone know of a Second Life type environment for kids where they can build and visit with their friends? If not that, is there a building program out there their mom could purchase to let them explore 3D building? I think SketchUp might not be as user-friendly as Second Life is... but we want to encourage them to explore and learn as much as possible and right now they are fired up for some 3D building!

Hi Sukiri

your friend might want to check out some of the software in this link. Some are free and some require purchasing.
The first post has links to the secondlife wiki which has explanations of each software product and links to the actual sights.


My suggestion would be the Plopp program to get the kids started.


/8/8d/196863/1.html

Sign them up to the Second Life Teen-Grid, all land there is PG and should people under 18. I dunno what the minimum age for it is supposed to be though, the name would imply 13.

It's 13 to 18. I could see one for the littles, and if they did create one, my son would love it, since he loves watching me build, texture, and explore. Just not sure how that would work, since my son can't read or write too well yet. Hmmm...

My son signed up to the teen grid a couple of years ago after watching me build in SL. He was very excited at the prospect of creating things.

Sadly, he only went on the teen grid a couple of times. He found the level of grifing and 'stupidness' as he put it, too frustrating. Everytime he started trying to build, someone would come along and drop prims on him or something.

He has just turned 17 and I have promised him a premium membership to the main grid on his 18th - as long as he does some building work for me now and then, lol

I wish there was something more "G" rated for younger children also. I have a 12 year old daughter who is looking forward to joining the teen grid when she turns 13. However, I'm just a little wary about that. To me.....13-18 is a huuuuge age gap. She keeps asking if you can make things the same way on the teen grid, do they have shopping and stores, etc. I told her I'm not totally sure but I would imagine so. Right now she belongs to Club Penguin and Star Dollz, which captures the social (and shopping) side of a virtual world, but no original content at all. SL should really consider something along those lines. A very tamed down, simplified version of SL for the little people.

I have 2 teens on the teen grid. boy13 and girl14. I help the boy as he is the scripter the builder the girl is always chatting with boys... and we have to keep a big eye on the logs etc.
if you think the XXX stuff is bad on the adult grid well I think the crazy gangsta ho beiotch and dating is worse there. and the griefing well lets say I never have seen so many marios and cages and poofers and bubbles and guns its non stop.

I thought of getting them some land so they could have a place to create and learn with out all the goofyness.

Stores are minimal that I have seen, as well the events and such are almost nil. of course I haven't spent hours on end in there just 30 min a day 3-4 times a week is all I allow for them.

and as well yeah thats a huge gap 13-18

THis kind of confirms for me what i imagined the teen grid would be. I just don't feel comfortable with her in that kind of environment (um..that chatting with boys stuff you mentioned for one thing....lol), at least not at 13. Of course, in a year things can change and hopefully there will be a better world for kids. I seriously think it would be a huge moneymaker for LL. I pay right now for her to belong to Club Penguin, and buy her "stardollars" to buy clothes on Star Dollz. A lot of parents are more willing to spend for their children's entertainment than they are for their own. I still suffer pangs of guilt when I pay my premium and tier every month!

My son who's 3.5 yrs old went absolutely crazy when he saw a helicopter flying around SL......he loved it. So I told him that we would buy one. Off we went, shopping for helicopters......finally we found a really sleek looking black shiny one and that was the one he wanted. We flew it around a few times before he had go go to bed.

Well, the next morning he came running down the stairs, and ran to the window.. When I asked him what he was looking for he told me that he couldn't see his helicopter..... Was very very very very upset that there was no helicopter outside...... Felt so sorry for him...

Anyway, kids are so advanced nowadays......and it's great that all you parents want to give your kids the opportunity to learn a new skill such as 3-D building... Don't think mine is quite ready for that yet, but he can browse youtube and enjoys watching videos of.....you guessed it...Helicopters...

This made me smile, Pocket. My youngest is almost 5 and, since I play on SL with my RL husband, he loves to watch us. I try to limit playing to when he's in bed so my kids don't feel ignored and all, but sometimes if they're busy, we jump on for a while. Inevitably, they come to watch. I showed him the Titanic replica one day because he loves that movie (well, we start it right when the ship hits the iceberg...he doesn't really need to see Jack paint Rose) and he was excited about that. Also, I like to show him some of the planes, helicopters and trains. He even likes to watch me decorate my house sometimes. And if they're watching and asking questions....I don't feel so much like I'm ignoring them....more like showing them what's available through technology. Of course, by the time they're grown-ups....who knows what it will be like!

If you want a no-hassle SecondLife experience, check out the DGiG standalone SecondLife Grid. I just fired it up this past weekend and may use it to fine tune building/scripting items.

Here's a link:
http://wiki.magrathean.ca/index.php?title=DGiG

It's a "bare" bones grid and literally no inventory, but it's a great start. And you will start out once again as Ruth

I'm using the Nicholaz Old-School client viewer, but any of the official SL clients will work as well.


So far, I've rezzed a cube

there is a law forbidding kids in the US from using any chat programs until age 13 or having an email address of their own.

I forget the name off hand.

I would hope that in years to come we could have grids availlable for peeps as young as they are able to understand ..

@ Pocket .. please try the free demo version of MSFSX ( a real flight sim ) .. no lagging across sim's .. ( in fact all one huge sim ) ..


Wanna go further and learn to fly to the moon and beyond see ..


This is the ultimate flight sim .. even learn to fly as you go.


http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html


MSFSX = Microsoft Flight Sim X = http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/flightsimulatorx.aspx

.. not gonna try the [IMG]thing but this is the ultimate earth bound flight experiance .. from microlight to 747 .

Are you thinking of COPPA, the law about collecting personal info of kids under 13 from the internet? I had to deal with this law when i was running a forum. Had to have parental permission for kids under 13, it was a pain and we finally stopped accepting kids under 13 on the board.

There's chat on Club Penguin, but it's pretty much a series of phrases that are pre-selected. On Star Dollz, I have to print out a form, sign it and fax or mail it into them giving my permission for my daughter to be able to chat on there. Or something like that. I haven't done that for her, and am not quite ready to.......yet. She's only 12, and not too savvy yet on internet protocol. We've explained it all to her...but at that age, they just want to play. She's not really too interested in "lectures" on internet safety at this point, so I feel it's best to just avoid those situations for as long as possible.

I know exactly what you mean Sunni......I wait till my little man has gone to bed then I literally leap onto the computer at lightening quick speed!!!

But it's kinda nice when they're beside you asking questions......but can be funny too...for example..."mammy, what are you doing now?" to which I reply, just a second luvvy, Mammy's just changing into a fairy!

This is scary. Aren't kids confused enough? Do they have to lose touch with reality before then even find it? so soon?

Both my kids love SL ..... allthough its rare they come and sit with either me or thier mum becasue of the nature of SL to the most part .... but my oldest is a very intelligent little chap and i think they got bored of toontown so if there WAS a kiddies SL ... i would proberly sign them up for it

Mine loves Toon Town and Club Penguin too - he watches me on SL sometimes when I am wandering about my land- but you have to be so careful of places they can see. Mine is particularly nosy at times and tries to sneak up on me to see what I am up to -

haven't read farther but I don't believe that for a second.

1.)Earthlink (who I will never use again) we had my son on that with his own KIDS account at 8
special browser and mail that changed as you set the age.
2.AOL has the same crap.
3.) everyone of the nieces nephews cousins etc. are on the web with e-mails and web sites in my family, I'm old LOL and most of them are young you know 10-15 some younger some older teens.

What law is this? sites like Teen SL say 13, my spazzz 14, DMusic 14 ( or any age with parent consent and account)

meez? 12 I think man there are so many...what about nick jr.com come on theres no law

EDIT: colecting info yep but not e-mail or any other thing. YES it is real scary about the giving of personal info and getting them to understand the ramifications... but its the parents responsibility to know what their children are doing not the governments/law.

I know what you mean. I was out shopping for Christmas decorations, and right beside the store was something advertising sex beds. Had to turn my camera away from that pretty quickly because my 12 year old was watching. She still seems pretty naive about things, honestly, and I just wasn't about to get into explaining exactly what a sex bed is and does.

Honestly, I thought that, too. But realized that their reality is becoming more and more technological everyday. They go on interactive websites at school to reinforce what they're learning now. Believe me, I limit the amount of time my daughter can spend on the computer, she gets a ration of so many hours per week, and how she spends those hours is up to her. The computer she uses is in a common area and we are always walking up behind her to make sure everything is okay. My little boy....well, he likes to play games on Thomas & Friends website sometimes, but not overly interested in the computer right now. However, if anything on there....in any way at all....involves anything motorized or vehicular in nature, he is riveted. He actually thinks it's funny that mommy and daddy have "people" on the computer....I showed him some funny animations one time, the ones on the Mirada smart hud, and the belly laughs rolled out.