<p>im a student- my parents let me use AIM whenever i want, because i cant use the phone (i’m deaf) and they want me to be “sociable” lol</p>
<p>Some people can be moderate with it, others, like myself cannot. In fact, I’m excessive in just about everything I do. If you have a child with the same problem I have (i.e: if I’m interested in something or like doing a particular thing like messing around on the internet, I can’t be moderate about it!) you might want to have a talk to them.</p>
<p>I love AIM.</p>
<p>I think its insane to want to moderate your childs AIM time.</p>
<p>First of all, if you only allow them to go on at certain times, then the people they want to talk to are probably not on. The point of AIM is to provide easy communication, I have it running in the background almost all the time that I’m on the computer but that doesn’t mean I’m always talking to someone.
If I’m studying for a test and I want to know an answer that I can’t remember, then I just ask my friend and presto! just like that they tell me and I know.</p>
<p>I’m my parents tried to limit my AIM time I don’t know what I’d do. Its not that I need it per se, its just that it’d be a completely unfair act that would probably be detrimental to my schoolwork in the long run.</p>
<p>I also think you people who limit your kids use of the computer even though they get good grades are nuts. Why are you doing it? because its bad. How is it bad? Yeah, answer that one.
“You shouldn’t play computer games because computer games are bad.”
“But mom I’m getting great grades and I think they’re fun.”
“I don’t care, no computer games, they’re bad for you!”
“How?”
“Don’t talk back to me! They’re bad for you!”</p>
<p>For the OP, youre going to stop him from doing those things because most of his friends can’t? That great logic, don’t worry if he hates you now(he will), later on in life he’ll come to realize it was all for the best(no he won’t and it wasn’t).</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p>what spydertennis said</p>
<p>Ok, I’m another high school student that says you should reconsider limiting Instant Messenger (IM).</p>
<p>Instant messenger is the sole way I communicate with my friends. My IM is almost always running in the background so if my friend ever needs to tell me something important, I instantly get it. IM is far better than e-mail because if you are looking for several responses, you can get them answered much faster than sending several e-mails. Unless your son is being extremely distracted by the instant messenger, which I doubt he is, I would say that taking it away is like taking away the telephone. </p>
<p>The video games… I’ll leave that one up to you.</p>
<p>I’d say let him use AIM and video games, and be able to learn self-control. If he doesn’t learn it now, then he’s going to have a lot harder time when he gets to college, and theres no one to tell him not to play video games, or use AIM.</p>
<p>I’m also a senior this year in high school. My parents cannot speak English and they dont even know what AIM exactly is, so they never restricted me. Never in my life have they forced me to do hw or anything, and believe it or not, I actually get my hw completed better without them nagging. I spend A LOT of time on AIM, just like any other teenagers, but I never failed to complete my homework in time. What your son needs to learn, is self-displine, he’ll know when his sleep time gets deprived (i love sleep more than AIM, haha) I dont see any reason of restricting him unless he is doing poorly in school.</p>
<p>Senior here. When I finish my AP Calculus and AP English homework (all the other homework can be done during other classes, during lunch/study hall, or in the car) I have a lot of free time left over and I play a lot of games and spend a lot of time on AIM. Junior Year I had a much heavier academic load, but since I never got anything below a B in all honors, my mom stayed out of my business, and I appreciated her for it.</p>
<p>As long as a student finishes his or her work, I don’t think there’s any logical reason to have a “no games/AIM” rule. What with parents expecting their students to spend 8 hours at school, sleep for at least 6-8 hours, spend a good 2 hours on homework, and spend time eating with the family/listening to stories about family friends/work, etc. is it really that big a deal to let them unwind with a little chat or some Grand Theft Auto?</p>