nintendo ds for kids? archived

Definitely go with the DS. Mine switched to the DS about that age. And my niece just got a DS at 5 and is loving it. There are plenty of games for both that are age appropriate.

What version did you get? we are definitely not getting the 3d.

We tried the leapster for our then 3 year old and he still uses it once in blue moon two years later. We purchased him a DS Lite last year and he uses it all the time. Like you our older son had a DS at the time and to keep the peace we purchased the little guy a DS Lite. I would definitely say that a 7 y.o. would quickly outgrow the leapster and it would be a waste of money.

we have the "plain old" DS - not even the DSi to little dk's dismay. Any one of them works fine - just a matter of how techy you are. And I highly recommend getting the nerf case for the DS. This will protect the DS if (or should I say when!) they drop it.

We purchased two ds-lites two years ago for our 4 & 6 year olds. They loved them so much, we ended upgrading last Christmas to the DSi XL. -bigger screen, better graphics and you can get creative and photoshop pictures.
I have put my foot down however, there will be NO 3D versions from Santa this year!

Ps I agree about the case!

DS family here, too. There's (eye strain) warnings about the 3DS for young'uns, fyi.

Sly - keep your kids away from mine! lol I already get grief about not upgrading to the DSi as it is.

cbroderick said:

DS family here, too. There's (eye strain) warnings about the 3DS for young'uns, fyi.

Yes. I'm by no means an alarmist about these things but the jury is out on heavy use of 3d for young kids. I have a colleague who has done a ton of work on 3d TV and he concluded it's safe for adults even for long periods of time. But kids' brains are still learning the rules of the physical world and it's not clear if "fake" 3d interferes with learning depth perception in the real world. A 90 minute movie is ok, but extended hours with games may not be.

Having said that, DS is great for 7 year olds. Especially when traveling.

;-)

In hate the 3D DS and so does my 12 yr old nephew. He says it hurts his eyes. It makes me nauseous after looking at it for 2 minutes.

dk50b said:

Sly - keep your kids away from mine! lol I already get grief about not upgrading to the DSi as it is.

I hear that! Lol! It's usually my hubby who caves to the whining, I'm high whine tolerant.
FYI. Best buy does offer a trade in on your old handheld games if you want to upgrade. - we of course, found this out AFTER purchasing the new ones- thinking of putting the DSis on eBay or craigslist.

Just set the ground rules early! Ours include that the DS never goes upstairs. It lives on a shelf downstairs, keeping it unavailable at bedtime, and making it a bit easier for me to control. Great for travel, a real mixed blessing much of the rest of the time. (We held off until we were preparing for a very long car trip)

The 3DS just had a massive price drop last week. . . it went from $250 to $169.99. You can shut off the 3-D effect but that does not mean that your kid would not turn it back on when you leave the room.

I recently let my four year old daughter play my old DS Slim. She loves it and has declared it hers. . . we bought her a pinckalicious game which she loves (the game is not really for a 4 year old since there is reading involved btw).

I bought the limited edition Pokemon DSi for my son's 10th birthday. Like Susan1014, I control access....most of the time, it's in my purse and my son has to ask permission to use it.