Shopping Online

Posted by Beth Lynne May 3, 2007

My children are ages nine and ten. They both have a deep love of shopping. My son tends to enjoy spending my money on video games, while my daughter leans more toward the rarer and hard-to-find offerings on E-bay (Paypal is a wonderful thing!). Since I am being pushed further into debt, I am looking for the free, but educational value of all of this online spending that makes them so happy.

My first instinct was that the value was all mathematical—they are learning about budgeting, percents (tax and sale prices), calendar math (how long will it be until the toy arrives, and what are business days?), addition and subtraction (Mom says we can only spend a certain amount so I have to remove two items), and I am certain some other skills I am over-looking. Well, I am wrong—the computer does all of the work for them, and they do not care if they exceed my credit limit. No, they learn skills that are actually of equal value.

When my daughter uses E-bay, she is learning to use a search engine, and as a result, in order to get what she wants, she must spell correctly. She also must learn to narrow her search, because a nine year old does not have the patience to sort through 6,986 results. Both children are learning to fill out forms—they know their address, telephone numbers (daytime and evening), and my date of birth (hopefully they will learn to buy me a birthday present!), and the expiration dates of all of my credit cards.

Best of all, they are learning patience, because I will only pay for ground shipping.