my son had a GBA from about 6, but we limit his time on it to 1 hours and only after all his home work is done, room is clean etc etc and of course take it away from him if he has been naughty, he has a DS now but we made him save his pocket money and birthday money etc to buy it himself as I know if we bought it and just gave it to him he would have managed to just break it (the original DS's where not exactly tough)

Forget educational games, the only thing my son wants to play is blooming pokemon!!