As I tell my wife all the time...reading a tone into words on a screen is an inexact science.

True. However, as I did state in my original post, the kids don't use their Touches at all for music, movies or books. While I prefer they don't download music from iTunes, we have a library of over a thousand CDs, all ripped to the music library (in our iTunes and tons of other miscellaneous MP3s. They simply do not listen to music on any device at all.

They also won't watch movies on the Touch because they don't want to, and they don't download books onto it either. So even if I hadn't been misinformed, they still aren't using the devices that way.

So that leaves apps. Which they rarely ask to download, and when they do, they're usually free. I'm the one who goes hunting for educational apps to download or the newest games. But forcing them to pay for that when I'm the one telling them they should have it seems hypocritical.

Plus, this part of the post I objected to was also this:

surprised the kids don't already know better and override your objections.

I'm the parent. You can EXPLAIN things to me when I'm incorrect. If you're my kid, you don't get to OVERRIDE me at all.

Yes, I'm sure I'm "misinterpreting" it.

But if the basic premise remains: My kids have no interest in downloading music, movies or books from the iTunes store and rarely buy apps, what else is there to do with an iTunes gift certificate?

The answer seems to be: regift or sell.

GSF