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Texting Toddlers, How Young is Too Young?
theodp writes "Toddlers don't need to be texting, concedes the NYT's Lisa Belkin, but since they have always had toy typewriters and toy telephones, why not toy Blackberrys? If your little tyke is itching to text, the NYT has a round-up of texting devices aimed at children as young as three who want to talk with their thumbs. The question of, 'when is a child is old enough for their own cell phone' has been replaced with the question of, 'what type of texting gadget is appropriate for which age group.' But don't forget to lay down the law: 'Our 13-year-old got a phone with an unlimited plan as a reward for good grades,' says HiTechMommy.com blogger Cat Schwartz. 'Each night he is required to turn the phone in at 10 p.m. and then gets it back first thing in the morning.'"
Turning it in and then getting it back the next day? Responsible Parenting? Lies! With no kids myself, I can only offer tech to my 3 nieces as their parents see fit. I think teens is a good age, but as always, it depends on when the child can show responsible behavior. Many College students in my town are not responsible enough to own phones.
If I wrote something witty, you would say I stole it from somewhere.
There is no one too young to benefit from the use of mobiles. Though, obviously, all the old folk will claim it'll ruin their childhood. It will not ruin it. Just because it's different does not mean its bad.
So whatever happen to just let the kid go outside and play. I'm all for introducing kids to technologies and educating them but this is a little to much. IMO this is just a way to train your kids not to be sociable when they are adults. It seems that more and more of the younger generation are losing their ability to to really converse face to face.
This sounds like a load of trouble to me. I will certainly teach my children to spell and write properly before allowing them to own any texting-enabled device. Imagine a generation of people who learned texting before proper spelling and grammar. The horrors!
When they are old enough to buy their own texting device and pay their own bills then I'll let my kids text.
If they're going to drool into the keys and ruin it, they're too young.
If they're going to type at me all day, they're too young.
If they're going to type at their father all day instead of me, not only are they not too young, I fully expect a call saying "Dad? Remember when you first got that Apple II and were learning to program, and I kept trying to help you? I just wanted to say I'm sorry." THEN if I get that phone call, and they keep pestering him, they're too young. But I'll still laugh. In fact, I may go buy it. They got any with drool proof keys?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I see many kids with cell phones not because they are old enough to text their friends, but because the parent don't think they are old enough to be on their own. Kids today don't get any alone time. They are at their parents beck and call. When I was growing up, I ran out of the house to play in the morning and did not return until the street lights came on. There was nothing to get me back home, or to micromanage my day. I was on my on to play and create. Now kids have an hourly reminder of where one is to be,and need to check in frequently from school. What is the point. No wonder we have kids graduating from college with no job prospects. They never learned to manage their own time, or complete a task on their own inititative.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'll start by saying that I genreally despise texting. It is too expensive and too time consuming for my life, and it is extremely distracting. However, there is something that toddlers with cell phones could be good for.
The US currently has a dismal literacy rate amongst children entering kindergarten. I don't know when or how it happened, but a significant portion of children in this country today enter kindergarten without even a basic understanding of the alphabet, yet alone any ability to read or write. In comparison I and every child in my kindergarten class (so many years ago) were all able to read at least Dr. Susus books.
So if giving cell phones to kids gets them reading sooner, then I guess it isn't all bad.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In my day, if we wanted to send a text message to a friend, we used an instant messenger! Or we even wrote out an email. It took time to sit down and put some thought into composing that message. None of this Twitter Trotter Twatter flim-flarn-flith. We had more than 140 characters to work with and could take the time to say something that was worth taking the time to say! And we sat at a keyboard. With a chair. Typed with our fingers instead of with our thumbs like savages.
If the little ankle-biters offer you any lip, send 'em to their rooms with nothing but bread, water, and 56k dial-up.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I even got them cell phones when they were 4
The same is the argument for texting. Dont text while driving,
As a parent, I send my six year old to his room when I catch him texting while driving.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The day my toddler texts me from the other room to tell me he wants some "gam cackers n apple joose" is the day I climb the clocktower.
It's not the technology that's the problem. As with anything it's lazy parenting and the technology being used to replace something a parent should be doing. With proper parenting, a child learning how to text will have a head start over his friends and not being a spoiled little twat.