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Ask Slashdot: Suitable Phone For a 4-Year Old?
blogologue writes "I have a kid that's turning 4-years old soon, and I'm not able to be with him as often as I want to. To remedy this, I'm looking into whether or not getting him a phone could be a good idea to keep in touch. Being able to have a video chat is important, and as it is rare that a 4-year old has a mobile phone, and because he's got other things to do, it would be good to be able to turn off for example games and so on during time in the kindergarten. So other kids don't go around asking their parents for a smartphone. The main reason for getting the phone is keeping in touch, and as a bonus it can function as a device for games and so on during allowed times. Are there any phones that are suitable for such use? I don't mind if it's Android, iOS or something else, as long as it can be used to make video calls to other Android/iOS phones, and if it features other applications such as games, have limited, pre-defined functionality during certain periods of the day."
Sounds like the parent and child are separated. Nothing wrong with trying to stay connected at a distance...
Giving a 4 year old a phone is not the solution to that problem.
By the way, my wife and I Skype three times a week with our grandchildren who are about that age. Works much better than handing them a phone.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'm a firefighter, my wife's a paramedic...we're away from our kids (not simultaneously) for 24 hours each shift.
Facetime is a wonderful thing for when one of them needs, well, a little facetime with whatever parent is at work. They get to chat with grandparents as well.
We bought a couple of refurbed iPod touches, put them in otterboxes, threw a few apps on them, and handed them over. They can facetime us as long as they have wifi (at our house, family, close friends), their texting is limited to iMessage and locked down to the existing contacts...this way they have an opportunity to learn proper etiquette and manners about the phone and texting and pictures.
They're 7 and 8, have had this for two years, and they're not little tech junkies. Also, I'm not paying an extra $40 per month per kid for connectivity that's only occasionally necessary.
I pal of mine has spent the last year trying to get his kids returned to him. He had full custody in California, and when the kids went for a 1 week visit to their mother's house in Illinois, the state decided they would just give her full custody and declare it illegal for the children to leave Illinois.
You should talk to your lawyer about that, but I believe the answer is... pursue action against the mother in California. Since she lived there very recently, your state should have clear legal jurisdiction over the matter.
Get a judgement from a court in California, and then go to Illinois to have the judgement enforced.
Or else, try to get criminal charges made against the wife --- she'll want to come answer for the charges, or else face extradition.
Either way... you can't flee across state lines to avoid civil or criminal charges in another state; the judgement made in one state can simply be executed in the other, as long as the judgement is made in a court with jurisdiction over the individual.