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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."
buy him a book, an erector set, lincoln logs. Do not get him hooked on the electronic teat at such a young age. My father was an engineer and even though he worked late hours, he still would take me to the ice cream shop at night and help me with my homework and have dad and son time. The time he spent was quality.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
64GB iPhone 5 with gold plating plus $10,000 iTunes credit.
Get that over-reaching sense of entitlement embedded early.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
The best phones are the plastic ones you buy at the local bric-a-brac store. Sometimes these phones even let you call Elmo who will say "Hello", sing a song and wait for you to call the next person
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Dude, just don't. I understand you want to speak and see your son, but the reason 4yo don't have phones is because they are not ready for their use. Let the kid play with playmobil and later lego. Let him be a child and when he's ready for a mobile, he'll tell you by putting it on his christmas-list. I wish you wisdom with your decission and hopefully you'll find a beter way to keep in touch with your kid.
Eventually your capillaries will merge and you will form one all-knowing toddler-adult hybrid. I, for one, bow down to you, Todd-lor.
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.
Exactly. If you can't be there, skype or some other solution while they're at home is a much better solution than giving them an expensive electronic device that will serve as a distraction to them at school. Not to mention any 4 year old I've ever known will quickly break or lose it. Buy a webcam, attach it to the PC, and call every evening. Or get a tablet, but make it stay at home. There's no advantages to the cell phone, and a lot of negatives.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Blogologue's 3.9 year old son wants a phone, but doesn't know how to ask daddy for it. So he hacked blogologue's /. account and posted the question. Later he is going to spike his coffee, and make him think he wrote the post himself during a late night of slashdot reading.
That makes the most sense.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
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.
Some people have to work. My 6yo daughter has been video chatting me and calling me on the phone at work since she was 3. We can't all retire on childbirth and she is the youngest of five spanning 19 years age. Many of us can be telepresent most of the time though. The modern age is wonderful. When you're 3 almost nothing will wait until daddy gets home. To her pushing a button to get remote facetime with daddy to negotiate a diplomatic solution to an argument or calling him to bring something home is a normal and expected part of how life works. Daddy is always there, no matter where he is. This is disruptive and transformational. This is a child who is going to come of age not understanding how some people are unavailable sometimes because this is the only world she knows. She is precocious, but this is becoming the norm.
I encourage this because when I was three years old access to daddy was something I would never again enjoy in this life to the present day, for even one minute. I feel the lack did not improve my level of joy throughout my life, though I could be wrong. Sometimes daddy is an ass. As my mother is dead I have to accept her judgement on the issue. I can aspire however to be better: to be the available, accessible and good daddy I wished for when I was my youngest daughter's age.
The future is here and it is scary and amazingly awesome.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is a child who is going to come of age not understanding how some people are unavailable sometimes because this is the only world she knows. She is precocious, but this is becoming the norm.
I'm not sure accepting that creating needy children who have no ability to be patient is a good thing; It will, and is, creating a slave generation. It has been proven time and time again that the ability to delay gratification is directly, and strongly, linked to long-term success as an adult. But if short-term thinking and immediate gratification got us into this mess, surely it can get us out as well.
I encourage this because when I was three years old access to daddy was something I would never again enjoy in this life to the present day, for even one minute. I feel the lack did not improve my level of joy throughout my life, though I could be wrong. Sometimes daddy is an ass. As my mother is dead I have to accept her judgement on the issue. I can aspire however to be better: to be the available, accessible and good daddy I wished for when I was my youngest daughter's age.
This explanation, while heartfelt and readily related to, is not a good reason to be doing what you are doing. A child who always has a parent to do things for him/her is a child who will not grow up. Part of growing up is taking personal responsibility, learning to be patient, and independent problem-solving ability. With an expectation that, with the push of a button, a parent will always be available to solve any problem that might arise, you are sowing weakness into the character of this malleable young person. You are, in a very real way, stunting emotional development.
I know this is an incredibly unpopular thing to say right now, but consider that the first thing we do to a new child born into this world is to slap them in the face. Why would we do that? Willingly induce pain to a brand new life that literally hasn't even been in the world a minute? It's to induce breathing. To get that child sucking down yummy nitrogen-oxygen mixtures. The pain is for the benefit of the child. All too often, letting a child learn something "the hard way" is seen as child abuse, but the reality is that human beings don't learn things by being told, they learn things by doing. And a lot of doing involves screwing up and getting hurt. You can't accomplish or amount to much of anything in life if you aren't willing to endure pain, and struggle, and loss. This is a lesson that has gone missing in the latest generation, and as they start to move into the workforce, we're seeing clear signs that it has created a pathological problem that may take them decades to sort out, and in the interim leave them emotionally, financially, and even physically vulnerable in ways previous generations were not.
The future is here and it is scary and amazingly awesome.
If I hopped in a time machine and went back 40 years and told everyone there that in the future, we will have instant real-time access to all of the knowledge of humanity, and global communication capability with billions of other humans, they would probably be shocked. And when I told them that in spite of these achievements, we mostly use these capabilities to entertain instead of educate, and have so ingrained them into daily life that we have created children incapable of functioning without continuous access to these devices, they would likely be equally shocked. I very much doubt they'd believe that this is how the technology would influence our society, believing it to be some kind of dystopian science fiction written by a hippie who smoked too much pot and got paranoid of the government.
You're right. It's scary and awesome. But on the level, I'm going to go with it being more scary than awesome; Our technology has created an unparalleled degree of dysfunction in the everyday person. But I hope, very much, that I will be wrong in this conclusion and that my inability to see a future in
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Oh, you asked for this and all the others that modded you up, you AC, you!
Says the single guy who can't even comprehend life-changing events like having a child.
Ummm, so life changing events only happen to married people with children? And, I'm sorry but even single guys had childhoods and would have the ability later to recognize when one is about to get fucked up.
News Flash: Life happens. Even when you plan on having children, one cannot even remotely plan for every event forthcoming (especially four years later) that would elicit the need for a 4-year old to have a cell phone.
And if you would have shown even an inkling of experience in parenting in your smart-ass comments, you might have seen that.
There is *NO* reason a four year old "needs" a cell phone. None, zip, zero. If you were a reasonably sane adult you would know exactly why!
So, either father a child yourself and then come to the adult table to talk shop, or kindly STFU.
Again, you have to father a child to be an adult and talk "shop"? WTFTM
And no, it's not every parents fault if a kid grows "fucked up". That is likely more due to the influence of ignorance coming from society, as you have so deftly demonstrated.
Again, had you a shred of experience in this matter, you might have known that.
Actually, there are hundreds of studies that show that most fucked up children get fucked up by the home environment they are brought up in, i.e., Mom and Dad did it. "Fucked up" children seek acceptance and emotional support from outside the family and often in or with the wrong people that end up reinforcing bad behavior or leading them into new bad behaviors, all to get back at Mommy and/or Daddy. The "influence of ignorance coming from society" is the finger pointing BS that every bad parent tries to run up the flag pole to duck blame for their effed up child. One only wonders how many of yours need psychotherapy.
To the OP, cellphones aren't allowed in university classrooms let alone kindergarten. You truly are cracked and should get some help for yourself before you really screw things up. The child is young enough to forget this stupid crap if you stop now and think of something other than your needs, because that cell phone is certainly NOT fulfilling any four-year old's needs. Based on what I've read so far I'd say the child would be better off away from you and the mother, frankly.
Dude, back off.
He could be deployed, divorced, hospitalized or whatever.
You have no answer, then just but out.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Look dude, we understand that you are hurt because she left you for another. And even worse she left you for a "fat flabby girl". But your attitude stinks. Your kid WILL have 2 mothers and a father. That is a fact. If you go around him calling them "cunts" and all sorts of stuff, you will fuck him up, because whether you like it or not he will have affection for them both and there is nothing worse for a kid than having to chose between parents.
So for the kids sake, man up and stop being a jerk. There are loads of decisions that you and your former partner must be able to cooperate around, so you must find a way to be civilized around her.
And back to your question, the kid should not have a phone with him to kindergarten. Not only does it disrupt the kindergarten but it will also get destroyed or lost in a week. Even if he is a little kid he must be able to feel he has his own space, not being constantly on guard because daddy might call. Give him a cheap android tablet that he can have around the house. Then he can be in his room and skype you, without you risking seeing naked people.
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.
I know this is an incredibly unpopular thing to say right now, but consider that the first thing we do to a new child born into this world is to slap them in the face. Why would we do that? Willingly induce pain to a brand new life that literally hasn't even been in the world a minute? It's to induce breathing. To get that child sucking down yummy nitrogen-oxygen mixtures. The pain is for the benefit of the child. All too often, letting a child learn something "the hard way" is seen as child abuse, but the reality is that human beings don't learn things by being told, they learn things by doing. And a lot of doing involves screwing up and getting hurt.
I'm all for experiential learning, but I don't know anyone who slaps newborns in the face to get them breathing. (N.B.: I deliver newborns for a living, and work with a bunch of other people who do as well and am aware of their practice patterns.) Babies usually squall on their own just fine, and for those that don't we'll vigorously towel-dry them. For the even smaller subset who're affected by maternal drugs or other conditions and haven't gotten it together to breathe, we'll flick their feet with a back of a finger (along with verbal encouragement, albeit mostly for our own amusement and by way of explanation to concerned parents). If they're still not sucking down oxygen after a couple of minutes then they get a mask to the face or a tube down the trachea. The previous practice of slapping newborns on the ass to kickstart them has been out of fashion ever since I started practice. Of course, practice patterns vary and maybe you live in a face-slapping place.
The ass-slapping turns out to be unnecessary, though I have stood by while my own children attempted to snort juice up into their noses for an experiential lesson in why we might not do that.