When should your kids start getting Technology?

silver-moonshine · September 4, 2014

I did a video, more of a tech rant today regarding kids and their use of Technology.
What's all your opinions on when kids should get their first "gear" and has anyone else recently taken a step back and realised how much this world has changed in the past 15 years or so?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_yhMiJ52i4

(Im new to the whole Vlogging experience and just wanted to voice my thoughts.)

cooper · September 5, 2014

Let's start with the vlog... It might just be me but I find it an inefficient way of communicating and I had to switch tabs so I could listen to what you were saying without getting motion sickness from the video.

As for the actual subject, I think kids should be exposed to technology when they indicate they're actually interested in it. You could give a kid a tablet and I'm sure the kid would be happy with it, play with it a little, then throw it in a corner and continue doing what he or she would normally do. Even though I'm up to my eyeballs in tech, I strongly believe you should NOT expose a kid to tech as long as you can safely get away with. Let the kid play outside with friends, do some _actual_ socializing and learn how to deal with real life people.

Once the kid says he/she wants some bit of tech, don't give it, subsidise it. Get it into the kids head that that bit of tech has an inherent cost. If anything, it'll make them think twice about wanting a better version of something they hardly ever use and they might actually be careful with it. And remember, this is a kid we're talking about. What need is there for that kid to have, say, an iPhone 6? "The other kids in my class all have one"? Well, tough. It just means their parents all suck. You can have this cheap-ass android phone, it'll cost you 4 weeks allowance which you must pay before you can have it (again, learn your kid to deal with money - it's a life lesson you can't get started on early enough) and I'm going to deduct X% of your allowance for the service charge for as long as your contract lasts. When you call, text, etc so much that your monthly fee goes over Y, you're paying the excess in full out of your own allowance. If you can't pay that, you lose the phone until you can. We'll get a fully specified bill so you know where the money went and it'll be completely your responsibility. If it gets lost or stolen, it's gone and that's something you yourself will have to deal with. You won't get a subsidised new phone from us for the next 2 years and if you don't cancel the contract (we'll remind you and help you with that of course) we keep deducting your allowance for the service charge and you remain responsible for the usage costs.

If all that is too complicated for your kid, your kid is not yet ready to have a phone. Instead, this kid can get one of those simple things that only phones a fixed number of preset phone numbers using some prepaid sim card, it'll cost you nothing and I'll set the phone numbers to your mother, me, the grandparents and emergency services. It won't cost you anything because you don't have that phone for your benefit as much as you have it for our benefit and peace of mind.

There was a report on the news a few months back that showed that kids these days simply can't handle money and this is in large part due to the phone bill which they have a hard time keeping control of. Like they'd go on holiday somewhere and forget that calling from outside your own country increases the usage rates by 500% and since they just hooked up with this hot new boy/girl (of course) who must remain apprised of your shapely figure when exposed to sun and sand, when that kid comes back from holiday and the phone bill arrives they discover that their paycheck for the next 3 months is going straight to the phone company. They then go crying home to mommy and daddy who give the kid a stern talking to and then cough up the money. What did the kid learn from this? You can do ANYTHING YOU WANT since the parents will pay the bill and all you have to endure is maybe an hour of your parents telling you you've disappointed them. Like, big effing deal, right?

Seriously, parents in general these days SUCK when it comes to raising their kids. They don't teach, they want to be the kids' best friend so they remove all the natural roadblocks supposedly so the kid is 'free to explore' and swiftly blame the school system when the kid falls from the proverbial cliff because that one roadblock was there for a reason and nobody told the kid about that...