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.'"

0 Years of age

[Karganeth]

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.

toddlers sexting?

[Anonymous Coward]

When is that too young? What if they send naked bath pictures of themselves to unsuspecting recipients? Will they be marked forever as a sex offender?

when they are old enough to be unsupervised

[fermion]

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.

Maybe not as bad as we might expect?

[damn_registrars]

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.

Re:Something is wrong with this.

[noundi]

If you want to check to make sure your child isn't abusing his freedom you can ask for a detailed bill and check the hours, and if he has been abusing his freedom you can then yank the phone until he has proven to be responsible enough, given that you have enough patience.

That's waaay too complicated. Prepay. He used it up, he won't send another one till the end of the month.

If you give them an unlimited resource, it's not abuse if they use it without limits.

It seems that the problem isn't only about budget, it's also about sleeping. Even if you limit the credits your child will still be able to stay awake at night texting to friends. Unfortunately there are no shortcuts to proper parenting.

Re:Something is wrong with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that kids have too many things today compared to when I was a kid and thus don't value them as much, I also know this...

The toys I had back then were metal (go Tonka and Matchbox) and tough plastic (go Legos). I could slam my large steel wrecking ball into the Lego houses I made and not worry about anything breaking (as long as I missed the plastic windows and garage doors which were a bit fragile). I took care of the rest of my toys. It was a big deal to get a 50c Matchbox car.

My parents grew up in the Depression years and weren't given to spending much on toys. My grandparents were too old and poor and lived too far away to be able to give much. So I didn't have the quantities of things that some kids had or certainly that kids have today. I was still a happy kid.

Except for the toys we gave to cousins, those toys are still working after lo these many years and my kids have played with some of them. I fully expect them to be functioning when the grandkids start arriving. The toys today are largely cheap plastic, battery infested, computer driven pieces of junk. There have been some new toys we've bought that didn't work out of the box and I've had to go in and rewire. It is much easier today for kids to destroy toys without even trying. Nothing today (except good old Legos and blocks and maybe Lincoln Logs) would stand up to the treatment the toys of my day got.

Kids have enough ways to communicate as it is. Cell phones let alone text enabled plans? Bah! Let my kids use the land-line phones in our house and learn to (gasp!) take turns and be cognizant of others needs instead of turning into self absorbed blobs of iPod tuned out zombies. If they want cell phones when they grow up, they can certainly get them then.

Are my kids happy with my attitude toward cell phones and various tune out the world devices? No. Are they happy with the limited amount of TV they get to watch? No (and I'm not happy with the limited amount of TV I get to watch since I'm helping with the school's teaching job at nights either for that matter... not that there is much worth watching these days, but that's another thread all together). On the other hand, most of my kids are doing well in school, are good at piano, cello, martial arts (depending on the kid) and haven't had any trouble with authorities. The one that is struggling had eye tracking problems that put her a bit behind and it has been a struggle to catch up - not here fault - ours for not catching it sooner.

It's OK to just say NO to your kid. Try it. You might be amazed at how useful it can be. Now prepare for the barrage of horrible parent posts to follow.

Go speak French then.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry, but you are not familiar with linguistics.

Linguistic drift and your inability to read Beowulf are not related. Language drifts with or without literacy, they are only casually related. HOWEVER, you can prevent the written expression of a language from drifting. The French have done this. You can pick up the MoliÃre and read it pretty easily today.

However, if you compare spoken and written French, the problems accumulate fast because the language has drifted while the writing system is pegged to the 17th century. French has tons of unspoken syllables (think about it: there are frequently words with up to three silent letters). Now, the French love this system and will defend it to the death. They will extol its systemic nature, ignoring the fact all languages are systemic, the difference being that in French it is more obvious because you have to consciously learn a 400 year old writing system. But if you fast forward another 1000 years, and you have a writing system that is essentially pictograms. This is what the Chinese face: they can read texts from several thousands of years, but it is an enormous effort to teach children basic literacy. This archaic system has other costs, such as significantly raising the entry barrier for people wishing to learn the language.

Personally, I think that the English speaking world has taken the correct decision in keeping its writing system more aligned with the spoken language than French*. I value communication today with peers more than Beowulf, or, quite honestly, Shakespeare. It will take millenia for the language to drift enough that a sufficiently interested person cannot learn the dialect of a few hundred years before, so I do not see the benefit of a static writing system at all.

*: yes, I know English has its kinks. This is because the writing system does more than simply phonetically reproduce the word. For example, it also tries to communicate a word's roots. For example, /subtle/ entered English from Latin via French. It had already lost the /b/ by the time that it entered French, but English dictionaries reinstated it to allow users of the writing system to see the relationship between this work and other words using the /sub/ prefix. This has nothing to do with pedantic continuity (the /b/ was already gone), it was designed to allow readers who did not know this fairly uncommon word to guess at the meaning.

One parent that gives two thumbs up.

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing that is often overlooked is the special needs community. My son is 9 years old and non-verbal. His mind is clear and bright (he's very intelligent), but he cannot communicate with the spoken word. As his parent, I can understand approximately 25% of what he says, and most other people are at less then 10%.

For him, one of these devices could be the difference between being a part of the rest of the world or being shut off and not able to interact with others.

I am a parent that is very grateful for this technology.