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Your 6 year old sounds like a 12 year old. If the mom wants to invite her out to dinner, she can call and ask you. I have to wonder how many calls are made on that phone for $10/month and how much it would cost your friend to use a couple of her minutes to call and change play date plans.
You are right. My 6 your old is very much like a 12 year old. In fact, her best friend is 11. I always joked that she was born 5-6 years after she should have been. She has always acted older than her true age.
The cell phone comes in very handy for us. It stays in my purse unless she needs it. I am very lucky that I had that because my cell phone died on the way home from work the same day that my van broke down in a storm on a back road. I used her cell phone to call for help. Otherwise, I would have had to walk several miles in a downpour with lightening in heels to the closest gas station (which doesn't have a pay phone, so I would have had to ask to use their phone).
You may not think it is necessary, but it is something that works for my family.
I've just looked in the last couple of pages here. My question is for those who have given up your home phones ( a subject DH and I have discussed). Are there many drawbacks? I know about the 911issue.
Can I just go a teeny bit of topic here?
It has not been an issue for us. Anything tied to our old number we moved to a cell. I use headphones if I'll be on the phone for awhile.
Mm - we don't pay for tv either, so not much to bundle. I can understand though if you have more you pay for. Ends up not costing much to keep it.
And to look at a group of kids sitting together texting and then assuming they aren't paying attention to each other is BS too. I can text and be sitting right next to someone and carry on a conversation with them as well.
I'm not that old, but the way I was brought up, talking to someone else while in the company of others was considered rude. Dividing your attention? Rude. Why even hang out?
same here. I just can't do it. We also have a lot of memberships (grocery club cards, etc) that are based on that phone number.
Enhanced 911 is good enough a reason for me.
But also, I don't like everyone I do business with to have my cell number. I'd rather give them the home number as a 'trash line' (like you have a trash email).
We don't have a home phone, so the cell that our son has is more than convenience. Not to mention, I don't mind having peace of mind either. Why is that bad?
There are long, long lists of the completely unnecessary. For example, we personally feel that paying for tv is just that.
These sort of threads eventually turn into the, "well we didn't have them as kids, so why should they?".
As has already been said, what works for one family, one child, etc, doesn't work for all. We don't know the story behind every kid that has a cell, their own computer, an iPad. There seems to be a lot of large brush strokes being painted in this thread. Not every kid who might have these things is a spoiled brat.
You guys read way more into things than are there. In the same post that YOU quoted, I said convenience wasn't bad. And now you're saying, "Why is that bad?"
I guess I'm not communicating this well enough. The op said, "Why do x y z children have a b c things at such and such age?" To which I replied something to the effect of, "This is probably generational - when I was younger, cell phones were 'luxury' and people were shocked to see a young person have one; see how that has changed?"
Also, who said anything about spoiled brats?
You cannot argue that cell phones (for most people - children AND adults) are necessities. You say yours are because you don't have a land line. Well, duh...you'd otherwise have a land line.
But there's nothing wrong with people having them. It's cheap, pervasive technology that can in many ways enhance your life. Nothing in this life is truly a necessity outside of food, water, and shelter.
If I could afford it I'd absolutely let my children use iPhones, iPads and whatever is next in the pipeline. The children who know how to use them are going to have a leg up on their peers who don't. I was talking with a friend the other day who told me her granddaughter potty trained with the help of the iPhone app. She couldn't be more pleased, BTW.
My nephew is only 21 months old, and can already operate anything i-related with ease... my sister (his mom) has an iPad and he can turn it on/off, select a game, pinch & pull, scroll, etc. Same goes for my 4 year-old niece, and I was amazed when she even knew where to find my iPhone photo album! They don't have their own devices yet, but I imagine they will by a certain age (maybe 10ish?). I remember when my little cousins were young, in the early-mid '90s, and we thought it was impressive how they operated a VCR - that's nothin' compared to kids today.
P.S. They do have lots of cool educational games, and I've watched my nephew spell words perfectly with one of them... keeps his attention and teaches him to spell, so what's wrong with that? And recently when I was entertaining a friend's 3yo daughter, all I had to do was download a free iPhone "coloring book," and it kept her occupied for hours.
Oh, but I do shake my head when I see an entire family engrossed in their "devices." Recently I was having dinner out, and saw a family of 5 sitting around their table - each completely buried in an iPhone, iPad, or Nintendo DS, barely even looking up to eat. I had to wonder if they EVER have a real conversation with each other.
I'm 34 (almost 35) years old, and my mother will snap at me if I even TAKE OUT my cell at dinner!
I just don't like the idea of my kids not learning how to entertain themselves and having this constant passive entertainment instead.
I mean, have you noticed how people can't even stand in line for 10 minutes without playing with their phones? Does anyone get lost in thought anymore?
I just don't like the idea of my kids not learning how to entertain themselves and having this constant passive entertainment instead.
I mean, have you noticed how people can't even stand in line for 10 minutes without playing with their phones? Does anyone get lost in thought anymore?
I agree with you completely, but at the same time I'm often guilty of this! LOL. I absolutely love my stupid iPhone, and it comes out whenever I have "down time" - even for a few minutes. I've always had a short attention span, and my entire life I've carried books and/or electronic devices to keep me busy. But there are times I feel it's inappropriate, like at dinner as I mentioned above... or when you're AT a counter (like the supermarket checkout), or any other time you should be interacting with someone.
And in terms of children, I think it's very very important to learn how to entertain themselves. My sister has a DVD player in her car, only because it came standard (and she bought the car off my mother) - but they have literally never turned it on, except for one time during a 6-hour drive to Los Angeles. I respect that about them, and it shows in how creative the kids are at playtime. Sure, they CAN use the various devices, but they also love to paint, build puzzles, read, play outside, and sing/dance together. We had to do that stuff when I was a kid, and honestly it made for some of my fondest memories.
I'm not that old, but the way I was brought up, talking to someone else while in the company of others was considered rude. Dividing your attention? Rude. Why even hang out?
My experience with kids is that if there are 5 of them at my house and they are trying to hook up with another few kids they will text while they are at my house to get a hold of the other friends and finalize their plans. In other situations there are a few kids and they collectively have a question for another friend so they will text for an answer.
My kids usually do not sit in silence and text other people while they are hanging out with friends. The texting is usually related to what they are doing at the time.
I am not sure why people think that every time a kid is texting it's bad.
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