My wife and I have this constant debate with our kids, particularly my 9 year old son - he wants to stretch his wings a bit, exert some independence, and I like this idea. I know it was a different time, and a much smaller town, but I was roaming freely at his age. My wife is concerned if something comes up or we need to contact each other and I understand this concern.
One of my son’s friends has a Gizmo, which is a watch that can make phone calls and has a GPS device so you know where the wearer is located. We feel like this is a good compromise, allowing more freedom but giving us the ability to contact him at need. Just curious if anyone here has something like this or has used one, if you had any impressions?
I didn’t, but I thought about it. FWIW, there are phone apps which will do it for you instead of a dedicated device should you decide to go that route. I likewise remembered my younger days of freedom and wanted my kid to have the same, but the world is just different, now. I took the cue from his friends; when a number of them started roaming about, I let him do the same with the understanding he’d give me a heads up. My idea was to use the collective wisdom of the neighborhood to help me get past my over-protectiveness. He’s now in his own apartment in DC, and walks the streets with savvy and confidence.
So my kids are a bit younger, but this is definitely something I’ve thought about.
We don’t plan on giving our kids any phones or such for several years, but would we do it?
Right now we turn my older two kids loose in the cul de sac to play with other kids they’re 7.5 and 4.5. I hop out to check every 20 minutes, but otherwise when playing tell them not past this corner, and have fun. They’re in and out of the house, or the neighbors houses. It’s fine.
Once they start biking around the block? Who knows. I honestly haven’t decided.
Let me clarify a bit: first, we don’t want to give my son a phone. I get that it would work, but without going into details, let’s just say my son is easily distracted and a phone would be a recipe for disaster. With all the apps and games and videos, he’d just tune completely out. Hell, I could see him walking into traffic playing Pokemon Go. When he’s older sure, but I don’t think he’s ready.
Second, I get that this would strike some folks as being over-protective. The hope is that using something like the Gizmo watch would give us peace of mind and accessibility to him, while allowing him some greater degree of freedom. My wife isn’t going to let him walk out the door unaccompanied without some kind of security measure, some means of knowing how to reach him and where to find him. This would be our compromise.
My son and daughter both go to a neighborhood school, about five blocks away. Maybe this is his chance to show us that he could walk both of them to and from school safely. My wife isn’t ready to think of that, when I brought it up with her last school year you’d think I had proposed sending him on an intercontinental flight alone. Baby steps, you know?
Our youngest has had one of these children’s smart watches (the Xplora) that has a GPS and allows the kids to call specific numbers since he was 6. We never bothered with that for our oldest child, but he was of a different disposition. The oldest got a regular phone when he was 8 or thereabouts. Our youngest is kind of … flighty.
We’ve never had a reason to use the GPS (thankfully), but the phone functionality has been used some times. Mostly by the kid to call mom when he was unhappy (we did have to take “the talk” at one time about when it is appropriate to call). Functionally, it’s basically a mobile phone with restricted usage - but one which he is far less likely to misplace/forget/drop than would be the case with a regular phone.
I’m not sure I’d have gone for a smartwatch personally, and I can’t off-hand think about any situation where it’s added practical “value” in our daily life that couldn’t have been achieved in other ways (though there may have been). But it has given my wife some peace of mind that she wouldn’t have had otherwise - and that is certainly worth the monthly cost of this thing.
Thanks for that info, it’s exactly the sort of thing we’re looking into. Obviously it’s the sort of thing you hope you don’t need (at least as far as the GPS goes) but it’s comforting to know it’s there if you do.
