If I had a kid they would not be allowed to use Apps or have a Google account.
Sure I'd give them a laptop, I would even probably give them unsupervised access to the web after they seemed ready, but Apps are no good even for most adults.
Sure I'd give them a laptop, I would even probably give them unsupervised access to the web after they seemed ready, but Apps are no good even for most adults.
Not having any friends is unlikely. But if their friends are connecting and coördinating on their phones, the odd one out will be at a disadvantage. Depending on how close they are, this could be resolved by them finding a workaround as a group. (For example, buying a prepaid smartphone.)
Even if you do manage to make friends, a lot of people won't remember you're the only person they know who isn't able to see the facebook event everyone else is invited to.
It's a basic fact of life that the more friction there is to doing something, the less that thing will get done. Sure, some people will manage to make it work, but others won't be so lucky.
Imagine your kid starts school for the first time and everyone shares their group chat QR code. Your kid can't and now will slowly be left behind as other kids set up plans to go skate, game ,whatever.
Also, totally agree.
They rationalize their choices with “I don't want to be around superficial people like that anyway” not realizing just how many people are judging and questioning their decision making process
“oh god someone thats going to talk my ear off about all the control they have over their phone but cant share a photo when signal drops on a hike”
Anyway hope it gets better, it shouldn't be “wealthy Americans use Apple devices and ignore cross platform chat apps” but right now it is. Maybe Apple’s Imessage and Airdrop go cross platform and help fix this culture, instead of relying on Google and a ton of OEMs to improve a UX they dont care about. People don’t want to send unencrypted SMS.
This is such a laughably exaggerated view. I would bet less than 1% of Android users choose not to use Apple because of some anti-superiority viewpoint.
the culture itself created the rest of the consternation in favor of Apple. Apple can successfully lean on it being an unencrypted notification than an anti competitive practice. Even two iMessage users can randomly fail back to green bubbles and the SMS network, and it has nothing to do with competitors.
When I was a kid, friendships were made in person: at school, extra curricular activities, at the park, etc. Maybe I’m so out of touch and kids never actually see each other face to face anymore and live entirely online these days. My friends and I did play games online together, and at school we’d brainstorm games that we could all play together. The point was to do stuff together, so we’re fine ways to make sure we were doing stuff together.
Are you telling me things have changed so much that nobody makes friends in person anymore?
Why so?
In short: It's good for children to be upset and afraid of new situations. That's how they learn that they can rely on their caregivers, who ideally support them in overcoming those situations.
Children that lack this mechanism (and e.g. are disinterested in new situations, or completely overwhelmed by them to the point where they cannot act at all) potentially lack that skill in adulthood as well.
That does not mean you have to design those situations regularly. You dont need to upset your kids. It does not mean upset is something that you as parent should always welcome or ignore.
Does that mean not having a WhatsApp account as well?
It's also why, last time I heard from a Facebook recruiter, I told him to make sure the next one to cold-call me had their general counsel's contact info handy so I'd know where to have my own attorney send the cease-and-desist. Seems to have had the intended effect, so far at least.
In our school district (Arlington Public Schools in Virginia), children get assigned Google GSuite accounts by default starting in Kindergarten. They are used for a variety of things, including authentication to multiple school apps.
That's called "being a parent" in my circle? I have a toddler that loves to throw the "you're not my friend!" at me when I cut off the TV and tell her it is time for dinner.
I never had a cell-phone until 17, despite all my friends having had theirs as early as the middle school years. Never mattered much in my case. I didn't have an X-Box 360 with Halo 2 and online gaming despite many of my peers having had that. Not sure why this is being seen as a "must have."
Also don't make the classic mistake of assuming your kids have all the same variables you did, or can approach the same variables the same way. You have to adapt your experiences to their environment and their personality/needs, often with different outcomes than what you experienced. Most parents are too cowardly for that and mess up their kids with strict enforcement of obsolete rules or letting them run wild with too little structure/guidance.
Oddly, my own children do not have that same issue. In a world of billions, there are no universal claims like this.
I remember things starting to change in middle school. kids started making same-day plans for after school and shooting their parents a quick text to say where they were going. I tried using the school's phone a few times when I was invited, but there wasn't always time to visit the office between classes. that was pretty clunky to do one or more times per week, and I knew I would be in big trouble if I wasn't there when my dad came to pick me up. so I just had to accept that I wouldn't be participating in most of those spontaneous hangouts until I got a phone.
like you said, everyone is different. some kids are charismatic enough that everyone else will work around whatever inconveniences they bring. others are not. I knew my parents had a very firm stance on stuff like phones, so I didn't bother complaining about it much.
I am (very) reliably informed that at one nearby school with 6th-8th grade, almost every kid, even the ones from very poor or unstable families, has a cell phone. The tipping point for "over half of my classmates have cell phones" seems to be in the 3rd-5th grade range.
The schools let them carry them around all day, too, which is very confusing to me. They're not supposed to use them, but they do all the time, and teachers/admin are reluctant to confiscate them on more than a "you can have this back at the end of the day" basis (and usually not even that), because parents freak the fuck out if you hold on to their kids' phone overnight, no matter what (and, with limits only way at the extreme end, I really mean "no matter what") they were doing with it.
On the one hand, kids not being able to get off their phone to the point it impacts their performance at school is worrying.
On the other hand, school is kid prison, and I really can't begrudge any kid who, when having to listen to a teacher for hours on end, takes any opportunity to do something more interesting they find.
Agreed about the entire enterprise of school, as it exists, kinda being horrible kid-prison to begin with, though.
I'm pretty sure there's a selection effect in what you heard (eg you only hear stuff about kids using phones was something goes wrong enough to be headline-worthy).
For instance, I'm no fan of social media, but I wouldn't say it boils down to bullying and nothing else.
Doesn't matter in this case, though, since most schools seem to have just declared defeat on the issue.
Because they don't tell you about it?
In this specific case, I dont want them do well in gambling social system. Seen damage it causes in long term.
Generally I agree with you tho. Just gambling group is fine for my kids to not fit in.
We aren't here to discuss how great your parenting skills are. My ex has a narcissistic personality disorder and ... well. Any time somebody brags about how great a parent they are - especially when it's in the context of controlling children - I automatically think they aren't a great parent. That's probably just me and you probably are a really great parent, but I promise you I'm not the only one here thinking it.
If you're in the toddler stage you control almost every variable. The game changes once they hit > 8.
On one level, I agree with this. On another, I remember the restrictions my parents were convinced they had on me to which trivial workarounds existed.
Parenting is about picking and choosing your battles, trying to get the fundamentals right and conceding the minor losses. You do your best and adapt along the way; any master plan will inevitably get the details wrong.