The list of stuff our parents didn't have to worry about, but WE do, gets longer every day. When I started substituting for the school district last year I was horrified by the policies for cell phone and technology use. Every school tweaks it a bit but overall if a child has a phone or tablet or whatever (and most do), they can freely use it at lunch and recess, between classes and wherever else they can sneak a click. One school allows kids to use them in class for answer searches etc. I have 3 objections to this.
1. Porn
2. Pedophiles
3. Kids who do not have a tablet or phone or whatever
Naturally, my kids have greatly misinterpreted their personal need for phones. No. How ridiculous. I'm going to give my flippy- brained kids a highly expensive, tiny, delicate machine? Just, no. When I started back to work in the fall though, I realized I could pick up a lot more hours if I could get hold of them during the day with scheduling.
Sigh. Phones for Christmas.
Thinking it through exhaustively, we figured Teena would probably be ok and would likely hardly even use the thing. We'd have to keep a close eye on Genea though. Unhealthy boundaries and poor judgement translate to a high risk of dangerous crap coming directly into our home through the air (or however wi-fi works). I dunno though, it kind of seems like we should be teaching good habits and safety with technology as soon as it's reasonable. The problem being there's no precedence for parents. No tips that worked or didn't work for previous generations. Just in maybe the past 10 years or so our lives have become saturated with these devices. My brother in law jokes that kids today live 3 inches from the wall, obsessively clicking their electronica while recharging.
I feel like I should be protecting my children from the internet, controlling the snot out of it and supervising closely. However, kids have internet at school. If they do not have a device, they can look at whatever they want to see on someone else's. It may sound like schools have strong security on their wi- fi but all the kids have to do is close out wi- fi and use cellular data. Here is something scary I learned on reddit. Schools have pretty decent firewall system and everything you wouldn't want your kid to see is blocked. Where I work, even facebook is blocked. However, a delightfully clever young student somewhere figured out an easy hack. Enter whatever vile website you want into google translate. Pick any language, it doesn't matter. Paste the translation into your search bar and SHAZAM!
So as apprehensive as I am, there is a logic to getting kids on their own devices so they can learn, and fail, re- learn, screw up, learn some more.
Anyway they were excited.
This blur is Teena. She couldn't stop jumping.
Though actually, she looks like this most days.
Genea. Surprised and happy. Just a little.
I figured I would gain some peace and quiet. I am not ashamed to say this is the best part.
(I've decided I like the "vignette" setting on pics this week)
I keep the chargers in my room and the phones sleep next to my head. I look through them at night, and The Husband has a dealie-bop that sends everything to his phone, even if it was cleared.
Genea is fine. It is SO FUNNY listening to her talk to friends being silly, giggly and a dreadfully normal almost- teenager.
"he said what??? Then what happened? giggle* giggle* giggle! do you still think Mr. R is so cute? *giggle streak* omg he is! wear your purple shirt tomorrow and I'll wear mine!"
Her texts are the same.
What surprised me to the nth degree was that she freaked out (not the good kind) because she'd not expected a phone. I go and write that whole long ass post about holiday meltdowns (scroll down to see) and I never once considered that surprising her with something so unexpected would jam us up. Mercifully it was short lived. Probably cuz it's too hard to tantrum and text ha ha.
Teena is psycho text stalking friends.
minute 1 Hello
minute 1.5 HELLO
minute 2 WHERE ARE YOU
minute 2.5 WHY ARENT YOU ANSWERING ME
She has lost the case already.
This weekend, she ran up a $230 tab donating to a minecraft server owner.
(thank tequila we were able to get it refunded).
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