I don't know if this is a good idea or a bad idea, but the decision has been made and this is what we have. In Finland, when kids start school, it is generally when they get their first phone, with many getting some form of smart phone that they carry with them. However, in recent years, wearables have become more accessible and there is now a range for children that they can use, without having full reign over their activity.
With Smallsteps now heading to school and will soon be walking by herself, we went with a wearable that she will get for her birthday tomorrow. It is kind of handy to have her birthday at the start of the school year, because then we can pass-off needs as presents. The one we got is the Xplora X6 play which has various features with a camera, but no video calling. It also doesn't have VoIP calling.
It does have texting and voice calls to pre-approved numbers, all of which are logged and monitored through an app that guardians have on their phone. She has a couple friends and I want them to be able to communicate together and set up playdates for themselves. It allows up to 50 numbers and all communication is tracked by parents, which is fine I think for a kid of her age, though as she grows we will withdraw monitoring her.
There is also a GPS tracker so that we can know where she is to some degree of accuracy, and the battery life is around about three days, which isn't too bad for a kids watch. Though, it isn't the slimmest thing in the world.
Smallsteps has grownup with a relatively analogue life, so it is going to be interesting to see if this changes her behavior in any way. What I am hoping is that it just becomes a short-lived novelty and then is used more for the step counter it has, as well as sending the odd message to some of the family. I am not yet sure what the costs of texting Australia are yet, but the odd one shouldn't make much of a difference to the bill and I think she will be pretty stoked to get a message from uncle 
With all the various benefits, I believe there are a lot of drawbacks to this kind of tech, including the tracing from third parties. At some point, unless living completely off the grid, there is an inevitability to all of this. Life is so intertwined with technology that it is unavoidable, so it comes down to building behaviors that mitigate the risks, without going insane. This means that throughout this early phase, there is a chance to influence the future activity too.
But, I have plenty of reservations about these kinds of tech and most of it is about how it influences our behavior to not plan as well, and encourages instant gratification. For her though, there will be no games on the watch and we will have discussions on how she uses it as we go forward. There are also school modes for it to take away functionality between certain times, so that it doesn't become a distraction.
So, tomorrow Smallsteps takes her first real steps into a "smart" world and I am really hoping that she is smart enough that it doesn't make her stupid. So many kids I meet these days are so dull, because they spend all of their time staring at screens, none of their time in their imagination.
And perhaps the biggest risk for all of these devices lays on the behavior of the parents, with many starting to rely on them to entertain their child, rather than the parent "having" to spend time with them instead. We can't complain about the behavior of our kids, if we haven't supported them to behave differently. After all, they are products of their environments, just like us.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
