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Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#61

Post by jkestner »

mememememememo wrote: post #43
ripplefringe wrote: post #28

A year ago, I got my 8 y/o a landline (we used Ooma). It has been absolutely wonderful. By far the best thing is that he makes his own playdates. I'm not the middleman anymore. He just makes plans and asks me if it's ok. And if his friend doesn't have a landline, I let him call their parent. It surprises them, but when he leaves a message, they love it. He's definitely had more time with friends because of it. Anothe…

Do we think a dumb phone Nokia and calls only SIM is just as good (to avoid all the drilling etc. of installing landlines in each kids room?)

I dug out an old Motofone (the $40 eink candybar) for this reason, only to discover that it’s 2G, which has been decommissioned. Too bad, would’ve been fun to watch the kid learn T9.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#62

Post by jkestner »

mikepurvis wrote: post #40
ripplefringe wrote: post #28

A year ago, I got my 8 y/o a landline (we used Ooma). It has been absolutely wonderful. By far the best thing is that he makes his own playdates. I'm not the middleman anymore. He just makes plans and asks me if it's ok. And if his friend doesn't have a landline, I let him call their parent. It surprises them, but when he leaves a message, they love it. He's definitely had more time with friends because of it. Anothe…

My 9 and 12 year old share a "kid" phone that's just a hand-me-down parent phone. This partially meets that need, but it still gets used for way too much unsupervised YouTube time. The thing for me that has really unlocked voice-based socializing has been the 12 year old jumping on Discord with his buddies from school. I feel like this mirrors well how I myself chat with my adult male friends—it's rarely in the conte…

My kid uses a shared Google doc to chat with friends on their school-issued Chromebooks. (But still has the problem of unsupervised screen time.)

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#63

Post by ornornor »

senectus1 wrote: post #33
SoftTalker wrote: post #8

> Alarmingly, some Gen Zers don't say "hello" when they answer a phone call; they expect the caller to just start talking. I'm an older Gen-X and I've stopped doing this unless I recognize the caller. I'm not going to give a scammer anything to build a voice print on. I also use the stock greeting for voicemail instead of a personal one.

I've been actively trying to think of a better way to answer the phone without sounding rude. but without giving up my name or mentally accepting whoever is on the other side (like hello tends to do)

> mentally accepting whoever is on the other side (like hello tends to do)

I don’t get that. How is answering the phone mentally accepting the caller? What does it even mean to mentally accept? Is it that you don’t want to talk? Then let it go to voicemail and decide if you want to call back or not? I think I’m missing the point.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#64

Post by mememememememo »

jkestner wrote: post #61
mememememememo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we think a dumb phone Nokia and calls only SIM is just as good (to avoid all the drilling etc. of installing landlines in each kids room?)

I dug out an old Motofone (the $40 eink candybar) for this reason, only to discover that it’s 2G, which has been decommissioned. Too bad, would’ve been fun to watch the kid learn T9.

2G to 3G converter ftw!

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#65

Post by semi-extrinsic »

I "made" something like this 7-8 years ago for our first kid. When I say "made" I mean I bought a "fixed wireless terminal" for $40 on eBay, a classic landline phone for $30, and a cell phone subscription for kids ($5/month). Then I connected the parts, and voila, we had a landline for kids.

Obvious benefits include low cost, full interop with all other phones, and having the kids learn our phone numbers by heart after punching them many times.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#66

Post by quijoteuniv »

I like the idea. We tried with licence free walkie talkies, but it did not catch on. What it worked is the xplora watches. Only approved contacts and we can also contact our kids and check GPS position . They are a bit buggy sometimes but mostly fine

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#67

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

mememememememo wrote: post #43
ripplefringe wrote: post #28

A year ago, I got my 8 y/o a landline (we used Ooma). It has been absolutely wonderful. By far the best thing is that he makes his own playdates. I'm not the middleman anymore. He just makes plans and asks me if it's ok. And if his friend doesn't have a landline, I let him call their parent. It surprises them, but when he leaves a message, they love it. He's definitely had more time with friends because of it. Anothe…

Do we think a dumb phone Nokia and calls only SIM is just as good (to avoid all the drilling etc. of installing landlines in each kids room?)

I believe cordless VoIP phones are still a product one can purchase new.

They need only an electrical outlet for the charge stand.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#68

Post by bit_logic »

Why does it seem like many parents are unaware that a hand me down iPhone can be heavily locked down with screen time settings? A list of things you can do:

- allowed list of apps, can reduce it to just phone, imessage, and utilities like weather app

- effectively permanent downtime, just set the end time less than start time such as 3:00 am to 2:59 am (technically 1 minute of non downtime). This blocks apps except for the allowed apps

- disable installing apps from app store

- disable adding new contacts and block calls and messages not in contact list. This allows parent to control who the phone can be used to contact

- none of these settings can be changed without the screen time pin

- also configure the phone with a minor apple account and add to your family group so you can monitor and control screen time settings from your phone.

So start with a super locked down phone that can only be used to communicate with parents. This is very helpful when they start after school sports. And the phone is so locked down they don't really have any interest in it.

Later when they're older start allowing communication with friends from school. But still only phone and imessage, no other apps. This reinforces that it's a communication device, not for endless scrolling and watching videos.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#69

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

bit_logic wrote: post #68

Why does it seem like many parents are unaware that a hand me down iPhone can be heavily locked down with screen time settings? A list of things you can do: - allowed list of apps, can reduce it to just phone, imessage, and utilities like weather app - effectively permanent downtime, just set the end time less than start time such as 3:00 am to 2:59 am (technically 1 minute of non downtime). This blocks apps except f…

I mean, a landline + phone is way cheaper to be fair

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#70

Post by sharkweek »

We got one of these for our elementary-aged kids because it took off in our network of families at their school.

It’s so fun watching them talk to their buddies from school, planning play dates, just chitchatting etc. My favorite thing is when they prank call one another, cracks me up.

Maybe the novelty wears off soon but for at least the last month or so they’ve used it every day. It feels like it gives them a bit of autonomy they’re seeking right now at their ages, but in a relatively safe way.

Highly recommend it.

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