Ecotrain Question of the Week

The @ecotrain question of the week is "Should parents set a minimum age or some restrictions for their children to own a smartphone, and if so what would they be?"

YES! Children can have smart phones!

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We do not need to set limits for before our children can have smart phones. Children can have smart phones at any time and at any age depending on the purpose on which you want them to have a smart phone.

Before i proceed, permit me say I am Mr. Green and my wife and I have 3 kids. Our first son is 9 years old, our daughter is 5 years old and our second son is 6 months old. We love our kids with our lives and we want them to have the best in life.
I am the kind of parent who will give my kids anything so long as its within my reach to afford for what I wish for them or what they want.

My Technological History

I am 33 years old today but my technological history is one that is full of so much regrets. Growing up in Cameroon - Africa, I wish my parents understood the importance of technology and gave me the opportunity to have access to technological devices like I would be a more better person today. The first bad news is that I got my first phone which was not a smart phone at the age of 20. Did I even get the phone or did I bully my mum and colonized her phone? Sure, I did colonize my mum’s phone and I don’t even remember whether or not someone bought me a phone.
However, I got my first smart phone which was a Motorola L6 at the age of 23 and I guess you don’t want to know how I got the phone. Hahahahahahaha. However, thieves snatched it from me with a dagger on my neck. What a sad story. It took me more than 2 years to get another smart phone and at least, I had started working before I could buy a smart phone of my choice. This is just to let you know that I have used a smart phone for less than 10 years.
It’s not just an issue of phone or smart phone. What about computers? I got access to a computer when I was about 20 years old and I owned my first computer when I was about 25 years old. I bought my first laptop at the age of 26 and I think you can understand what it means to live the life I lived.
I believe if I had access to technological devices, I would have been more advanced and made a lot of wonderful contributions that would have created a giant positive impact in the world a long time ago. I guess you know understand why I want to give my kids anything I can afford to buy for them.

Let’s talk about smart phones for Children.

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As a parent, one thing I try to teach my children is how to use anything wisely. I teach them not to get excited with things and how they can use anything sustainably. This is one thing most parents fail to teach their children and that is why smart phones and video games are a major problem to lots of parents. They buy these things for their children but they fail to teach their children how to use the things in such as way that it doesn’t become a problem to, their education or their family.
For example, when I bought my kids bicycles I told them it was not for fun everyday but for fun and transportation once in a while. I decided to implement bicycle riding days and hours so that during these days, they can ride for fun but each time we want them to attend to an errand that required a bicycle, we sent them with the bicycle. Today, they know that bicycle is not for fun everyday and they are using their bicycles as a means of transportation, for sports and for their leisure. Then we bought them their computers, then video games, then football, a golf set and finally a house phone. All these things, we have thought them how to use them by scheduling time for them to use them.
We haven’t bought them smart phones yet but they have access to our smart phones and they use them with care and for great purposes. Our goal is to buy them smart phones with great digital cameras and teach them how to use the phones to document environmental and societal happenings in our community. In as much as we want to communicate with our kids also when we are not around, we want to teach them to understand that besides communication, you can use a phone for a lot of inspiring purposes like research, networking and documenting stories that can make the world a better place.
Buying your child a smart phone is one thing but the most important thing is to follow-up that child to see what he or she is doing with that phone. The only reason we have not bought our kids phones is because we are still saving to buy them phones and as soon as the money is ready, we shall buy them smart phones and teach them how to use the phones to build solid relationships that can heal the world.

Some of the reasons that inspire us to buy our kids smart phones include

1. It will assist them to research more
2. It will connect them with lots of people
3. It will assist them to become smart and facilitate their study
4. We will communicate with them more often whenever we are not home
5. For security reasons

Generally, i don't think we should set a minimum age for our kids to have smart phones. Kids can have smart phones at any age or time.

However, i think we need to work on website restrictions and to effectively follow-up our kids on how they are using their smart phones. If we can guide our kids to use smart phones for smart purposes that can assist them to grow, create a positive imapct and build strong relationships, then we can be sure of having a smarter generation that will make the world a better place.

We are buying our kids smart phones in December 2018!

@ecotrain #ecotrain