To technology or not to technology? That has been the question at every birthday and Christmas for the last two years. Since she was six and first exposed to iPods through friends, our daughter has had one at the top of every gift list (which we’ve ignored on every single gift giving occasion).
Until this year.
When the request for an iPod Touch showed up again on this year’s Santa letter it was the first time my husband and I had some serious “should we do it” talks. We were back and forth for quite a while on the decision. On the plus side, she was now eight-and-a-half and truthfully, a pretty responsible kid. On the minus side, do kids really need their own devices at this age? I spent a great deal of November with an incredible philosophical debate going on in my head.
In early December, it got to the point where we thought that all she needed was a camera and a smaller iPod that she could download only music to. I thought I was so smart – picture, video and music, what else does she need? As I started shopping around it quickly became clear that buying these two things was actually going to be more expensive than the actual iPod Touch. Back to the drawing board.
It was then that I started doing some research about what kinds of parental controls the device offered. At the same time I started searching articles from parents of young kids to see how they handled this big transition and what kinds of rules were put around it. There was a lot of great information out there and it was a huge help in figuring out our game plan.
On Christmas morning, the iPod Touch arrived along with a letter from Santa. Santa explained that he felt she was responsible enough now to handle some rules that came along with the gift. Those rules were:
- It is not allowed in her room overnight
- Mom and Dad must know her code at all times (and can look at it whenever they want to)
- It is never allowed at school or her babysitters
- Internet browsing will be turned off (no youtube, no google, no Internet)
It has now been almost a month and I’m happy to say that I think our strategy has worked. She has followed all rules and has even reminded us to take it out of her room at night on a few occasions. She is using iMessage and Facetime when she’s at home on wifi and the honest truth is that they have proven to be nice ways for her to stay in touch with some of her friends from the lake and her basketball team. She spent the better part of an hour the other night on Facetime with a friend from school working on a report about Maud Lewis just for fun. She uses it to tune her guitar and yes, Minecraft has become part of our lives. Our biggest issues are mornings and making sure she does what she needs to do to get ready for school instead of picking it up. The other issue has been her little sister who sometimes feels left out.
I was worried we’d regret the decision and we don’t. I also don’t regret that we ignored her request for two years. It came into our lives at the right time, with the right controls and the right rules for our family. Somebody help me when she starts asking for Internet browsing. I think I’ve suddenly forgotten my parental control password.
Deanna is a Mom of three, wife, marketer and blogger – lover of travel, morning coffee, family time, belly laughs, good friends and uninterrupted showers! Follow her on twitter @DeannaCMiller
