Like all children Tom sees his family and older cousins tapping away at mobile phones and tablets. Also like most people Tom's age he has a tablet and use of the laptop under supervision. However for some reason he has always wanted one, but at the age of seven his Mum and I feel it is too young. This has resulted in much debate. The debate originally was what you would expect from a kid, "why..." and all derivatives of this argument.
In recent months I have seen Tom mature and his debates generally give a good argument. Recently the debate was back to why can't he have a mobile phone and I would give the reasons behind our decisions. I am glad to say that his response was very thought provoking for someone at such a young age, but still now. His plan was that Tom and I should build the mobile phone suitable for a seven year old child. I could not fault his reasoning, what he would miss out from it and what he would put in it. He is a little genius in my eyes and although I am not sure it will work we are going to give it a go. What it turns out like I am not sure.
It will consist of the following:
In recent months I have seen Tom mature and his debates generally give a good argument. Recently the debate was back to why can't he have a mobile phone and I would give the reasons behind our decisions. I am glad to say that his response was very thought provoking for someone at such a young age, but still now. His plan was that Tom and I should build the mobile phone suitable for a seven year old child. I could not fault his reasoning, what he would miss out from it and what he would put in it. He is a little genius in my eyes and although I am not sure it will work we are going to give it a go. What it turns out like I am not sure.
It will consist of the following:
- Able to make calls to family and adult authorised numbers only, at present this will be the emergency services.
- Not able to access Facebook or any other social media, unless we find something age specific.
- A direct chat service to his family members. These are me, his Mum, Nanny O, Nannie Pam & Grandad, aunts, uncles and cousins.
- Only able to access games that age specific.
It amazed me the thought someone so young can put into something like this and coming out with a winning argument. After agreeing to do this I asked if he would like to make other projects, to which he said yes, which delighted me.
So we are going to do a mobile phone of sorts in the new year. As his birthday is January it will not be finished before he is eight years old, but the criteria will be the same.
Details of this project and other projects will follow in the new year with a page on this blog and detailed instruction links on other websites, e.g. Instructables and Youtube.
Stay tuned for more on this exciting project....
Due to the complexity of this project it did not take off. We did however get Tom a candy bar style mobile phone of his own for his 9th birthday. So now when he goes out we can always get hold of him or he can call us.
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