Posted on 01/01/2007 1:45:53 PM PST by Coleus
Joe Skarimbas was just learning to read when he decided he was ready to join the digital age. "When he went to first grade he said, 'When am I going to get a cell phone?'" said Joe's mother, Tara Skarimbas.
The Leonia family decided to hold off on getting young Joe a phone until he turns 10 and starts walking home from school alone. But his mother understands the temptation to get her son, who turns 8 this month, a cell phone as soon as possible.
"Just for safety purposes," she said, glancing toward the new Disney Mobile kiosk during a shopping trip to the Paramus Park mall last week.
As the adult and teenage cell phone market becomes saturated, cell phone companies are targeting younger and younger users. This holiday season several companies -- including Disney, Verizon, TicTalk and Firefly -- are pushing brightly colored cell phones specially designed for children as young as kindergartners.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Kids who end up stranded some place have a tendency not to "miss the bus" next time.
Cell phones are often (not always) a crutch which enables bad behavior.
This is what kills me - all the conveniences you mentioned & so many more - and it seems like we have LESS free time than ever! People used to have time to sit on their porches in rockers, snap string beans & talk to people walking by. Time to bake a cake from scratch & write letters. Now, we all run around like gerbils on treadmills - running our tails off & never getting it all done.
You run the technology or the technology runs you.
Where in the world do they find anyone to play with? All the other kids are sitting indoors playing their video games and eating junk food. It's no wonder kids are so unhealthy these days.
I sign off with FMCDH(BITS) for my own reason. Just curious about yours.
FMCDH(BITS)
Very few people "need" a cell phone. The question is will it enhance some part of your life. I can list you all the annoyances I have seen with cell phones, but if I had little kids, I'd get them one. It puts me in direct contact with them and vis a verse. And that's a good thing.
Even an on-campus cop wouldn't have the legal power to seize private property and demand money for its return. Fines are the in jurisdiction of the judiciary.
Both my kids in their mid-20's never had cell phones as kids as the technology was new and prices were atrocious. My 15 year old step-daughter has had one since she was 13 and I'm glad she does. I can call her at any moment I feel like it. If my older kids had had cell phones I wouldn't have worried as much, even though nothing ever happened to them.
When you have kids you worry and cell phones help a lot. Just because we didn't have them doesn't mean we have to be irresponsible and not keep track of our kids now.
Like photoradar?
Excellent! That's really all this crap is about anyways, isn't it? PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
FMCDH(BITS)
You can still fight traffic cam violations in court. Paying the fine is an option if you don't want to dispute it, but the cops can't tell you that you have no choice but to cough up the money.
Point conceded.
Dear Nathan Zachary,
Well, most days they play with each other.
But once or twice a week, most weeks, they play with children of other homeschooling families. We host chess club on Tuesdays, which always starts out as chess, but often evolves into other activities, including tag, touch football, etc. Once a week, there's a regular get together for outdoor fun with a few families.
We had a Christmas Chess Party on the day after Christmas, and we had about 20 kids.
However, otherwise, you're right. Our neighborhood often seems deserted. Kids are seldom found playing outside. I guess they're all inside with the Playstation or whatever.
A few months back, one of my 12 year-old's baseball team friends came over to our house for a "playdate." The fellow was a bit overwhelmed by our house (he and his mother - divorced - live in a basement apartment nearby), but his eyes fell out of his head when he saw our plain old 31" TV with rabbit ears on top.
He commented, "You may have a way bigger house, but we have a way bigger TV. And I'd rather have the bigger TV."
We all chuckled once he left.
sitetest
But
Cell phones are dangerous emitters of Rf energy. They will be identified as a strong source of brain deterioration when the insurance plans start paying out for brain diseases the way they did for smoking related illnesses.
Highlight for secret message:
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I do the same thing, except you have to buy minutes at least once every 40 days or else you loose the unused ones. Still, it only amounts to $10 a month on average, and I end up with a lot of minutes piled up. I get enough phone at work, i refuse to have one glued to my ear everywhere I go.
The headline has it backwards. Guys hate to talk on the phone, they text. Girls talk first, text second.
We all grew up in a totally different world!
I'm 78. I walked the three miles to town and
back when I was 7 and 8. No problems.
My kids walked to school and home for years.
Walked wherever they needed to go. No problems.
My Grandkids walked eveywhere or got rides
to the shopping centers. No problems.
My GREATKIDS play on our residential street
and at the park a block away. We do NOT live
in a slum area. There are at least 15
registered sex predators within 8 blocks of
my home, two living across the street from
the park and 4 within two blocks of the school.
My Greatkids have phones!
Don't advise me to call the police. They
know exactly who and where everybody is.
Nothing they can do about it.
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