Kids have chromebooks that don't allow outside contact. None in the library. that was 20 years ago. |
If you haven't raised a child who can handle a smartphone, use a watch or a dumbphone |
+1 dumb phone or watch. |
In a school shooting? Ok sure |
You need help. |
We're not in MCPS, so I don't know the rules, but my 7th grader has an Apple Watch that is locked down in SchoolTime mode between bell hours. She can unlock it if she needs to, but she rarely does. |
In a school shooting the last thing your kid should be doing is paying attention to his phone rather than the adults keeping him safe. |
I want my kids to be safe, then call me as soon as its over, which is what they do.. when something happens and they get evacuated, which happens at least a few times a year, they call when they are out. |
I’m the OP. If we get something it will be a dumb phone or watch. The question still is are there practical advantages/disadvantages to one or the other that you learned from using it. For example, once upon a time we bout a kid’s kindle fire. I heard it had great parental controls. Turned out, it didn’t do what we wanted to do and we ended up using the main parent profile. I actively disliked the kids kindle fire and am hoping not to hate this future device. |
I'd get a cellular apple watch. He'll be made fun of with a dumb phone. It stays on him and cannot get lost or stolen as easily. |
Just think about it this way. Parents who buy phones for their kids are making their kids education less effective and making their teachers get ousted. Teachers have no way to enforce rules and they get no support. The kids know this and when they bring their cell phones to class admin will retaliate on teachers and fire them bc they think kids are on their phones bc the teachers are ineffective. Everything is blamed on the teachers. I do t recommend this profession as it ruins lives of hard working trustworthy altruistic people. Admin suck at supporting teachers and the union takes our money to fight us. |
My kid has an Apple Watch that we have in school mode during school hours. Her teacher told her that the new rules going into place means she will not be able to wear it during school hours next year. |
Luddite here: how do you do this? I don't see how to activate this setting, and it sounds useful |
DP but here: https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/get-started-with-schooltime-apd160a958b7/watchos It's worked well for us. |
We went with a very basic watch (a Gizmo) and there have been no issues. |