If your kid's like mine (and has a cellphone), s/he is getting text messages all the time. What you might want to check on with him or her is whether it's all the time from one person. If it is, there could be some good reasons for this seemingly obsessive or stalking behavior – maybe the child needs help, a confidant for a few days. Another possibility is what blogger April Peveteaux at cafemom … [Read more...] about Tech-enabled dating abuse
texting
How 10-year-olds text without a phone
It's a workaround for a kid with an iPod Touch who doesn't yet have a cellphone: Textfree. Writes CNET's Michelle Meyers of her 10-year-old daughter, the app "assigns her a real phone number, and lets her send and receive texts for free." Is there a catch? Not really – unless texting is the reason why you didn't get the kid a cellphone in the first place (at least s/he can't text while driving … [Read more...] about How 10-year-olds text without a phone
Why do kids text so much?
I enjoyed these observations of a mobile tech pundit on why his 13-year-old granddaughter, Caroline – who he says sends 200+ text messages a day, seven days a week – and her peers are so into texting.... First there's the urgency/immediacy factor, J. Gerry Purdy writes: The little trill that sounds when a message has arrived creates a sense of urgency to respond that becomes a chain reaction … [Read more...] about Why do kids text so much?
Texting while driving: What are parents modeling?
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety "found that teens whose parents had three or more crashes on their records were 22% more likely to crash at least once, compared with teens whose parents had no crashes," NPR reports. It also found that "children whose parents had three or more violations on their records were 38% more likely to have a violation on their own records, compared with teens … [Read more...] about Texting while driving: What are parents modeling?