Parents turn to smartwatches for their children amid global phone screen-time pushback

Why are parents so desperate to track their kids? Don't they trust them?
We had a problem with our oldest not coming home on time. So we asked them, and they didn't have a way to keep track of time. So we got them a cheap Casio and the problem is solved. They love the watch, and independence, and trust.
When we give our kids a phone, it won't have any restrictions, because it means we trust them. We don't, so we're holding off. I'm unwilling to spy on them, so they'll get a phone when I trust them without filters.
- Kids need trust. They don't mature without room to fuck up or succeed
  
  Exactly! And they will screw up, so it's important to let them fail frequently while the stakes are low instead of putting it off until the stakes are high.
  
  True. It ends up building resentment and delaying maturity
- I'm already teaching mine to hide his tracks better, to only steal from companies if you have to and can get away with it, not neighbors or your avg person who worked hard for their stuff.
- You seem like a great parent! I'm personally leaning towards giving them dumb phones once they have to take public transport to school, for the convenience of them being able to inform me when they miss the bus or want to have lunch at a friend's. But who knows if or when I'll even have kids, lol. Maybe things will change in that time.
  
  Yeah, that's my take as well. When they need one, we'll start simple. If they do well with that, we'll expand to a smartphone, again, when they need it (maps and whatnot).
  Right now, my kids don't need it since we take them to/from school (charter school), but the oldest will be changing schools soon to the local public school, so they may need one for after school activities. I'm not giving them something because their friends have it (theirs do), I'll give them something because they need/earned it.
  
  I used to miss the bus all the time before having a phone. But it didn't matter; I wasn't going to be late for anything, I just had to figure out another way home, usually walking which took about 45 to an hour.
  If I wanted to go to a friend's house, I'd usually just go to their house and then call using their phone.
- Yeah right. I'm going to try every spy trick in the book so they learn some goddamn common sense.
  
  And they'll just learn they can't trust you. So instead of coming to you when they have a problem, they'll go to someone else, probably online. That sounds way worse than them failing and coming to you for help.
- Good god, that makes too much sense! Away with you, we need to implant tracking devices in our offspring and I'll hear nothing else on the matter
- I trust my kids. I don't trust random weirdos that hang around schools though
  
  What are you worried those "random weirdos" are going to do? I also haven't seen those weirdos that you claim are so ubiquitous, the people who hang around schools are kids who go there.
  A "random weirdo" doesn't want anything to do with your kids. If you look at the stats, the vast majority of crimes against children are from family members or close friends, as in, the people who would be texting your child on their phone/watch.

This has been so good for me and my kid. If they are out and feel like they need adult help, we are a watch tap away. If they want to come home early from a friend's house, send me a code and I'm there. If they want to go to their friend's house after school, I'm a text away.
We have a no phone until you're 13 rule so while the watch is a stripped down phone, it's not a phone so easy for us all to understand, plus it's already stripped down, no hassle no fuss.
- What a weird rule. You are intentionally destroying your kid's social, developmental, and interpersonal opportunities because you're unwilling to actually put in the time to parent.
  The least you could do is give them a dumb phone, so they are ostracized less. Or better yet, actually teach and parent them how to use a phone, and then give them a phone with locked down permissions to block tiktok/etc that are actually problematic, while still allowing them access to things that allow them to relate to friends and their community. Trust but verify.
  
  They are parenting. This is what parenting looks like. You don't just give them everything they want. Sure, you can also choose to give them a phone, and you can choose to lock it down. You can also choose to give them nothing. Parenting is about making those decisions for your child. It isn't about listening to random people tell you stupid things online who act like they're more knowledgeable about your situation.
  
  Well you clearly don’t have kids, and if you do, you sound like the shitty parent lol
  
  You are really telling everyone how little you know about parenting. This is what parenting looks like. You parent the kids you have with the skills and tools available. It doesn't look the same for everyone.
  You should probably sit back down.
- 13? How many of their friends have phones because I would assume their using phones, just not one you gave them and I know from experience other parents do not do the most basic of filtering in their kids devices.
  
  I’m pretty sure the goal behind the no phone rule is not that utilizing a phone is inherently bad, but that you’re trying to avoid building the habits and behavior that comes with having a smart phone on you, like doom scrolling, constant social media access, constant distraction etc. And in that case, the kid having some limited access to other kids phones (If they even do. Who among any of us just lets someone else use our phone unrestricted) isn’t going to undermine that effort.
  
  None of their friends have phones.

I stopped smoking cigarettes. I’ve moved on to cigars.
- I mean you say that as a joke but cigars you don’t usually inhale into your lungs. Like you’re still at risk of mouth cancer, but if you switched from Cigarettes to cigars, you wouldn’t suffer the myriad of negative health effects that comes with being a cigarette smoker which would objectively be a huge improvement.
  
  Wait you're not supposed to inhale cigar smoke into your lungs? How do you get high from those then?
  
  Moving to cigars first actually helped my father quit smoking completely
- I did that once.
  
  Then the cancer set in

Parents turn to smart watches? Not in my household! Not one more fucking non Linux piece of shit spying screen more.
- A modern day equivalent of "we don't own a tv"
  
  I still say this to cable companies and other tv providers, is awesome and hilarious how they can't continue their phone sale.
  
  I guess? I think it's more like "we don't have cable/satellite TV." My kids have watches, they just don't connect to the internet. And why should they?
  I have a smart watch, but I only use it to buy stuff, and I don't wear it everywhere either. It's not even really connected to my phone (I have to switch profiles to connect it).
- Can I interest you in an IBM WatchPad? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_WatchPad
  
  Yes, sign me up.

Children’s smartwatches are a stripped-down version of a typical smartwatch, and they allow parents to restrict app downloads, usage and calls from an approved list of contacts.
All of that you can do with a phone too. I do admit thought the argument of not losing it as easily since its on your arm makes sense.
- I think you're far less likely to spend a lot of screen time on a watch, hence the article
  
  If you restrict the crap out of the phones so there is not much interesting to do for kids, it will have similar effects. E.g. they complain about YouTube on their kids phones, block it. Complain about games, don't let them install them.
  
  You obviously don't have kids. I gave mine crappy Minecraft watches that had a couple games on it, and they were glued to them for hours at a time. It became a pretty big problem because they were staying up late.
  Just imagine what they could do with a more capable device that can talk w/ friends.
- Unless your kid, I don't know, takes it off for some reason and leaves it at school over the weekend. Hypothetical, of course. Hasn't happened to me once... or 4 times even.
- Difference is the school isn't going to confiscate my kid's watch (yet)
- I think the not losing it and easy to carry thing is the key point. If they have to at least keep it in a backpack pocket fine, but if it has any whiff of something distracting to do on it, many kids will get distracted.
  Mine have not hit that age yet so I still have time to form my opinions and be informed. As someone who likes small compact things I can't lose, a watch sounds ideal.

As someone who's 23 and grew up with smartphones and all of that as they were starting to become popular I feel like I have some takes on a lot of the opinions I've seen on the different sides of issues like this. I lean in general towards giving your kid a phone once they're old enough to want to be able to talk with friends and do things on their own afterschool but having some non-intrusive ways to keep an eye on what they're doing with it until sometime when they're a teenager. That just seems like the best way to not ostracize them from other kids while still making sure they're being safe online. Even though in general things worked out fine for me with my parents letting me have my own laptop and iPod touch and eventually iPhone from a pretty young age without really watching what I did on them I definitely see a lot of times that I could have ended up being taken advantage of online if things had been slightly different. And the reason I say non-intrusive ways to keep track of what your kid is doing is because I knew kids who did have like parental restrictions on their phones and all of them knew ways to bypass them and do what they wanted to do anyways. So the only way you're gonna successfully keep an eye on them is if they don't know you are and you only interfere if it's a genuine safety problem, and even then you make sure to not punish them for it as that will make them start hiding things from you actively, you treat it as a learning moment and help them understand why what they were doing wasn't safe. I'm still very much figuring out what my exact views on this are but I think leaning too far in either direction of not letting them have social media or a smartphone at all even when they're starting to reach middle school or letting them have unrestricted access to social media and a phone both have their problems and you have to find a good balance in the middle.
- I think there's evidence that the ostracism from not being with peers (on phones, etc,) is worse than whatever benefit is gained by waiting until later.
  I feel like it can't be harmful for a parent to limit how much time they can spend on a phone though, but maybe I'm out of touch.
  Parents should be involved in their kids lives enough to look at some things together with them on the phone but IDK how much people have time for that...

Well I certainly understand the pros of this but is training your kid to have a dopamine response everytime a notification comes in and buzzes their arm is dangerous, no? It’s like training the kid to always want that feeling for the rest of their life

The image here is My First Fone. For Android it has terrible notifications. I'm constantly missing messages and calls from my kid.

They still make flip phones that aren’t “smart”
- Yes but kids are less likely to lose watches.
  
  Also it's rare that a classroom would have a no watches rule.

My kid’s been walking to/from school and roaming the neighborhood since he was 7. Apple Watch FTW. It has its legit uses.
- Mine too. I gave them a cheap Casio and told them what time to be home, and they come home on time. If they don't, they know they're getting consequences, like not being allowed to go out on their own.
  They know to not talk to strangers, and they know our phone numbers and address. They're fine.
- You know there are cheaper watches that do the same thing right
  
  Name three.
- "I'm going to strap a $700 watch to this $15K bag of organs, as a tip"
  
  Really moronic take.
  
  Just the tip, I promise

In five years: "After global ban of smart watches in schools, parents are increasingly turning to bodyguards and private chaperones".

I'm sure it works in theory but wearing that for however long sounds a bit much. Now, is it a good idea? That's a whole another can of worms.
- Reasonable point, but people have worn watches all day for centuries. Just clean then and rotate wrists.
  
  Something that big and heavy on a kid's arm is going to get uncomfortable after like ten minutes.
- My kid has it in their schoolbag, just wears it on the way home and later if they go out. They don't have to wear it all the time.

We do this, 2 timex family family connect watches, the older green ones off eBay. It's perfect and it opened up the privilege of walking home from school, walking to the park, and walking to friends houses as long as they keep it charged and check in. The newer ones look like an apple watch which I felt made them a theft target but the old ones have changed the family's life. Then, we can ask them to do chores when they get home from school, and if they do, they can ask us to unlock tablet.

Honestly I would love a watch for myself that would replace a smartphone but it would be even better for kids.
Garmin makes them and have a relatively good privacy policy and track record but it would be even better if we didn't need to trust them.

Good, kids are super easy to rob.

Gotta make sure they have an ~~ankle monitor~~ smart watch!
- A smartwatch seems like an interesting way to keep in touch with your kid/keep track of them. I guess it could be abused like anything else though.
  
  My nephew has one and I kind of love getting random "have you seen cheetozard" messages from him.
  
  Why do you need to keep track of your kid? Are you ever in a situation where you don't know exactly where they are and for some reason need to?
  My kids know where they can go, when they need to check in, and what time they need to be home. They know my phone number and can call me using a trusted adult's phone. It's really not an issue.