REVIEW: SMARTWATCHPHONE KIDS
Today I'm putting on my mom hat to talk to you about something that has (literally) changed my life.
My daughter will soon be 10 years old. And if you're wondering, yes, every night I cry in the fetal position at the bottom of my bed because time passes too quickly and I still remember the time when she came home, whole, on our forearms . Now she steals my socks every morning because, hey, mom, you see, we're almost the same size. #shootme
10 years is especially this moment which seems a bit pivotal to me when children seriously begin to lean towards pre-adolescence. This period when they want a little more freedom, to be empowered, to no longer always be stuck to their parents' coattails and to live their life a little as they see fit.
That’s what being a child is all about, after all. Grow and emancipate yourself a little more every day.
And being a parent often comes down to one central feeling: anxiety.
• SOURCE OF ANXIETY #1
A little over a year ago my daughter started going out to our street to play with her friends. I still remember the day she asked us if she could go out… In my head it felt like “WHUT?!” To go out ? ALONE ? IN THE STREET WITHOUT US ????? BUT NOOOOOOOO! » I was about to lock him in the cellar until he was 30 when, fortunately, his father, sometimes much more reasonable than me, took matters into his own hands.
I remembered that I too used to hang out not far from home with my friends when I was around his age, that I even came home from school alone and that I was able to handle these kinds of situations perfectly. But it was *be careful, old phrase* : another era. A time when, even if it happened, you didn't have the fear that your kid would be taken away in broad daylight. A time when of course we necessarily worried - it is written on the contract, very small at the bottom "by becoming a parent you agree to worry 24 hours a day for your child until the end of your days. Kiss. » - but where it seems to me that it was to a much lesser extent.
But concretely I didn't want to let my anxieties deprive our daughter of something quite normal. We live in a small town, and what's more, in a quiet little neighborhood made up mostly of friendly retirees and families, and when the weather is nice all the children are outside. How do I explain to her that she can't go? So we swallowed our parental anxieties and let her go live her life as a 9/10 year old and go...have fun! With simple rules like not straying too far, obviously not getting into the car of a complete stranger who offers you your weight in candy, looking 17 times before crossing the road, warning us if she leaves the street to go at a friend's house etc.
Except that, as a 10-year-old child, there were a few misses. Like oops, I forgot to tell you that I was going to play in Gwendoline's garden and not seeing me in the street anymore, you thought that that's it, I had been kidnapped and that you were never going to see me again or even I forgot to look at my watch and I came home late.
• SOURCE OF ANXIETY #2
The second event that increased the level of anxiety in our lives is school. For years I would bring my daughter back, give him a big kiss and watch him walk into the school. School from which I know that she could under no circumstances leave once she entered it. Once the groundhog was inside, I could go about my business peacefully and almost without thinking about it.
But one day my daughter asked me not to accompany her to the school anymore. So once again “WHUT?!” Go to school ? ALONE ? WALKING 10 METERS WITHOUT US ???? » And once again, I had to come to terms with it and I understood that she was tired of carrying her mother around in zombie pajamas every morning and that she wanted to do like her friends who, some of them, go alone from home to school.
Except that once again, anxiety anxiety anxiety. When I went to pick it up at noon and it took a little longer to arrive than usual I imagined the worst (while in reality she was just in her role as a kid who was not always in a hurry) , I often wondered if, during the few meters that separated her from school, it was really wise to let her walk alone. Couldn't someone hurt him? Wouldn't it ever occur to him to just not go to school?
Brief. You will have understood with this endless story-telling, for us it was total anguish (with a higher point total on my side, I admit) .
And one day I discovered the concept of connected watches for children (thank you Jesus Sauvage for sharing your discovery!) .
The concept is simple, it is a watch in which you put a SIM card, which works with a mobile application and which offers 3 very interesting options:
Small 1 : A GPS function
At any time of the day you can open the application, go to the “Location” tab and see quite precisely where your child is. (for example I see when my daughter is still in front of the school and when she has entered it) .
Small 2 : A call function
As there is a sim card, there is a number. Via the app you can add phone numbers (we, for example, added mine, that of my darling and that of his mother who lives not far from us) . This means that our daughter can call us whenever she wants, as if she had a telephone, and we can also contact her at any time. The advantage is that apart from the numbers saved in the watch and in the application, no other number can be called from the watch or can call our daughter. It is an ultra closed circuit.
Small 3 : A voice/text message function
Via her watch our daughter can send us voice messages. For example, if she is at after-school and they are doing a nice activity, she can send us a little message to ask us to come pick her up a little later than expected. For our part via our phones and the application we can either send him voice messages or text messages (on the watch there is no keyboard, which is why it can only send voice messages) .
After almost a month of testing I must say that we are more than convinced by this watch! But just to expand a little, here is what I particularly like…and what I like a little less .
> THE MOST:
• It’s ULTRA reassuring! Knowing that you can locate your child at any time, especially when, like our daughter, there are times when she is "alone", that you can reach her at any time, that she can also contact us at any time... I don't know if non-parents will understand but it takes a real weight off their shoulders and it makes the anxiety gauge skyrocket.
• Our daughter is so happy with her super connected watch! And seemingly it also makes her a little more responsible. We decided not to deactivate her watch when she is in class by simply explaining to her that she should not use it and it worked quite well, apart from a few "slips" at the start she is very reasonable with his watch.
• The watch is super cool! I was a little worried that it would be huge but in the end it's okay. Of course it is a technological and connected watch so it cannot have the same size as a classic watch but it is entirely reasonable.
• Getting started is very easy. Whether on the parents' side (download the app, enter contacts, understand how it works etc.) like on the child's side, it's very simple and intuitive
• There is a “Class Mode” function. Which means that during class hours you can deactivate the entire interactive part of the watch so that it is no longer...just a watch. You can select the days and time slots.
• An “Alarm” function. You can enter a date and a time and it sends, as its name suggests, an alarm. Like, “Douding duding, go inside, it’s time to take your shower. »
• An “Activity” function. There is a little character on the screen of the watch and the more your child moves, the more points they “earn” and the more the little character grows.
• A Security Zone function: You can define security zones (example, school, after school, at Grandma's house, at a friend's house, etc.) and you are notified by a notification as soon as your child enters and leaves an area.
• You receive a notification when the battery is low or the watch is turned off and you can, via the application, deactivate the watch's shutdown.
• It was out of the question for us that our daughter would have a telephone at not even 10 years old but we really wanted to be able to contact her and above all know where she is as soon as we wanted. So the watch is, in my opinion, a very good in-between. Calls, voice messages, location, practical and fun but without all the disadvantages of having a phone at such a young age.
> CONS:
• What I want to call “adaptation time”. Equipping your child with such a fun and technological tool can pose some problems at first. For example, from the first day, the teacher left a little note in her textbook asking us about the watch. (can she film or take photos with it? What is it for? Etc.) and above all our daughter kept fiddling with her, sending us voice notes during recess like “hi dad, are you okay? » or “Pimprenelle she told me that gnagnagna” and at first she thought it was the underwear party, like the evening when after putting her to bed she found it fashionable to telephone her Grandmother.
Well, nothing serious in itself. It calmed down in just a few days and it seems to me, in the end, a fairly normal discovery phase. We explained to the teacher what it was about, that we could “deactivate” the watch when she was in class if it posed a problem and after having carefully briefed our daughter on the fact that it was not a problem. toy or a phone, everything started to go like clockwork.
• I would have liked the GPS to be a bit smoother and allow you to follow your child a little better when he or she moves around, a bit like Google Maps or equivalent. Here the update takes place after approximately 30 seconds. Ok, ok, I'm nitpicking, but I would still have liked it! ;)
• It has nothing to do with the watch itself but I admit that I was still a little upset to have to come to this point in order to be reassured... The idea of tracking our daughter doesn't make me any more happy than that, I still sometimes wonder if it's a good idea, if it's not a little weird...and at the same time, I quickly say to myself OSEF. For having experienced these terrible moments when you think that your daughter is playing on the street corner and that in fact she is not there... If we can avoid this kind of terror then too bad for the Black Mirror side.
> CONCLUSION:
You will have understood, here it is a big YES for the kids smartwatch ! As I already said above, it is extremely reassuring to know that we can locate our daughter and contact her at any time and for her part she is delighted to have a little more freedom and autonomy !
And don't hesitate to keep an eye on my Instagram account in the days to come because we are not safe from seeing a small competition show up... ;)
I hope you enjoyed this post and that, perhaps, this discovery can make your life as a parent a little less stressful!🙌🏼
It’s up to you to tell us your story now!
