Wristwatches have entered new territory with the advent of the smartwatch. These clever devices are designed to make communication easier for people on the move and can be used aligned to and paired with a smartphone or as stand-alone devices with their own sim card.
Why are we suggesting you get a smartwatch for your child? There are many reasons, and there’s a lot to be said for these clever devices. There are many that are aimed specifically at kids and come with specially designed features, so let’s talk about the benefits of giving your child a smartwatch.
Parental Peace of Mind
Smartphones for 10-year-olds are not always a great idea. However, a kid with a smartphone is easier to track than one without. The problem is they are all too prone to rack up large bills, access sites they should not, and smartphones are easy to drop and break – at great expense! A smartwatch, on the other hand, comes with GPS tracking built in, and can be set so that only certain communications can be utilised and with limited internet access. Being able to track where your child is means added peace of mind, so this is perhaps the most important point of all. Also, as it’s on the wrist, it’s far less likely to be broken.
Independence for the Child
The latest smartwatch technology offers some impressive capability and will please any child who is gifted one. You may not – for many reasons – want your child to have a smartphone just yet, but they will feel out of place among a group of friends who do. A smartwatch goes some way to giving the kid a bit more independence and they can learn to understand the basics of digital communication. They’ll also feel less left out with the latest kids model on their wrist.
A Healthy Way to Use Technology
Smartwatches are easy to use as they have fewer capabilities than a smartphone. This is also beneficial in terms of the time spent using it. Give a kid a smartphone and they will spend hours and hours glued to it – it’s a given – which is not a healthy way to live. Furthermore, a smartwatch can be set to send notifications and reminders to the child – perhaps to eat a meal or take a few steps outside – so is a healthier use of technology than a smartphone.
Parental Control
The level of parental control available on kid’s smartwatches is comprehensive. It can be set to allow communication in both directions with only specific persons, and even with certain groups of people. The concerns in parents of unscrupulous or dangerous persons contacting the child without their knowledge are therefore removed, which adds further peace of mind to the situation.
Stay In Touch
A smartwatch allows a parent to keep in touch with their child wherever they are. Those of us of a certain age and beyond remember fondly times when we could go and meet friends, and we’d be out of contact for many hours. However, it’s fair to say these are different times, and we are more prone to worry when a child – or indeed an adult – is out of reach. This is why giving your kid a smartwatch to wear is just one added way of ensuring they are never out of touch.
One final point is this: smartwatches can also be used to access the emergency services – sometimes automatically if the watch senses the child has had a fall or he or she is in distress and presses a specific button. This alone makes one of these a must for your child, so check them out right now.