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iPod touch Are my kids too young for am iPod touch? for an 4th

Vell843

Vell843

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 20, 2011
218
44
Wirelessly posted

I am contemplating on whether or not to get my two kids (9 and 12) an iPod touch for them to share? Both me and my wife have an iPhone 4 and every now and then we let them play games on it, so they basically already know their way around iOS 5.1. Technology is changing so fast, I try to make sure my kids are not technolgicaly left behind. Of course I am going to restrict safari and them puchasing apps. They will basically use it for games, listening to music, and iMessaging my wife and I and their friends who have ios 5. Do y'all think it's too young to enlist them in the apple army?
 
I think your 12 year old enough to use an IOS device, 9 ? I'm not so sure, but you can't really give one without the other I guess. With sensible supervision as you have said, I think your kids should be okay. Just take care with what they are allowed to do!
 
only if they've been good kids :p sharing with a sibling will instill good values too.
 
Being technologically left behind? HAHA. Kids pick up sooo fast on technology its scary. It's your choice, but once they're in, they'll be hooked on it. I'd say 12 would be okay, but then again you have the 9 year old who will want to do everything the other does...so then again, it may not be a bad idea to just let them wait and use your phone in the meantime.
 
Wirelessly posted

I appreciate all of the replies!! Yeah, like I said, my 9 year old daughter will just want to play games on it. In my opinion the hardest thing might be having them share the iPod with each other, lol
 
9 and 12 should be fine. As long as you deem them as responsible, and I would also include that they don't take it out of the house. The only difficult part about this would probably be the fact that they're sharing.
 
I think it's a great idea, and, no I don't think either of them are too young. If they are sensible children and you put restrictions of the internet use and app purchase then they'll get lots of fun from it! We gave our 8 year old son an ipad for Christmas, as both me and my husband have iphones, and he has taken to it like a duck to water. He googles stuff for his homework, he plays games on it, and I set him up with an email address, so he can email and facetime most of my family who have iphones/iMacs! He does take it out of the home sometimes, but only when I'm there to keep watch!! I'd say definitely go for it.....your kids will love one!
 
iPod Touch for kids

Given your children's age I'd have thought they'd be on to mobile phones and laptops by now!

For the record, my daughter has had an iPod touch since she was 3 years old - she's now four and wants a iPad - said iPad will be delivered for Christmas - whilst she plays games on it, she also uses educational software and is beginning to understand the importance of reading and writing if she wishes to access the internet via Safari.

In my opinion, get two used 32G iPod Touches and add AppleCare, jailbreak, load with Skype and other goodies.
 
Until I saw my nieces and nephews using I devices I thought 5 was too young.
Well much to my surprise my 3 yo niece is Abe to navigate around to games, playing musc or a movie or reading a book,
Used ipad2
 
I've let my friends little brothers and sister play with my old iPod Touch, they were fine with it, and they all shared it too! Your kids should do just fine
 
My 2 year-old nephew can unlock his Mum's iPhone, find Angry birds, and play it. (Albeit, badly. He keeps trying to 'push' the birds, so they end up flying in the wrong direction). If I find some "Thomas the Tank Engine" videos, he can tap into related videos to find more - which is scary!

So yeah, 9 / 12 are fine! The biggest problem in your message:
I am contemplating on whether or not to get my two kids (9 and 12) an iPod touch for them to share?
Click to expand...
 
Done deal, I got a 8gb ipod touch for them yesterday. My 12 yr old son likes the iMessaging feature since he can iMessage his friends that are running iOS 5. Funny thing is some of his friend ls have iPhones, but either are not running iOS 5 or have iMessage turned off. I know some of my wifes friends who are in the same boat, they need to upgrade to ios 5 in my opinion
 
Yes...

I think in all honesty as long as things like safari, app store and youtube are blocked I think it's fine for the nine and twelve year old. I mean, although off topic some kids get ds' when they are five, so you could kinda say its a very upgraded ds. I think that it should be fine.
Good luck!
Cat
 
joegleur said:
only if they've been good kids :p sharing with a sibling will instill good values too.
Click to expand...

When I was younger, having our parents force us to share things ended up in us sharing our fists with each other's faces. :p

Vell843 said:
Done deal, I got a 8gb ipod touch for them yesterday. My 12 yr old son likes the iMessaging feature since he can iMessage his friends that are running iOS 5. Funny thing is some of his friend ls have iPhones, but either are not running iOS 5 or have iMessage turned off. I know some of my wifes friends who are in the same boat, they need to upgrade to ios 5 in my opinion
Click to expand...

In my experience, most kids have their iPhone and iPods jailbroken and refuse to upgrade. Some don't even know iOS 5 exists. I've seen people at my university with iPhone 3GSs on freaking iOS 3 just so they can keep their jailbreak or unlock or whatever. And every single one of them told me they paid $30 to some guy at a shop to jailbreak it for them when doing it is so easy. It only takes a 1 minute google search to find out how and 3 more minutes to do the jailbreak itself. They also give me a hard time for paying for my apps and refusing to jailbreak.

Okay, I'm done ranting now. :p
 
TheSuperSteve said:
When I was younger, having our parents force us to share things ended up in us sharing our fists with each other's faces. :p



In my experience, most kids have their iPhone and iPods jailbroken and refuse to upgrade. Some don't even know iOS 5 exists. I've seen people at my university with iPhone 3GSs on freaking iOS 3 just so they can keep their jailbreak or unlock or whatever. And every single one of them told me they paid $30 to some guy at a shop to jailbreak it for them when doing it is so easy. It only takes a 1 minute google search to find out how and 3 more minutes to do the jailbreak itself. They also give me a hard time for paying for my apps and refusing to jailbreak.

Okay, I'm done ranting now. :p
Click to expand...

Wow, that's pretty bad. I can't believe people don't know how to use Google.
 
Just be careful to know what your kids are doing online.

Bear said:
Remember to turn off in app purchases and set up other restrictions as you feel appropriate.
Click to expand...

This, and I suggest that you allow internet access from only the public areas in your house, even if that means the kids having to get in the routine of handing over their iPod before the go to sleep in their rooms. Also, I would take steps to make sure that you know what they're doing online (get all of their online ID's and passwords for instance) and tell them that they will be monitored. Suffice it to say that my family failed to do this when we first allowed our kids to go online, some truly horrifying incidents happened, and we have regretted not being more careful ever since.
 
They are both ok for an iPod, just restrict the functions like you said, and of course some proper adult supervision is all you should need. A lot of kids have iPods these days and friends children just got their first iPods the other day and they are both 10.
 
If their accounts are prepaid (not hooked to a credit card), I don't see much need for limiting anything. The web browsing isn't any different from what they'd get on any other computer/platform.

I think credit cards on those things is a bad idea anyways, as only having $100 or something limits my liability if something happens, and also there have been some deals on the prepaid cards and codes.
 
I have an iPod given to me as a present and my parents don't care what I do as long as its nothing bad :p

For a 12 year old, you shouldn't restrict Safari as they may wanna use it for like homework or something but for 9 year old you should.
 
I have a 2.5 year old who has his own ipod touch. I of course put appropriate games and his favorite movies and music on it. Have some kids headphones for him and of course restrict time and length of his use (weekends only and depending on what he is doing, movie music etc, depends on time). I gave him his own because if he uses my iphone then it has a cellular radio which I prefer him not holding so close to him, and he knows how to navigate it like a champ. I recently had my brother over who is a 7th grade math teacher and he was very surprised at how much geometry my son knew from playing with his apps. Pointing out shapes like parallelograms, trapezoids, and rhombuses etc....I think its a great learning tool as long as you offer some control over it, at any age.

I even have a 4 month old who knows he has to hit the screen for the screen to change to something different in a fisher price app I have.
 
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