A group of 15-20 families in South Portland, Maine have installed landlines for their kids instead of giving them cellphones. The landlines “helped their children become better listeners and more empathetic communicators”.
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Definitely read this as "landmines" and was deeply confused, but it also made sense somehow?
Speculative. Extremely speculative as told from the parent's completely unbiased POV.
From the inbox: "check out this Seattle company that's making basic 'wired' phone for kids to use: https://tincan.kids/"
This is me. I taught high school for 10 years and refuse to get my now 14 year old a cell phone. A few years ago we got a landline and I love it. My kids love it. They love when someone calls them and they love calling other people. We don't have voicemail which I didn't want to have to deal with. Ours is cordless and my oldest is now at that age I remember when she takes the phone to her room for some privacy in conversations with friends. And it's amazing because those conversations are less likely to haunt her forever in the form of texts or photos she sent someone else. And there is very little incentive to use it if you're not talking to another human being. Both of my kids have learned how to talk to adults to coordinate play dates and rides (because we are not in some kind of phone pod). I just didn't give my kids a phone and...nothing all that bad happened. I feel like we've all been gaslit into this idea that all kids will be traumatized or unsafe somehow if they don't have phones.
But in fact, this week my younger daughter missed the bus. She walked into a local business and asked to use the phone to call me. Nothing bad happened. I'd argue that she gained some confidence and independence, so maybe something good happened instead.
Yes! We never got rid of our landline and it’s been great. The kids know how to answer a phone, take a message, and can talk their grandparents whenever they want. I try to suggest it to the folks who complain about their children being on their phones all the time, but people usually seem confused by the idea.
I love that your kids schedule their own outings by calling folks. I need to get mine doing that!
I’ve been considering this for my family. Those of you who have done it: do you have a *real* landline or a VOIP setup or something else? A true telephone-jack-old-school line is pretty expensive in my area. My spouse and I want it for us, too.
Our "landline" is internet based - getting a true, physical landline would have been ridiculously expensive. But it works fine - we haven't had any issues with it and it's relatively cheap as an add-on to our internet service.
Genius!
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