Why My Kids have iPod Touches
My daughter started out her gadget life at 3 with a Leap Pad. That thing drove me absolutely insane. While the packaging was nice, and it assured me that she was getting something educational out of it, the actual functionality was unnerving. What 3-year-old could actually wait and listen to instructions before tapping on every single spot on the book. She inevitably threw the thing down in frustration within 5 minutes. $50 down the drain. We moved up to the Leapster when she was 6. A bit more engaging, but still difficult to find games that were actually appropriate to her skills (we found that the recommended ages were not in the ballpark with where her abilities actually were). Fun device, but very expensive to maintain. Every time she’d master one game, we’d have to plunk down another $20 for a new one. Crazy.
On her 8th birthday, my daughter was presented with her very own pink (actually, rose colored) Nintendo DS – along with 2 games: Hannah Montana and Sims Pets. This purchase set me back about $200, including the case, extra stylus’, and car charger. She was very excited to receive this gift, and enter the “big kid” world, but after an hour with the games, she’d moved on.
My husband’s kids were DS fanatics. They must have had 20 games between the three of them. But they fought over just one game: Super Mario Brothers. My kids got a taste of that (including my 4-year-old son) and couldn’t get enough of it. So while I tried to hold my son off on having anything but educational games for a few more years, he was presented with his very own DS within weeks of his big sister (compliments of my parents) and both were given a copy of Super Mario Brothers. They played this game for a good 6 months with a fervor bordering on addiction. Any time we were in the car or had significant downtime, there was whining to play Super Mario Brothers. We had to set serious limits on DS time and endure lots of whining when time was up (at least from the younger child).
Once they had “finished” Super Mario Brothers, the game lost most of its appeal. They played around with a few other titles, but I was unwilling to shell out $20 for a game that they may or may not be interested in after 20 minutes of playing.
Meanwhile, I had gotten an iPhone. Suddenly the kids had another venue on which to play games. I downloaded Super Monkey Ball – found that it wasn’t really my taste in games, but the kids LOVED it. They begged me to play the iPhone on a daily basis. At first I let them, but after a while, I got to the point where I wanted to use the device, or call someone, but it was always in the hands of one of the kids.
And then a light bulb went off. Why on earth would I invest in any other gaming system than Apple with these kids? I was downloading games for them from the App store for free, or at most for $5. For $0.99 I don’t even think twice about purchasing a Transformer toy game for my son. And if they had their own iPod Touches, I could retain control over my iPhone again.
So for Christmas 2009, my kids will receive 2 presents (after I sell their Leapster, LeapPad, Nintendo DS’s, and various games). First is a used iPod Touch (one for each of them, I can’t stand the fighting), and an OtterBox Defender case (read “indestructible” here). I’ve already purchased enough apps to keep them busy for months. And I can stagger future purchases to coincide with sales (thanks Bargain Bin) so that they continue to be excited about the content. On long trips I can drop movies or TV shows onto their devices, they can have their own music streaming through. I can disable the App Store and iTunes on their devices, and even the Internet (until they are older).
So we’re officially an Apple family. The kids, the adults, we’re all drinking the kool-aid. With the iPod Touches in the OtterBox case, I don’t anticipate having issues with dropping the device, though my kids are already trained in being careful with mom’s iPhone if they want to be able to use it. The only real issue is making sure that they don’t destroy the pins plugging it in to charge. I’ll check back in a few months on the status of the change. Will they lament the loss of their DS’s? Or will they be too excited over the variety offered on their new toy. We’ll see…
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