Can Your Toddler Make An Emergency Call?
By Charlotte Hilton Andersen, REDBOOK
Toddler Lia Vegaz is an extraordinary child. Sure, she saved her mom's life when Larissa Taylor fell into a diabetic coma while the two were home alone (every mom's worst nightmare, by the way). But what really surprised me was that the 2-year-old even knew how to make an outgoing call on a cell phone. I'm not just talking about appropriate phone manners. Many of today's children don't know how to use the phone call part of a telephone at all. Texting? Yep. Games? Absolutely. But calling emergency services? Not so easy.
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The first obstacle is the technical acuity required. When I was growing up, making a call was pretty simple because all phones were basically the same. But now with all the slide-to-unlock bars, passwords, and random finger waving incantations required to open a touch-screen phone, I'm amazed that anyone, much less a toddler, can figure it out. And then, there's the strange question of how Larissa Taylor's precocious tot found the contacts list and located her grandmother's number. (Taylor says she never taught her daughter how to use the phone.)
My second shock came from how little Lia could even reach her mom's phone. With four kids under 10 in my house, I am careful to never leave my phone within sticky-finger distance. I may let my kids play Fruit Ninja while we're waiting at the doctor's office, but I'm surely not going to let them play freely with a phone that caught more than my rent in college and holds the keys to my entire life. I'm further surprised that this little toddler found the phone. In the past, older telephones were usually tethered to one spot, but now cell phones can be lost-er, placed-nearly anywhere.
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I'd taught my two eldest kids how to use my phone before, but after reading this article I promptly sat all my children down and had them practice. While they all found the games within five seconds, even my 9-year-old had a tough time figuring out how to call Grandma (mostly because I'd stored her under "Mom" in my contacts-oops). Clearly, this is something I need to work on. And my kids aren't alone-a quick poll of my mommy friends said that when their kids make a phone call, the parent usually does the unlocking and dialing for them.
Playing games is one thing, but do your young children know how to use your phone in an emergency situation? Would they even be able to find it? Help me out and tell me your best tips for teaching phone skills.
Read more of Charlotte on REDBOOK's The Motherboard blog.
Charlotte Hilton Andersen is a mom of 5 and the author of the book The Great Fitness Experiment: One Year of Trying Everything and the blog of the same name.
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