Category Archives: Kids

Buying My Son His First Cell Phone

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I’ve had mixed feeling about buying my son (who is 11-years-old) a cell phone.

As someone who works with technology, I want him to have exposure to the technology at a young age so he has a certain comfort level with such devices.  I also want him to be able to hack his way through problem and basically just have experience with technology now instead of when he’s an adult.

The Purchase

No, I didn’t buy him a iPhone (although that would have been the ultimate), I can’t afford such a phone for myself, let alone my son!

Instead, we went with a Samsung Seek cell phone with featured a “no contract” $19.99 service plan offered by Kajeet:

Samsung Seek

The Kajeet $19.99 plan includes 150 anytime minutes (pathetic huh…), but also unlimited texting!

Initially I balked at the 150 anytime minutes, but my son convinced me that he wouldn’t be using the phone except for when we called him anyway.  Surprisingly, he just wanted to text.

I was dubious that he would use the text feature (I’ve never seen him text before), but once the phone arrived, he was texting like a pro.  I couldn’t believe how quickly he adapted to this new form of communication!  In fact, I don’t think he’s used what I consider the cell phone part of the phone yet.

A cell phone is more than just a cell phone to a kid!  It’s a status symbol for those that have a phone and communicate with one another, and those that don’t have a cell phone and can’t play in the modern tech playground.  While he did a good job resisting at first to the temptations (he’s a great kid), all of his friends kept asking when he was going to get one.  Finally, he broke down and asked me.  I’m not the heavy when it comes to technology or science gifts in the family so I said I was okay with it.  He’s getting smarter!  Had he went to his mom first, she would have said “no”, and that would have been the end of the story.

Special Conditions With The Phone

I’m always looking for a chance to bring finances into the picture.  So while I bought the phone for $150, I made a deal with my son.  I told him that while I’d cover the cost of the phone, he would have to pay half of the cost of the $20 monthly service plan.  While $10 isn’t a lot, when you only get about $44 a month, it’s almost a quarter of the money that you get each month!

He got a small pained look in his face when I told him that, but he still wanted to go ahead with it anyway.  I was proud that he made such a quick and absolute decision.  If it were me making the decision, it would probably had taken me at least a week to mull it over.

So if you have a young child, consider going with the Kajeet option if they primarily want it for texting.

Oh, one more perk is that it comes with a GPS built-in.  This way if we decided we want to track him for whatever reason, we can do so.  Of course we won’t, but at least it’s an option.  Note that with the $19.99 plan, each use of the GPS capabilities is an extra fee per use.  Had we going with the next higher service plan (at $27.00), the GPS tracking would have been included in the higher price.

If you have the money, I would recommend buying your child a cell phone, if they start asking for one.  So far, for us it has been a very positive experience.

Best,

MR

Continuous Growth Lesson Learned From My Son’s Soccer Tournament

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This year my son’s soccer team made it to the season soccer tournaments again.  It was a tough year for his team, and they ended the season right in the middle, with an equal number of wins and losses.  In the tournament, his team as the lowest seed, and that meant that they had to play the 1st seed (the best) team.  Now normally, you would think that such a low seeded team wouldn’t have a chance, especially since they are playing the top team first, but surprisingly they do.

The reasons we are optimistic is because they won their last three out of four games, really improving at the end of this season.  So while my son’s team is still the underdogs, they are very strong underdogs (both figuratively and physically in strength).  Okay, the game is starting…

Results of the First Game

It was like a dream come true, the score was 1 – 0, with my son’s team losing.  Then with less than thirty seconds, my son taps the ball in when there was a scramble for the ball in the opponent’s goal.  All his teammates were screaming and high-fiving him!  It was one of those moments in life that he will never forget (or at least I won’t).

Results of the final game for the Championship

In a grueling match, the final game for the championship was lost, barely. The final score was 1 – 0, this just shows how evenly each of the top four teams really were.  In the final two minutes, through a combination of skill (or luck), one of the best players on the other team hooked a high kick into the upper left corner of the goal post.  It was a beautiful kick and perfectly executed.  We were all sad, but that’s the way games go, sometimes miracle kicks like that land and win the game.  Personally, I was happy for the other team because they gave it their all and did a great job.  Yeah, I wish my son’s team won, but his team seemed happy being finalists (besides, they have already won a championship in the past).

Why this was Tournament was Special

The game was special because the previous superstars that were on my son’s team quit soccer or to a different organization.  Since the team depended on those two key players, we only won one game last season, and that was the very last game to boot.  It was disheartening after winning the championship the three seasons when the superstars were on the team.

So that fact that all the players have improved with the absense of any superstars on the team is a testament to how players all gain when the goal isn’t to pass the ball to one or two key players and then depending on them to do all of the scoring.  I have a feeling next year will be even more impressive than this year.

I think life is like this too.  If you have superstars dictating the show, you remain untested because you learn to depend on those particular superstars in life.  While this isn’t necessarily a horrible thing, it’s a bit bitter because you remain untested, not knowing how high you can fly.

What do you think?  Would you rather have a team with a few superstars and depend on them for everything, or would you rather keep continuously growing and improving your own game in life?

Personally, I want to keep reaching…

MR

 

Shaping The Behavior Of Your Kids By Being An Example

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I’ve learned a lot of things through parenting.

One of the things I recently discovered is that my son (and to a lesser extent my daughter), learn by watching and emulating what I do and the way I speak to them.

Discovering My Weaknesses

My son is the oldest so he has had the most exposure to both my wife and I.  A few years ago, I noticed that he would talk to his younger sister in a voice that I use to talk to him as a small child.  I thought this was cute and probably patted myself on the back for having such a caring and helpful son.  However as cute as this was, I think subconsciously I noted that his behavior should be watched, and so I set up some mental red flags.  I realized that he may be emulating all of my behavior, and I’m not entirely satisfied with all of the ways that I handle things.

It was the beginning of the realization that my actions had more of an impact than just what I was saying to him.  Later, I noticed that some of my faults were popping up in his behavior.  Some of the ways that I handle things are different from the majority of people, so to see him do likewise, I knew that he was directly learning this from me.

Changing My Behavior

So after this discovery, I realized that I had to change (or grow if you want to be poetic).  So these past few years, I’ve been working on controlling my weaknesses around my kids and actually all the time.  I’ve been open with my son about my many of my faults and the ways that I’m wrong with how I handle things and that I would try to change.

My son has taken my information and has tried to modify his own behavior, and somewhat successfully too, I might add.  That said a side effect was that I anything that I said or tried to teach was discredited instantly.  Now I had a new hurdle to jump over (Auggh).

Current Reading

After having a little authority battle with my son a few weeks ago, we’ve adjusted and now we are doing well again.  I’ve been working on my weaknesses all the time, because just hiding them from my son didn’t work.

To really get rid of my faults, I had to do that following:

  1. Realize what your faults are
  2. Change the permanently, hiding them doesn’t work
  3. Take periodic readings and watch your kids to see if they change.  This is called a feedback loop.
  4. Do your best, but don’t beat yourself up when little mishaps happen.  It take a while to change!  Changing yourself is hard.
  5. Use tools or tricks to change.  Such tools could be journal, developing new behaviors, reading, asking for help from family or friends.

Conclusion

At least until your kids are teenagers, you are the teacher for your kids.  I’m not necessarily school materials, instead I’m talking about the internal way that they respond to things.  They learn the non-measurable behaviors from you.  Their confidence, and how they handle their emotions.  After all, you are the only teacher that they have until they get older, so it’s natural that they pick up and learn your behavior and mannerisms.

Love your kids,

MR

Finding Opportunities in Unusual Places

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Earlier this summer, I was fortunate enough to be a part of a “proof of concept” demonstration/lab for a future product that my employer is planning on using.

While at software company providing the facilities, lab and staff, we noticed that the software company had a special store for employees.  The rest of my team was pretty excited about that store so we all went down there during lunch, just to check it out.  We discovered that the employees only play a fifth of the price for their software as the normal public.  It makes total sense for a company to do this since they want their employees to be versed on and using company products!

That’s when I cooked up my evil plan (mau ha ha). 

You see, as a courtesy, the hosting company gave us a temporary pass into the store that allowed us to purchase up to $200 worth of software or hardware.  So I jumped on the opportunity and bought 6 software package.  The rest of my folks in my group purchased things too, but nobody took full advantage of the total $200 other than me.

Teaching Financial Lessons to My Kids

You might be wondering why a frugal guy like we would spend money foolishly on software?  Well, it’s because I saw 2 opportunities in their generous offer!

Opportunities

  1. I can get at least a 200% return on my investment, and anything I can get such an opportunity, I try to take advantage of it!
  2. I can teach my kids about business by selling the purchases on eBay.

While I would expect to net over $600 for selling the software packages, I decided to keep two of the packages I bought for my family and then split the money on the other four packages that my son and I are going to sell on eBay.  Such changes dramatically reduces my profits, changing my goal from banking $400 to instead just break even.

You might be wondering why I’m splitting the money with my son?

The answer is because it’s a great opportunity to teach him about business. 

I’m going to sit down with him and explain the cost involved in our eBay auctions.  Next, I’m going to have him do at least half of the work involved in the sale.  I also want him to see all the pieces involved in the business, especially the advertising, posting of the auction, the sale, the closing, the packaging and the shipping.  I also want to lightly discuss taxes with him on the matter too.

I hope to teach my son four things with this eBay experiment!

  1. I want my son to learn that very often, after the first time selling something, the second time selling something similar is much quicker, (on ebay) taking just a fourth of the time that it takes putting the original auction together.  This is also introduces the idea that at first it’s not worth the time put in, but as the selling process gets streamlined, it does become worth it.  This is true in business and life overall. 
  2. I want him to learn the excitement of using entrepreneurial skills to make money.  Hopefully this will help him look outside of the box in making money.
  3. I want him to learn all of the pieces involved in calculating profits from selling a product.  This is one thing that I love about ebay!  It’s a real business with real business processes!!!
  4. Sometimes you do have to spend some money to make more money!

This is one of those rare great opportunities about selling and working with a complete business system.  Plus it will be educational, profitable and fun, all at the same time.

Indirectly, I also hope to teach him that seeing opportunities that other might not see can be profitable and exciting.  Any of the folks in my group could have done the save as I did, but they chose not too.

Expect follow up post on this experiment in October (this is a better month for sellling since Christmas is near).

Bests,

MR