Conference moira::parenting_v3

I've seen Mickey Mouse watches in the JC Penney catalog. I don't know
    how much they are though. You might also try an inexpensive Timex.
    Or try the toy stores. Or try a Thrift shop for an old Timex that
    still works. There's a Salvation Army in Marlboro, Worcester and
    Framingham. I'm sure there are some out there too.
                                            
    Dot
    

    Watches with hands are pretty much out of style, so you won't find
    them in stylish stores at malls.  Try the cheap unstylish stores
    at unstylish places.
    
    If you can get to the northern part of Nashua easily, the Rich's
    store in the Turnpike Plaza (just off exit 7w) used to have a
    a lot of cheap watches with hands.
    
    Bradlee's usually has some as well.
    
    --bonnie

    I know that the Lillian Vernon catalog has a wall clock that is used to
    teach telling time, the old fashioned way with hands and "quarter
    after" and "half past". It's obviously too big to put on a wrist but if
    your son just wants a watch, then any kind might do (digital or hands)
    but if he wants to learn to tell time, this might be a good thing to
    use. I think is sells around $15-20 but it obviously has a longer life
    expectancy rate!!
    
    Andrea _who_won't_wear_any_watch_without_hands

    
    We bought a Mickey Mouse quartz watch a couple of years ago at 
    Service Merchandise for $17 for my daughter. It looks like
    an old-fashioned watch. It worked ok until my daughter butchered
    it. I think she dropped it a few times and dunked it in the sink!
    
    
    Eva.

    Ames DEpartment Store has 'em, or try Bradlees, Richs, the fairly cheap
    department store.  And by the way, I wouldn't spend too much money on a
    watch at this age.  (we're talking 5.99 here!)  'cause it very well
    could be a passing phase, as it was in my kids case when they were just
    about that age.  After all, most three year olds don't know their
    numbers yet well enough to even begin to understand how to read a
    watch, let alone the concept of time.  More likely he just wants one to
    be like you.  Which is OK. 
    
    We have about three watches a piece floating around the house, for my
    three kids.  They thought it was neat at first, but are on to other
    things now!
    

    Super-cheap watches are digital because they are much cheaper to make -
    none of those nasty mechanical moving parts.
    
    Unless you like throwing away money, get one of those $2 specials at
    the drug or discount store.  The kid probably doesn't give a fig about
    telling time, but just wants to wear a watch.  The fact that it won't
    work for two weeks is irrelevant, since it will be lost and/or
    forgotten in about 2 days anyhow.  Eric (4) wears his "watch" a few
    times a month, when he has happend across it in the morning.  He
    doesn't care AT ALL that all it does any more is display the number
    "3".  Aaron (now 8) has had watch-interest phases twice a year since
    age 3.  He keeps them a lot longer before they get lost, but even
    now he usually doesn't want to bother spending 20 seconds looking for
    his watch if he doesn't remember where he put it.
    
    At a supermarket checkout last week (Finast, in Acton) I saw a watch
    with a lifetime guarentee.  Mail the watch and a $5 service fee in to
    the distributor, and they would "repair or replace" it.  The watch cost
    $1.95.  That's what you should get.
    
    		- Bruce

Tom, my 6-year-old, just got a "Dick Tracy" watch from his grandparents.  It
has a liquid crystal display to simulate an analog watch face - no digits.
He also likes it because it has a little "communicator light" - it's supposed to
be like Dick Tracy's 2-way wrist radio (or TV).  Child World is selling it for
$6.99.

The only negatives are that the watch face is a bit tricky to read, though
he's gotten the hang of it, and that one of the buttons changes the time
setting when you push it.  I don't know what kind of batteries it takes -
the case is on the large side (which is both good and bad...)

But I will say that Tom's interest in reading an analog clock face has 
picked up considerably over the past couple of days!

				Steve

    I have to agree with .6
    
    My kids are 8, 6, 3, and 10 weeks.  The 8, 6 and 3yr olds all go
    through watch fads a couple of times each year.  Buy the cheapest
    watch you can find.  
    
    Also, don't worry about the digital watches.  Actually, I think they
    are better until the child reaches first or second grade and can spend
    the time learning to read traditional watches.  When my kids reach 3,
    they learn that eight-zero-zero is bed time, and sometimes even
    volunteer to go to bed themselves!  Try getting a three year old to
    recognize eight o'clock on a traditional watch!
    
    Donna

    I'm afraid I need to STRONGLY disagree on the DIGITAL watch issue.  I
    feel that these children will never learn to read a traditional watch,
    or clock for that matter, if all they have to do is read three or four
    numbers.  What meaning could a few numbers have to a child, I find
    Digital watches the LAZY way of telling time. I'm not sure about most
    people, but my kitchen clock is still the traditional kind, as I
    believe most kitchen clocks are.  MY 3.5 year old can see when the big
    hand is on the 6 and the little hand is on the 7 and knows THAT means
    it's bedtime!!
    
    The other neat thing I saw just this past weekend, was a huge version
    of a wristwatch, with hands and a micky/minnie figure, that hangs on the 
    wall.  (Ames or Bradlees for about $20) I plan on getting one for AJ's room 
    as soon as the fall clothes are bought and there's a little cash to spare!
    
    I also bought a $17 version of a traditional Mickey Mouse Watch for my
    two nieces's 5th birthday last month, at Service Merchandise.  Both mother's
    "put them away" till they are a little futher into kindegarten.  How about 
    some feedback on that one??  Although I guess I anticipated this move
    and also bought each a doll as well.
    
    	Lyn

Re: .9

You forgot to mention what the Bad Thing that happens if people tell
time with digits instead of dials.  It must be pretty grim to raise
such a reaction.  Maybe it's similar to the bad things that have
happened since people stopped sharpening pens?  And certainly very few
men these days know how to powder a wig.  Or tie a bowtie for that matter.

Why is telling time by digital watches LAZY?  And what virtue is
obtained by telling time in a more difficult fashion?  Wouldn't the
height of virtue then be reached by telling time from the position of
the sun/stars?  Should we ditch watches altogether and insist that kids
use sundials??

The point of a watch is to be able to know what time it is.  The reason
you care about the time is that you want to measure coordinate
activities.  The dial is a lovely  artifact, but is in no way related
or required to use of time.  So what's the beef?
                                    >>>==>PStJTT

Re: .10

Given that dial clocks and watches are still around, and are likely to be
so for many years, our kids need to learn how to read them.  I am not
against digital watches for children, but prefer analog watches and clocks
so that they get used to them.  Digital clocks need little training to
read.

It's similar to my feeling that a child should learn how to do math by hand,
rather than relying on a calculator.  Using a calculator to speed work is
fine, but the kids should know how to do it on their own if necessary.

				Steve

re: "analog" clocks

I think that the analogy to a calculator vs. doing it by hand is a trifle 
inaccurate.  I think a closer analogy is a calculator vs. a slide rule.

Even if I concede that dial type clocks and watches are likely to be around 
for years, I think that that dial type watches are harder to learn to read, 
and therefore, I'd just as soon start out with a digital watch.  I think that 
to start out with a dial watch is kinda like starting out with a 
multiplication, then teaching addition once the kid has mastered 
multiplication.

I happen to like my watch, which has both a digital and dial readout.  I've 
never thought of it, but if such watches were availble in a price range for 
kids, that's what I would give mine.  You can learn either way, and learn to 
translate from one to the other almost subliminally.

I have some friends who used a digital clock to great advantage.  Their child 
was in the habit of waking them up at all kinds of ungodly hours, even on 
weekends.  So they put a digital clock in his room, taped over the "minutes" 
digits, and told him, "You may not wake mommy and daddy up, until you see a 
"7".  That's easy for a kid to understand, and couldn't be done easily with a 
dial clock.

Clay

Following is a tangent.


I do, however, think that dial watches and clocks have their place.

I think a disadvantage of digital watches is that they tend to give us an
exaggerated sense of accuracy.  I can remember many times when I look at a 
digital watch and said "9:02!  Dammit, he's late!", when looking at a dial 
watch, I would have noted that it's not THAT late, in fact probably within the 
margin of error of the watch.  Some gasoline pumps, for example, have digital 
readouts that measure the amount of gasoline dispensed to the thousandth of a 
gallon.  How silly.  I also think that dial watches give us better perspective 
on how much time has passed since a given event, and how much time remains 
until a given point in time.  Essentially, it puts the abstract concept time 
into the more easily comprehended concept of space and distance.  That's why 
dial clocks can be useful even without numbers; in fact I find intriguing dial 
watches that have the hands only -- no markings on the dial at all.

So, as I said before, I like my watch, which has both a digital and dial 
readout.

Clay

    I don't know that we have any dial clocks in the house.  The kitchen
    closk is on the microwave.
    
    I;ve also been doing some evaluation of how I think of the TV.  Books
    are *supposed* to be the big thing.  Our parents spent hours a day
    reading them via kerosen lamps and candles.  But tv can serve the means
    of getting us information as good as books once did.
    And audio cassetts.  I know I spend my hours of travel time with a
    an educational cassette in the car sterio.
    
    Too many school tests are set up with this *old* thinking.  I remember
    one of my children scoring low on some preschool tests.  It was an
    association test.   One of the questions he missed is where one would 
    get a glass of water from.  The 'correct' answer showed a kitchen
    facet.  My son answered 'wrong' by selecting the refrigerator.
    Well, guess what, my refrigerator gives us ice and water up front.
    I had to go over the test and help the examinor rescore it.
    Any way, I'm rambleing again.  Why take two steps backward?  Digital 
    watches are here.  If you still use dial watches, don't use your
    paridyn on my kids.
    
    ed
    

    There are two steps involved in learning to tell time:  
    
    1.  Learning the concept of time.
    
    2.  Learning to read the device by which our society "measures"
        time.
    
    I found that Steven, who had access to digital as well as analog
    timekeeping devices, learned the concept of time quite a bit
    earlier than his older sister had.  He understood the concept of
    numbers and counting and could relate time to what he already
    knew.  There was one set of numbers to count the minutes and
    another to count the hours. 
    
    Kat, who was born before the digital watch craze, had to learn the
    extra level of abstraction added by a dial.  Besides learning
    time, she had to master the concept of a set of numbers that
    measure on two scales at the same time. 
    
    Both kids learned to read analog dials at about the same age, a
    few months before they started first grade. 
    
    --bonnie

    There has been a controversy on this subject for some time.
    
    Some people believe that, in addition to time, there are other
    concepts learned from using a round-faced watch.  For example,
    explaining where to point the shower faucet (10:00) to get the
    right temperature or where to locate an airplane in the sky (2:00)
    is not possible unless one understands the concept of the clock
    face.
    
    Another concern is that younger children don't necessarily learn
    time with a digital watch -- they learn to watch for numbers.  For
    example, 8:00 is Eight o'clock.  One child I know was taught that
    bedtime was 8:00.  He would watch the clock until it said 8:00.
    Unfortunately, if his head was turned for a minute and the clock
    read 8:01, he was not easily persuaded that it was time for bed.
    
    Anyway, there are advantages to both I imagine.
    
    Diana

. . . for the pun of the day.

>    There has been a controversy on this subject for some time.
							   ~~~~    

Clay

RE: .15

So, you tell your 3 or 4 year old to set the shower control to 10 o'
clock when they take a shower?  Or in the car say "Look, honey, 747 at
2 o'clock high" ???
Kids are going to learn both methods of telling time -- by the time
they're taking showers or shooting at aircraft, they'll have picked up
an understanding of dials (although I figure out the shower temp by
sticking my hand in the water stream, and would encourage my kids to do the same.)

In the case of a child so young that they  can't be convinced 8:01 is
after 8:00, I doubt you'd do better with a dial clock -- after all if
the little hand is on the 8 but the big hand is NOT on the 12, then
it's not 8:00....

                                         >>>==>PStJT

    re: .15
    
    The problem with the dial isn't that it's round, it's that it uses
    a double scale.  The numbers around the outside represent one hour
    for the little hand, but five minutes for the big hand.  To read
    such a dial, you have to be able to go beyond one-to-one
    correspondence and fold two scales into one.  Not everyone has
    single-control faucets, but even if you do, it's not likely to
    require interpreting in two different ways.  
    
    This is, conceptually, not a simple thing to do.  In fact, I've
    read that with certain kinds of learning disabilities, you never
    learn how to do that kind of mental "folding."
    
    --bonnie

    Possibly Eric (age 4) can help resolve this bitter controversy.  At the
    beginning of the summer he found a watch somewhere, and has worn it off
    and on ever since.  You know those cheap kids' versions of "fashion"
    watches where there are different colors of bands and "cases" between
    which you can switch the actual mechanism?  That's what he's got.  The
    band, that is.  In bright pink.  The fact that there isn't any actual
    watch doesn't bother him a bit, and since it is neither analog nor
    digital, nobody can get bent out of shape because it's the "wrong" kind.
    
    Actually, I'll be confident he's been raised right if, like his
    brother, he masters roman numerals before he can tell time at all. 
    That's the way chapters are numbered in almost all the best books (e.g.
    the ones dad likes to read aloud).  He's already pretty good up to
    about 10 (i.e. X), and we're getting some teen exposure right now from
    Mother West Wind.
    
    		- Bruce

   Hmmm.... So .. how do we teach them about "clock-wise" if all they
   know is digital watches?
   
   Just wondering... :-)
   
   - Tom

    re: -1
    
    Isn't clockwise from front to back???
    
    Lori B.

    -1  Depends on if you're turning left or right.  :-)
    
    
    
    Donna