I have always had a number lock on my phone since my daughter landed. She was obsessed with reaching out for it and attempting to operate it, and from a young age too! I'm sure many of you can relate to this!
As soon as I set the number lock she lost interest knowing she couldn't get into my phone and I didn't have the worry of her seeing any YouTube content that wasn't suitable or deleting any of my videos and pictures.
Brilliant - I thought!
But actually, this was much more further from brilliant than I could have imagined!
You see it wasn't until recently I was thinking about this lock that I have on my phone and how much of a barrier it was. That was exactly the reason why I decided to remove it straight away.
Currently I am heavily pregnant, so this is what no doubt triggered my thinking:
My daughter is now 3 and a half years old. I have had the occasional dizzy spell, where I have seen stars but I have always come back round fine after a sit down and a drink.
But I sat thinking about if I was to pass out or if I suddenly needed my other half or my Mom to be called I was putting a block in place, preventing my daughter from getting help for us both.
A Mothers mind is terrible when it runs away with her, so I was sitting there thinking all sorts and I couldn't believe this hadn't crossed my mind sooner.
How this barrier which I had allowed - to prevent deleting an odd picture from here and there (which you can retrieve easily anyway now on most phones) could actually be pretty dangerous!
Children and technology seem to go hand in hand these days and it didn't take very long at all for me to set a couple of 'favourite' contacts up and teach her how to access them, along with who was who in the list.
Setting a small group of favourites is ideal as young children will be able to discover key peoples numbers very quickly.
We have since sat and had conversations about if Mommy needed any help how and who she would call.
We've done various test runs too where I have asked her to call her Dad (for example) and she calls no trouble, so this has brought piece of mind to me, knowing that if she needed to get in touch with someone she would be able to.
I no longer have to worry that if something was to happen and my phone was there and visible my 3 year old wouldn't be able to use it to get in touch with someone who could come and help us.
My daughter also knows to ask before she goes on my phone too so removing the keypad lock hasn't caused any problems in that respect.
Life gets busy and sometimes these little things don't always cross our minds.
You see even without me being pregnant, life happens, we're human.
Accidents happen so it's a good idea at any given time to have your phone accessible for your children.
Even at 3 years old we have been able to sit and have a really grown up conversation about ways to get help - it could just be the conversation that ends up being a life saving one.
So, that is the reason why I have removed the number lock from my phone.
Do you have a number lock on your phone?
Does that prevent your child from accessing your phone contacts?
You too may wish to review if having a number lock is right for you and your family and possibly having a chat with your children about who to call/what to do in an emergency.
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