Digital media player for toddler/child?

September 3, 2007 8:07 PM

My little guy is 2.5 years old. We currently use a portable dvd player in the car and on planes, as well as at the house occasionally. I'm considering getting a hard-drive based media player for him, to keep from having to handle/store/transport the dvd's constantly. Advice?

We're in the car a lot, and fly a lot. My son likes to pass the time by watching videos. Portable dvd players work OK, but I haven't found one that didn't either scuff the dvd's (when dropped, for example) or read easily through fingerprints (my son likes to load his own discs). I don't like hassling with burning backups of the original dvd's, then re-burning when those burned copies get too scratched/scuffed. It's enough of a hassle that I've been OK with buying new copies of well-loved discs. So I'm thinking of getting a digital media player such as one of the Archos models (504, 604, 704, etc.). He has about 50 dvd's that are "his", ranging from Walking w/ Dinosaurs to Madagascar. What I can't tell from reading the reviews on these and similar units:

1. Is the sound loud enough to be heard in a plane/car? He doesn't like wearing headphones. With the portable dvd players we've tried, the volume at which he can hear it fine without bothering others nearby is about halfway through the volume range.

2. Is there a "hold" button on the device that disables buttons and on-screen controls to lessen the frustration of his accidentally hitting Stop?

3. He's usually very gentle with electronics, but does occasionally drop them a couple feet to the floor. Are these hard-drive based players sturdy enough?

Has anyone purchased something similar for their child, and if so what has been your experience?

I'm tech savvy, so will be OK with doing the work of ripping all of the movies to mp4 or similar format.

posted by Bradley to technology (22 comments total)

For the rest of us, don't use a media player in a crowded plane without headphones. Please. Ever.
posted by piro at 8:30 PM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

I can only answer these:

1) Any decent media player -- hell, any crappy one -- should give you whatever volume requirements you need within reason. The only place where it could be questionable is over the roar of a jet engine, but if you're on a plane, he should either be wearing headphones or else not watching movies. I realize he's not even three, but you do have other people to think about. I say this as the proud father of a very gassy infant and a man who has no desire to be a buttinsky in your parenting decisions: Headphones or no movies should be the rule on planes.

2) Gonna depend on the player, I'd guess. Sorry, can't be of help here.

3) No HD-based device will be guaranteed to work after dropping. If it hits the floor during a read/write operation, boom, you've probably damaged the drive. Only something that uses optical drives or flash memory is going to withstand a drop without damaging the media.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:50 PM on September 3, 2007

I won a video iPod and having no use for it (already had two for music and the screen is too small for me to peer at), I gave it to my young son loaded with "his" movies.

1) It's worth experimenting with a few options. Personally, I think in-ear or bud headphones are not at all kid appropriate so my kid is using open-air earphones that do not cover or insert into his ears. The iPod also has a setting which allows me to lock in a maximum volume, which is great. I also got him this dorky external speaker which is basically a plushy flower wrapped around a small battery-powered speaker that he uses in the car.

2) There's a hold button that disables the touch wheel controls. The hold button is a slider, small, and easily blocked off in most third-party case designs.

3) I kinda doubt this would hold up to being bounced off the floor. I did buy him a rugged, water-resistant rubber case. There's a few hundred case styles to chose from, for iPods. He hasn't dropped his yet. I've dropped mine on carpeting and got lucky, as it didn't break.

Cons: it's a really really small screen. He says he really likes it, having a movie "his size" but if we had two kids, they wouldn't be able to share the screen.
posted by jamaro at 10:13 PM on September 3, 2007

I'm sorry -please discuss this with his pediatrician. I used to let my kids watch a lot of videos when they were quite young and I worked a third shift job.

I can tell you, now that they are adults, that you are risking some developmental problems. Please find him additional things to do when he travels. I am not saying he should never watch videos but I am saying that what you describe raises red flags for me as a parent.
posted by konolia at 6:38 AM on September 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

I found a Lacie Silverscreen for about $80. I can't find a link now, but Lacie was selling it through their store a few months ago. It's a 40GB hard drive with a built-in video/photo/music player. It's powered over USB and has video/audio component out. Right now I've got it hooked up to the TV in the living room full of the kids' shows. I got it to get shows from the computer in the office onto the TV in the living room without needing another computer or getting an AppleTV, but I plan to use it with our portable DVD player on the next car trip. It works great. Since you've already got the screen there's no need to buy another one.
posted by monkeymadness at 6:42 AM on September 4, 2007

I got my little guy a video iPod and a case from Agent 18. Two years later it is still chugging along and he wouldn't trade it for anything else out there. Those cases from Agent 18 are tougher than nails.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:16 AM on September 4, 2007

Thank you for the responses so far. I'm not really into iPod or iTunes (we have 4 iRiver non-proprietary mp3 players in the house) but I will consider a cheap video iPod just for this purpose, especially with a tough case like the Agent 18. We have a Logitech mm28 external speaker that would pair well with it to use in the car until he gets comfortable with headphones. If I can find something like those Agent 18 cases for the Archos devices, it might be perfect--bigger screen than an iPod, and self-contained with built-in speakers.

The Lacie option also sounds nice (and I had never heard of it before), but I'm really looking for something self-contained like the Archos units. Already owning the screen (the portable dvd units we already have) is a good point, but money isn't as big a concern as convenience.

For those with concerns about bothering other flyers by using a media player without headphones, I'm a weekly frequent flyer so I understand your concerns. With our current dvd solution and my kid sitting in the seat next to me, I can't hear the sound. The device is close enough to his face that he can enjoy it during the 1-2 hour domestic flights we usually do, but if I can't hear it, I doubt that anyone else could be bothered by it. And I'm sure he'll get more comfortable with headphones as he gets a little older. Some flights, nothing but a video will help him sit comfortably through the flight. Other flights, he only wants to read books with mama or daddy.

konolia, thanks for your concern about inundating our child with video, or using video as a baby sitter. We don't have TV in our house (no cable, satellite, etc), but own over 700 dvd's. We put the dvd's in the same category as food in our house: no restrictions. If it's in the house because we the adults want it, then he can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Without restriction on dvd's, there are days he'll watch 2 or 3 dvd's (usually with us, on a rainy weekend) but many more days when he watches none. There are too many other interesting things for him to do in the house/yard for him to sit in front of a dvd all day.
posted by Bradley at 8:24 AM on September 4, 2007

I'm not really into iPod or iTunes (we have 4 iRiver non-proprietary mp3 players in the house)

In case you've gotten the wrong impression about iPods only playing content purchased from iTunes online store: they play mp3 and mp4s. We have 6 iPods of varying ages in our household containing the contents of 4,000+ albums and ~50 DVDs, about a quarter of which were ripped on Windows machines. We've made exactly two purchases from iTunes Music Store.
posted by jamaro at 8:44 AM on September 4, 2007

Thank you for that, jamaro.

My issue isn't with purchasing from iTunes. It's that I don't like the whole load-only-through-iTunes limitation, period. I don't have iTunes on any machine, and never will have. I want my players to be simple USB devices that I can plug into any of my PC's (4 at home, 2 at my office), have them be recognized as an external hard drive, and load/offload content by simple drag and drop. From previous experience with Archos music players, that's how they worked...I need to research these big-screen movie players more to be sure that's still the case.
posted by Bradley at 9:53 AM on September 4, 2007

Right now I'm leaning toward the Cowon A2. The drive is only 30gb, but other than that it looks like a good non-proprietary play-anything player with a decent 4-inch screen.

In researching the Archos devices more, it looks like they're pretty limited, compared to the Cowon. For example, they come w/ a limited set of codecs and you have to purchase other codecs online. Vs. the Cowon that simply plays anything you throw at it.

In one Amazon review I saw reference to a soon-to-be-released Cowon model (A3?) that will presumably have a 60gb drive in it, so I might wait for that.
posted by Bradley at 11:10 AM on September 4, 2007

After further research, I just bought the Cowon D2. It's flash-based, so less worry about it being dropped and broken. Screen is only 2.5", but that will be fine for travel. And storage is not a concern since it handles SDHC cards. We already have three 8gb SDHC cards in the house that we use for music on our Palm Treos. 16gb and 32gb cards are on the way, so this looks like a relatively future-proof durable option.

And it even has a 'Hold' switch to lessen frustrations with him changing settings while watching it.
posted by Bradley at 12:36 PM on September 4, 2007

If it's in the house because we the adults want it, then he can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

Total derail here, and I get you don't want to hear this, but are you kidding? Please never bring your child to one of my classes, because a child who gets "whatever he wants, whenever he wants" is not going to get along with me.
posted by nax at 4:52 PM on September 4, 2007

nax, no prob on the derail.

No, I'm not kidding. And since my child will never be subject to one of your classes, I don't think it's an issue.

My views on compulsory schooling mirror John Taylor Gatto's.

Our home life is not very mainstream. We say Yes in our house much more than No. And we prefer principles over rules.
posted by Bradley at 9:55 AM on September 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Update on my research about media players. I've decided the D2's 2.5" screen might be too small, so I ordered the Cowon A2 also with its 4" screen. I'll try both.

D2 - flash-based; small screen
A2 - hard drive; larger screen

Battery life (10 hours for video) is the same on both.

And I've started ripping some dvd's to be ready to try both devices in a couple days.
posted by Bradley at 9:59 AM on September 5, 2007

Our home life is not very mainstream. We say Yes in our house much more than No. And we prefer principles over rules.

Since your child will grow up in a society that very definitely will NOT say "yes" to him all the time, how will you teach him to deal with frustration?

I'm not snarking. I am sincerely interested in your answer.
posted by konolia at 10:29 AM on September 5, 2007

Society provides plenty of No's and limitations, every single day of all of our lives. I don't need to add even more to the huge list. Most of the rules (home and school) imposed on me as a child were because "I said so" or "that's the way it is" or "it's for your own good". Discussion of the valuable principles behind the rules was very rare. The efforts of parents and teachers were intended to "mold" me into a good person or good citizen using the carrot or stick. Do what we want you to do, get the carrot. Piss us off or disappoint us, and it's the stick. The emphasis was on "behave!"

So when I left home at 17, I discovered that while I knew very well how to "behave" in all of the situations I had encountered since there had been teachers/parents there to tell me what to do, this didn't really serve me very well in real life. With weak grounding in solid principles, I floundered for several years. I knew how to sit down, shut up, raise my hand if I wanted to talk, and do as I was told. But it turns out that it takes quite a bit more than that to have a happy successful life. I was 23 before I began to realize that I have complete choice in what I think, do, say, learn, believe, and achieve. And at 40 I'm still "un-learning" some of the limiting crap I learned from my parents and schools.

I think the biggest difference in how I parent vs. how my father (and most in his generation) parented is in the area of Control. While my father did whatever he thought necessary to constantly correct my path and control my growth, like an engineer managing construction of a building, I'm not doing anything like that with my kid. I see my role as a gardener, giving him the nutrition and resources he needs to be the best plant possible. I see control as an illusion. He'll do what he wants anyway, so why not just help him get what he wants in the first place? Why not be a collaborator instead of boss?

My kid is already empowered to make his own choices about what to wear, what and when to eat, when to nap or sleep, and what to do with his time. I trust him to explore his own limitations and know his own body. We're a team. No limits, no silly arbitrary rules, and definitely no carrots or sticks.

Simple example: Instead of saying No when he wanted to go out in the snow at age 18 months without shoes, since I know it would be too cold on his feet and I know better and why even discuss this, I just said Go For It and waited just inside the door to help him put his shoes on 2 minutes later. He only did it once, of course, but in my household growing up this was simply a No, and I had to sneak around to get my boot off and see what the snow felt like on my toes. Ouch! Cold! Or, if I had vocally pushed the matter, I could imagine my controlling parents locking the door and leaving me outside for a few extra minutes to "learn my lesson" "so I'd remember this next time". See, we were right, you were wrong! Just listen to us next time, do what we say, and be-have!

I try to put myself in my kid's shoes. I try to imagine what it would be like if my spaceship landed on an alien planet populated by huge beings who took me under their wing and helped me learn how to get along in this new strange place. I hope they'd assume that I have great intentions and want to do my best to be a solid happy contributing part of this culture. I hope they wouldn't punish me when I spilled my milk for the 30th time due to my hand/arm muscles not being adapted well to the shape of their cups and their different gravity. I hope they wouldn't freak out every time I wanted to put something in my mouth to check out the texture and taste, and that I could rely on them to tell me if it was something poisonous that would kill me. Etc., etc. You get the idea.

If different ways of parenting interest you, these are the authors that have influenced me the most in the past few years while preparing to become a parent:

Alfie Kohn
Gordon Neufeld
Naomi Aldort
Jan Hunt
posted by Bradley at 12:26 PM on September 5, 2007

Actually I was more interested in how he would learn to react to frustration. We cannot always have what we want. Sometimes it isn't even physically possible.

Have you considered this in your parenting? Seems like impulse control and tolerance of appropriate frustration are good tools to have in the toolbox-perhaps -actually, probably, certainly- your father's heavyhanded parenting went too far in the other direction, but you did learn some things from it. Things that he didn't realize he was teaching.

Just something to think about. As parents we constantly have to think of the big picture. My youngest is a married adult now and it is interesting to see what I did right-AND what I did wrong-when she and her siblings were younger. I now see how my choices and philosophies played out.
posted by konolia at 12:36 PM on September 5, 2007

He gets plenty of frustration, every hour of every day. We embrace it and help him deal with it. Every cry of an infant and toddler is a cry of frustration, is it not? I want something, and can't communicate it clearly enough, and I'm sad and mad and I don't know those words so I'll cry.

I have friends and family who are in the "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" camp. I would never consider being that way, either to my kid or to anyone else.

And the concept of artificially creating frustrations by imposing my own rules on a situation with the main goal being to teach my child about how I perceive the world to be working ("they'll tell you No a lot") seems misguided to me.

"Impulse control" and "tolerance of appropriate frustration" sound like euphemisms for "I'm the parent, I set the rules, society agrees with me, and you have to learn to deal with it. It's for your own good, and you'll thank me later."

Life provides the learning opportunities. I don't have to artificially create them. Example: At 2.5 years old, my kid learned this year about standing in lines and waiting his turn. It's not anything I've ever "taught" him, since he doesn't go to day care so there's no point to stressing about it. He'll get it when he needs to get it. There have been a few stressful moments while standing in line to board a plane, for example, but we just plan for those occasions by wearing him on our back in a sling or otherwise working with it. At the pool this summer though, he had some conflicts with other kids because when he wanted to get on the kiddie slide, he wanted to get on the slide. Now. He was frustrated. Some of the other kids got mad and marched him to the end of the line, saying "wait your turn!". After just a couple of times, he got it. He learned it when he was ready to learn it.
posted by Bradley at 12:58 PM on September 5, 2007

Well, do you want your kid to always learn things the hard way from people who don't love him?

It's fine to reject how your folks did it (I would have as well, and did) but please be aware that the rest of the world will NOT be as gentle teaching him these things as you would.

And like it or not you are his authority figure. You are the one who looks out for him and who is responsible for teaching him about the world. There will be times when he will need to trust that you are right and he is wrong about something. For your own sanity and his own well being I hope he gets that before the teen years.

NOT trying to be contentious here. It is clear you love your son very much and are putting a lot of thought into his raising. I simply want to give you food for thought.
posted by konolia at 2:32 PM on September 5, 2007

I definitely appreciate your input, and I'm not taking it as contrary or snarky in any way.

Sure, I've thought a lot about what you're saying. He already trusts us, and I think it's specifically because we trust him. In matters of safety (do what I say or you will be injured or die), of course we say No as appropriate. And since he hears No relatively rarely, the meaning of No isn't watered down like it was in my own childhood home where I heard No 100 times per day.

In our house today, 90% of the time we say No because there is danger involved. Today, for example, some great-smelling cookies were on the counter in a stoneware pan when little guy walked into the kitchen. They had been out of the oven about 3 minutes, and mama had to run to the bathroom right after taking them out and said "hot pan" as she trotted past me. I saw little guy tip-toe to reach and get a cookie from the hot pan (his forearm would have been burned), and I said No. He froze and looked at me, and I said that the pan was hot, just out of the oven. So he went and got his step stool, pushed it to where he could grab a spatula, then pushed it across the kitchen to the hot pan and proceeded to carefully lever out a hot cookie and put it on the counter to cool. Then he looked at me, grinning that "look at this cool shit...I've got a cookie cooling, and I'm gonna eat it up in a few minutes" grin.

In my childhood home, No could have meant "those are for after dinner" or any number of things that all would have meant only one thing to me: I want a cookie, but my parent doesn't want me to have one.

And I just don't see myself as my kid's teacher. I learn more from him about living and loving than he'll ever get from me. It's a beautiful 2-way respectful relationship instead of a top-down militaristic I Know Better one. He's 31 months old, and we haven't really experienced the Terrible Twos that all of our friends warn us about. What does he have to rebel against? We're on his team.

Since everything we're doing with him is specifically to build and maintain our strong connection with him, I'm not dreading the teen years at all. With no arbitrary No's against which to rebel, there's sure to be less drama than what I see in most homes. Check out the Gordon Neufeld book Hold On To Your Kids for great ideas about connection, and about parents retaining their parental power and authority. With intact parental connection, there is less need for the teen to turn to other teens for connection and acceptance. Neufeld documents the rise of what he calls "Peer Culture" in our western society in the last 50 years or so. Kids raising kids. The teen has an internal "compass" that can only orient one direction at a time. We push them to "spend time" with other kids so much, that their compass orients toward other kids instead of the parent. The need to be on the phone w/ peers constantly, dress like each other, talk like each other, etc, is all a desperate attempt to maintain (in reality, superficial) bonds with those peers because they're lacking unconditional acceptance and connection from the parents. Parents are encouraged by society to give up their parental authority too early. Neufeld gives ways to keep the connection and parental orientation intact...remaining the authority figure, as you put it. This requires first giving up the illusion of control.

It's a very cool book that gave me a ton of insight into my own childhood. He also states (I don't have references for this) that it was only when Japan began adopting our western ways about 30 years ago that the first instances of child/teen suicide were documented there. And now teen suicide is rampant in Japan. And here in the US, it's not odd to hear about 10 year olds killing themselves. So we choose to be radically different in our home, rejecting the mainstream ways that don't appear to be working in our society. I don't think what we're doing is the Only Way, but we're enjoying the shit out of it.
posted by Bradley at 5:01 PM on September 5, 2007

What does he have to rebel against? We're on his team.

Oh, he'll find SOMETHING eventually. Even if he has to invent it. They can and do find a way to differentiate from us.

Look, there are certainly a lot of things you are doing right. But eventually he will need to know how to deal with arbitrary crap. The world is full of it. (You can take that however you like. *grin*) He will also eventually need to learn to take other's wants and needs into consideration-in other words, he will need to know how to tell HIMSELF "no" on occasion.

No matter what you do, it is important that you really think through it-and extrapolate how it will work once he is older. You need to be your own devil's advocate here-because if course correction is needed, then it is needed sooner rather than later.

One other thing. If you ever have any other children, it will definitely...change things.

Think it ALL through.
posted by konolia at 7:46 PM on September 5, 2007

Please say no to your chlid.

Some adult things in your house are not appropriate for him. Just because they are in the house for the adults does not mean they're okay for kids (alcohol? car keys? stove top?).

I was a pretty laissez-faire parent myself, did the same sort of shoes-in-the-snow thing, but I truly believe that it is OK for a child to be given the ocassional arbitrary rule. (Or it might seem so to him.) He needs a concept of "naughty" or he's going to pull some kid's hair or take someone's toy or jump to the head of line just because he feels like it. Why should some other child suffer just because you want your kid to learn through experience. Why should some hapless teacher have to put up with his behaviour, which is going to seem arbitrarily bratty to her, so he can find his way?

People out in the world WILL say no to your child. He's only 2 1/2 right now, so you have him pretty close, but at 4 some adult is going to say "no" and NOT offer an explanation, not because they are domineering, controlling authoritarians, but because they don't have time to explain given the 15 other kids competing for attention, or because they figure this child is 4 and should know this stuff already.

My experience with children raised like this (and perhaps I've only encountered the ones whose parents do it badly) is that they are demanding, self-centered and disruptive. I've only got them 40 minutes at a time, in an extremely stimulating environment and these types of kids just have no coping abilities and very little self-control.

Good luck, and really think about what people are saying here.
posted by nax at 4:30 PM on September 6, 2007