I bought my four-year-old her own phone.
It freaks people out to hear my daughter has her "own phone", a fact she is frequently telling everybody, but it is not a cellular phone and it doesn't even have a screen, instead it is a corded phone that lives in my office. It is a VoIP phone that works using a normal phone, which plugs into an adapter that a corded phone then plugs into. I don't have one handy, but apparently a proper rotary phone would work, too.
There are a number of similar services that more or less function the same; we went with Ring Ring Club because of the speed dial functionality and because you can bring your own phone. I purchased another adapter for her cousin in Arizona so they can call each other whenever they want. She can call out to regular phones too. Each individual number button on the phone functions as a speed dial she quickly memorized and only phone numbers it can connect to (sending or receiving) are numbers I've added to the service.
The result is she can operate this completely independently, without any supervision at all since I don't see what she could get up to, calling cousins and uncles and grandparents.
It has been a huge success. If you've ever Facetimed with a young child you probably know how annoying it can be: they just wander around, staring at the screen or messing with it, they try to show things to the person at the other end but can't figure out how the camera works, they get bored and walk away but also freak out if you then try and end the call because they "aren't finished!!!!!" It's very annoying, all of it. Plus they've got your phone, and my daughter starts wanting to mess with the other apps on it.
With this system, my daughter actually has an engaged conversation with the person at the other end and when she's done she says "okay I want to hang up now" and goes and does something else. It's magical. I'm not even involved.
I'm kind of jealous, honestly! Perhaps I'll consider something like this for myself?
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