So we had to take thenphone and tablet completely away from my middle step kid. It's a long story, but every adult in his life came to the same conclusion, the brain rot BS on YouTube/tiktok and the AI chat where 100% out. He'd become an antisocial little *******, and we're all done.

He has shown remarkable improvement over the last couple weeks, and I(with full agreement from mom) want to trynand find a way tongive him some form of portable music back.

I know nothing about music options like this in the modern world tbh. I have YouTube premium, and use YouTube music in my truck... its not perfect, but its easy and works.

Anyway: do they still make something like an ipod? Mom has apple music, could he download songs from that to the device under supervision, then have the wifi access turned off again? Is there another device I could download a Playlist off my youtube for him and then go offline?

I, nor either bio parent, want to squash the kid being a teen/tween and take his music away. We've even left his ps4 with him on the understanding if he gets caught on youtube with it, its gone. I just want to help the kid out, especially since hes putting out *some* effort. It's also a bit of a peace offering... he has a problem with me, but none of us are quite sure why. Im on very good terms with the other parent, and they're actually pissed off at hownrudenthenkid is being.

Thanks for the advice.

Did he have a phone? With parental controls you should be able to control what apps he can download and use on it. My kids can't download any apps without our password. There are also time controls , their phones become useless beyond calls after 9 pm.

He did, but it was an older phone and we had hell getting controls working. He was sneaking on to things like Google docs to chat with friends, hitting web based stuff etc.

There was also a degree of symbolism in taking the phone, and will be in an alternative device as well. If I dont have a good alternative, we'll work on the phone again.

You can probably find a portable mp3 player for under $50. The trick is going to be getting the music onto it.

Ag_of_08 said:

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He did, but it was an older phone and we had hell getting controls working. He was sneaking on to things like Google docs to chat with friends, hitting web based stuff etc.

There was also a degree of symbolism in taking the phone, and will be in an alternative device as well. If I dont have a good alternative, we'll work on the phone again.

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Good point that kids will always find away around controls. I know I sure did back in the day.
Our policy is that it is my phone I'm letting them borrow and that have no expectation of privacy. Any attempts to get around it is a loss of the phone. Sounds like you've already done that though.
There are plenty of small devices that can stream online or store music for offline use. Mainly marketed to runners that want music but don't want a phone.
https://connect.spotify.com/

Maybe an old iPod shuffle? Or one with the thumb wheel so they could at least select what they want to listen to, but have no internet access/apps/etc.

superunknown said:

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You can probably find a portable mp3 player for under $50. The trick is going to be getting the music onto it.

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Take it a step further

Buy a retro gaming handheld like this.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJ4D73YZ

And install a media player like this.

https://github.com/TechDevangelist/gmu/releases/tag/v20220225

It's a little bit of work getting this set up. But it's around $50 plus the cost of the card you put in it.

I've got one of these for myself and my son likes playing it from time to time.

What about an Echo Dot? Maybe a little more functionality than you want but I don't think you can do the apps, etc you're trying to ban.

I don't have apple music, but believe they have something similar to spotify. If you have a premium account, you can save songs, playlists, etc. for offline use. But, pretty sure you'd still need an apple device to play them. Maybe a cheap/used apple watch that can sync with mom's phone?

Spotify and Amazon should give you more options as they aren't tied to a specific ecosystem like Apple. But would require a new paid subscription service. Flip side is they'd work for more watches: apple, samsung, garmin, fitbit, etc. All would still require to be sync'd to another device to download the music, though. They even have some cheap mp3 options out there that would work with these premium accounts, for example: Mighty MP3 Player (not sure if you can pick specific songs on this device, though, and not sure how important that is, think it's like an ipod shuffle).

The challenge is that kids these days don't collect music at all, they have a music service and build playlists, or listen to channels.

Somebody mentioned an Echo, that would be the easiest way to get him setup while he's at home.

kb2001 said:

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The challenge is that kids these days don't collect music at all, they have a music service and build playlists, or listen to channels.

Somebody mentioned an Echo, that would be the easiest way to get him setup while he's at home.

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Yup, people ain't accumulating the actual files anymore. Unless you're weird…like me… then you save the files and load them on an old iPod running Rockbox firmware…

You can still ask the apps to download a playlist you have created for offline listening. But then they won't be able to find new music to add to existing playlists, etc. So probably not an ideal solution.