How to Gift the Kindle Fire to a Kid without Getting Burned

Child Proofing the Kindle Fire Requires Creativity...

Just recently MSNBC posted an article on "How to gift the Kindle Fire without getting burned," and since electronic gadgets are on top of most of our children's Christmas lists—though most of them would prefer an Apple iPad or iPod Touch—the Kindle Fire just might be the cost effective most durable choice for most parents this holiday season. So the question becomes: "How do you gift the Kindle Fire to a kid without getting burned?" In this article I hope to provide some useful insights to parents who have purchased the Kindle Fire for their child, but have not yet wrapped it up and put it under the tree.

Yes, your child is going to be excited getting a Kindle Fire for Christmas, but that excitement shouldn't wane because there is nothing on the device that personalizes it for them. This might not be as important for older teenagers who are capable of setting up the device for themselves, but it's essential as a parent that you define for younger children how the device will be used. You define this by: preloading it with what you deem appropriate; setting up parent controls; and communicating how the device should be used.

Preloading the Kindle Fire

Amazon has done a disappointing job in protecting parents' pockets, especially with its 1-Click payment method. One click and purchases are made, no password or credit card information required. Instead of giving your child unlimited access to your credit card, establish a separate Amazon account for your child or one account for multiple children and associate that account to a Master or Visa gift card. Since Amazon requires that every account be tied to a credit card, there is no way to get around this. The good news is the gift card can be any gift card lying around the house—even that gift card with $1.33 left on it. Just a word of caution here, Amazon allows its members to have multiple accounts under the same email address (different password) to accommodate family members, however to eliminate any confusion you're better off using a separate email account for each Amazon account.

Once you've established a separate Amazon account for your child, you'll want to deregister the Kindle Fire from your account and then register the Kindle Fire under your child's account. Here's how to deregister and register your Kindle Fire directly from the device.

How to Deregister via the Kindle

To begin, your device must be connected to the internet using Wi-Fi.

• Tap the 'Quick Settings' iconon the Status bar.
• Tap the 'More' option.
• Tap 'My Account' from the list of categories.
• Tap the 'Deregister' button to finish deregistering the device.

How to Register via the Kindle

To begin, your device must be connected to the internet using Wi-Fi.

• Tap the 'Quick Settings' icon on the Status bar.
• Tap the 'More' option.
• Tap 'My Account' from the list of categories.
• Tap the 'Register' button and then enter your child's Amazon email address and password.
• Tap the 'Register' button to finish registering the device.

You'll notice once you register the Kindle Fire under your child's own name or nickname, he or she will not have visibility to all your Kindle books in their carousel—making the Kindle Fire truly theirs. For those of you unfamiliar with the Kindle Fire's carousel, it is a horizontal "shelf like," scrollable thumbnail display of all the apps, websites, books, and magazines you have clicked on or opened. Also in the carousel are your Kindle books in the cloud available for download, and default applications like Facebook that cannot be deleted.

Now that we have laid the foundation, there are various ways to preload the Kindle Fire for your child. From your own Amazon account, you can send your child an Amazon Gift card or you can gift your child a book. To gift a Kindle book you'll need the e-mail address associated with your child's Amazon account or you can have the gift sent to your e-mail address to forward it on to your child.

To gift a Kindle Book

• Go to Amazon.com Kindle Store.
• Find the item you wish to purchase.
• Click the 'Give as a Gift' button located under the 'Buy now with 1-Click' button on product detail page.
• Determine how you want the gift to be delivered, to you or to the recipient; and enter the appropriate information..
• Personalize a message for your recipient, if you so desire.
• Click 'Place your order' to complete your transaction.

Base on your child's interest start preloading the device with a couple free game apps (who doesn't love PAC-MAN). Amazon also has an extensive collection of comic books your child might find interesting. And let's not forget the main reason for purchasing the device, which is to read; so why not purchase a book or two from your child's favorite author. My youngest enjoys the "Magic Tree House" Series by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca. In the browser you should take time to bookmark sites your child is allowed to visit, if he or she wants to add sites, then they should understand that it must be verified by you.

Setting Up Parent Controls

Since Amazon has done a lackadaisical job in setting up Parent Controls for the Kindle Fire, parents have to be very creative in this department. If you are concerned with your child going to sites you do not approve of or making purchases you have not authorized, then you have two options: you can return the device or you can turn off the device's Wi-Fi connection. The latter does not prevent the device from being used as it was intended—your child can still get to her games, books, and movies that have been loaded on the device. However, they will no longer be able to access anything in the cloud or surf the internet. Another creative parent control is disabling the device. This prevents your child from making online purchases, however, they can still surf the internet if Wi-Fi is turned on.

The only inkling of parent controls you will find available on the Kindle Fire, to date, is the ability to disable in-app purchases. This will disable purchases within an app it-self; it does not block purchases of books, movies, magazines, or apps from Amazon.com. Once in-app purchases are disable you'll have to enter your account password to re-enable it. Since in-app purchases are enabled by default, here’s how to disable in-app purchases:

• Tap ‘Apps’ from the Kindle Fire Home screen.
• Tap 'Store' then tap the ‘Menu’ icon.
• From the menu icon select ‘Settings’ from the list of options.
• Tap ‘In-App Purchasing' from the list of categories.
• Tap to deselect “Allow In-App item Purchases."

Setting Boundaries

In reality we as parents cannot depend on companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple to protect our children from viewing inappropriate content. What we can adopt from these companies are User Agreements. Most devices and applications come with user agreements, when I install software on my machine I can either comply with the terms and conditions set by the company (creator) or I can choose not to benefit from the software's capabilities. If I say I comply and then use the software inappropriately, then more than likely an event with trigger within the application and the software will be disabled. Make sure your child knows and understands your standards and guidelines:

1. how the device will be used,
2. when the device can be used,
3. who can make purchases on the device,
4. sites (where) they are allowed to visit when the browsers is used, and
5. what is inappropriate use (or abuse) of the device and the consequences.

Once your child accepts your terms, you have to trust that they will respect them. If respect and trust is a big issue, you may want to boycott all Wi-Fi devices without parent controls; or you can rally parents together to bombard Amazon with emails requesting parent controls for the Amazon Fire be enabled! I prefer the latter.

With all that said, have a happy holiday.

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