Ditchdigger,
Your comparisons about what your kids did is not valid. I notice you did not let your son operate excavating machinery at full power on a busy building site, or let your daughter drive the dump truck on a public road in the rush hour.
True, but that's what makes the comparison valid. "Cleared for takeoff" and, "Contact departure" are about as basic and unequivocal as ATC transmissions get. How much potential for an uncorrectable mistake, with uncorrectable consequences, existed there?
Your comment about managing the risk is not valid either - the risk should not have been there in the first place.
I asked first for somebody to enumerate the risks. I'm listening, and of an open mind.
To those who think this was just a harmless bit of fun, can I ask where in fact you would draw the line? Would it be OK for the controller to have had a family day in atc and let the boy's brother switch the airfield lighting panel, while the sister is in radar handing off traffic to tower, with maybe the wife inputting data into the flight planning computer. All under strict supervision of course!
I would draw the line somwhere short of the situation you describe, because I doubt "strict supervision" could be maintained. I do draw the line somewhere beyond the handful of transmisions under discussion. I don't find them any more problematic than the limited, strictly supervised experiences I gave my own kids. Your opinion may differ.
Of course, now we're thoughtfully excercising judgement based on the merits of given sets of circumstances, not on what the media panders to the sensation hungry public. I'm afraid the way this is being handled leans more towards the latter than the former.