In one case, you have an amateur pilot flying a tiny aircraft in sparse uncontrolled airspace with one or two passengers.
In the other, you have a professional controller running a large and busy airliner airport, and at any moment there are a few thousand passengers in the planes which it is his responsibility to keep safe.
On the recording, the controller is giving no indication that he is being negligent in his duties in the least. None whatsoever. He was doing all the real world important stuff himself.
The controller is setting everything up to move just like any other day. The only difference is when he would normally say "contact departure" at a very expected moment, he tapped the kid on the shoulder and told him to push the button and say the same words. He could have done the same thing with a tape recorder. The only difference is that the voice was actually breathing instead of electronic. If anything was mispoken or anyone had a problem he would have pushed his button, overridden the kid and it would have been routine problem solving. It wouldn't surprise me if the kid was told if anything goes wrong to go stand over by the steps and stay quiet out of everyone's way and don't touch anything.
And for those who, for some inexplicable reason, are unable to do the math, taking a kid for a ride in a skyhawk is a great way to introduce him to aviation. Letting him man the tower frequency at JFK ... not such a great way.
The kid wasn't manning the tower and in control. He wasn't really in control of anything at all. He was merely parroting what the controller would have said anyway. Everyone on frequency knew what was going on and having a good time doing normal routine stuff and getting an extra smile out of it.
When I was a kid, I learned about money from playing Monopoly, not by being given an opportunity to head up the Federal Reserve.
If that is going to be used as an example, the equivalent conditions should be established in the tower cab to equalize the two situations. IOW, put the kid on the mic and remove all trained adults from the tower environment and run the place for a full day. That was clearly not the case.
What precisely was the actual real world risk anyway that everyone is making such a big deal about? Not wishy washy thought processes. Not made up hallucinated possible scenario's. Not unrealistic media induced frenzy risks. Not even possible rules being broken - that is assuming rules are being broken which is doubtful since no one has posted up a specific or even general defined rule stating this is not allowed. What was the real world risk here that would have resulted in wreckage on the ground?
The only thing I see going on is the media and their idiotic behavior got hold of the recording and started riling everyone up just to be a donkey's rear end. Because of that, someone in gov't declared they needed a head on a platter and the FAA is forced to setup a guillotine to placate the witch hunters.
Personally I wouldn't have the slightest problem operating in an ATC environment where the controller has his kid pushing the button as long as it's obvious (like in that recording) that the controller is running the show. IMHO, this is one of the best things anyone can do for a kid nowadays. Too many kids have nothing to do and are far removed from reality. They often have no goals in life other than video games, hanging out with their bored friends and tv so they often go out and get into trouble. The few minutes being a parrot in a tower is the exact kind of thing that can take a kid with no goals and low self esteem and put him or her on a path to doing something important in life (maybe being a controller or something else more important) instead of being something like ending up on the streets as a meth addict shooting people. (extreme case but you get the point)
At this point it's a bloody witch hunt not much different than the GA witch hunt after airliners were used to knock some buildings down a while back.
Total nonevent IMNSHO.
