1ºVicki Byrd Redmon I think he knew what he was doing in some sense - like selecting food. But I don´t think that a child that young understands the concept of where the money comes from and how much his parents have to work in order to earn it. It´s hard enough for grown ups to control their spending habits when dealing with cashless payments/credit cards. Much less a child.
Children at that age still believe that Santa is bringing them presents at Christmas. And think that money magically appears out of the ATM. They still don´t understand the causal connection between money and work and that it is not an unlimited ressource. They have no concept of the amount.
But according to the follow-up story, the parents seem to have made him understand by taking a coin from his piggy bank for every meal he ordered. That seems to have done the trick and made it click for him.
2ºThere are many similar stories. If you give your kid your phone to mess with take care to make sure all accounts are logged off and the kid cannot by chance get in.
There have been cases where kids would play a game on a parent's phone or tablet, and as time progressed the kid would start taking on higher levels. Usually after the third or fourth level there is a charge for each level. There is also data usage if the data plan is exceeded and the phone is not on WiFi. Games use a lot of data because of the graphics employed. There were instances where the parents received a huge wop of a phone bill amounting in to hundreds or even thousands of dollars.