by Aja Dorsey Jackson
My 10-year-old has been begging me for a cell phone for what seems like five years now. For her eighth birthday I bought her the generic version of the Disney phone. It gave her the capability to call four people; her dad, my husband, my mother, and me. After the novelty of the phone wore off and she got tired of calling the same four people, incessantly I might add, she forgot about the phone, lost the phone, then found it but lost the charger so the phone permanently died. I marked this as the end of our conversations about her having a cell phone. She couldn’t keep up with the phone, so she wasn’t old enough to have one. The end.
Recently the cell phone conversation has started again. According to her, all of her classmates have phones (she’s in fourth grade), and not the baby phones, but real phones with texting capabilities. In my refusal to buy her a phone, I have now become the mean, old-fashioned mommy, which doesn’t bother me at all. I’m sure this isn’t the last time I will receive that label.
I’m not getting her a real cell phone. Not only is there the fact that she will lose it, there is no one that she needs to call that she can’t call from the house. I am torn, however, as to the appropriate age to revisit the issue.
When I was in middle school, back when none of my friends even knew what a cell phone was, the cool thing was to have your own phone line. When I got my own line, probably in the 9th grade, you couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t the hottest person on the planet. The problem is that looking back I can remember all of the trouble I got into even before I had my own line. I would turn off the ringer on the phone in my mother’s bedroom at night or call the time number so all I had to do was click over to avoid getting caught accepting a phone call after hours (teenage innovation is a dangerous thing!). I cannot imagine what my teen years would have been if instead of having my mother answer the phone and question a boy that sounded a bit too old, I could have had my phone in my pocket on vibrate. Although it is commonplace for kids to have cell phones these days, I question whether an eleven, twelve, or even thirteen-year-old is responsible enough to handle that level of freedom.
What do you think parents? Do your kids have cell phones? Do you monitor their calls? How old is old enough for a phone?
Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more about her at www.ajadorseyjackson.com or follow her on twitter @ajajackson.
my two oldest kids 16&15 have cell phones. they had been begging for phones since they were ten and eleven,telling me all their friends had them, id tell them that was great and those kids parents are way cooler than me, but my job is not to be cool,its to make sure they grow up into great people i can be proud of. that cinched it for a while. then walmart had a sale on prepaid phones,$20 each and when they were 12&11 i bought them,told them if they lost them they would not get another one no time soon, told the they were responsible for earning the money cards that would go on them. they hooted and hollered all over the place. my 12 y.o. daughter blew thru her minutes in ohhhh about a day. my 11y.o. held on to his minutes for almost a month till my daughter snuck and switched phones and used up his minutes. boy was he upset with her,lol. anyway she earned money and never wanted to buy minutes so….and he just put his phone away,my daughter was not playing him again. i kept the phones and anytime she would
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Our oldest nagged at us for three years for a phone. We only gave in when she turned 13. Our son is not that fussed about having a phone (yet) but we decided that he will also only get one when he turns 13.
We made some very strict rules to try and avoid potential problems like: we have access to the phone at any time, the phone doesn’t go to bed with her, no texting at the table, if you lose it you replace it, etc.
Apart from that we also decided to use a prepaid phone. Have you seen those news articles about teens texting up thousands of $$$ on their parents’ accounts? So now we turned it into a financial learning tool. We buy her a set minutes per month and she is responsible to make them last. She can always buy more with her allowance if she wants to but she’s quite good at budgeting her minutes.
It turned out very well actually. The NET10 phone is smart enough for her (can’t be seen with certain phones, you know!), the minutes are cheap and it’s very reliable with coverage etc. We’ve managed to avoid problems so far with the rules we set in place, so we are confident we made the right choice.
Good luck with yours!
mention a cell phone i would hold it up and tell her to earn the money for the minutes. that worked for a good while. for her 14th bday her dad bought her a prepaid one and she has no problem earning the money to put minutes on it. my son got one this year he’s 14 and soon as i bought he got it stolen. told him he would be 18 before i did that again. we didnt let him rest about it and he found out who it was and stole it back. he keeps it w/him 24/7lol lol!!! so thats how they got there’s. i do monitor my kids calls every once in a while. i have taken my daughters phone away twice and you would have thought her bff had died. i tell her no sexting and i check her text whenever i feel like it. she was on the phone 2am the other day and when my husband told me i just looked at her,real good. she was like never again mommy i promise just dont keep lookin at me like that, i kept lookin till she went in her room. she has not done it since. its not age AJA its maturity,is your daughter mature enough to handle it?
oh yeah they have boost mobile with $10 phone cards. every week they earn that extra ten. GOOD LUCK!
I have a 2yr old daughter…and she already wants to answer the home phone when it rings. I have to actually BEAT her to the phone. So I shudder to think about the war we are gonna have when she really gets interested in that kind of stuff.
Prolly our fault though – Anytime a telemarketer (or the police department swearing up and down that we donated to them in the past, when we never did) calls and we don’t want to speak, we hand our daughter the phone and laugh uncontrollably as she “talks” to them.
Looking into the future, my hindsight will tell me maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.
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Our oldest child, a girl age 13 wants a phone, but guess what, she doesn’t need one right now. She is a good child, honor roll student, but, she only wants a phone because everybody else wants one. We are not teaching her to be a follower, but a leader, so she will not get a phone probably until she is like 16, plus, she’s not mature and responsible enough to have her own phone. She misplaces things & needs to understand the value of a piece of equipment like that. I don’t like that parents are giving into their kids so easy these days and wanting to please them. What happened to being a parent? When a parent says no, it should be no. If the child or children are mad, guess what, I can outlast my child being mad @ me over something immature as that. And trust, our children will never be able to act more crazy than we will. They can get an attitude and want to try something if they want to, but we are the parents.
My 10 year old has one, but I work at the phone company and get a great discount, and we share minutes. She does really well with it, she calls me and my mom and she has a couple of friends that we have on her friends list that allow her to call them without being charged any minutes. She texts me and sends me pictures and listens to music on it, it works out well. I also have a tracer on the phone so that if she is somewhere without me I can look up her phone online and it shows me exactly where she is located, on google maps, street and all. So I dont have a problem with it at all.
I gave my daughter a cell phone at 14 because of the transportation from school situation. The service that I used to pick them up from school was not there and when she ask the front desk people to use the phone they said no. Needless to say, I was outraged. I think it is important as parents to give a child what they need and not everything that they want. When you give your kids cell phones, you lose the ability to monitor the voice on the other line. I know technology is such that you can check their text messaging and things but with you busy schedule, how often would you do it before something happens. If you are going to give them a cell phone early put it up when they get home.
My 13 year old has a phone – T-Mobile Sidekick… He got it for Christmas this year & it’s his 2nd phone. He originally had a prepaid phone and he did a pretty good job so we decided to upgrade him to what he has now.
I am with CarlaS, we keep a tight lock on his phone. I have the GPS feature turned on & I can track the phones location at any time. Also T-Mobile allows you to monitor the call log and text log in real time – so at any time I can go online and see what numbers he’s dialing/texting and when. Any violations (calls/text after bedtime, sexting, etc) the phone is gone… lol
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LOL at calling the time! I used to do the same thing. I remember when I begged and begged for a pager and didn’t get one until I was like 15. My theory is when my child is too young to even drive, I’m always going to be the one dropping you off and picking you up so need for a phone. I was allowed to get a cell phone when I started driving for emergency purposes, but like you, this was before we had all these fancy plans and what not. So I couldn’t just talk and talk all day and night. I think 15 or 16 is the appropriate age for cell phones.
I am just scared of what I can’t control. I can’t foresee what may go wrong. My 9 year old is pressing me and I usually punk out on things but not this. There are many ways to keep track, I guess I’m just waiting on the right spying tool to come out lol. That or 16 to come.
My 12 year old does have a cell phone and has had it since last year. Our decision to get her one was more for safety purposes (she catches the school bus and gets picked up and schedules change from time to time). She needs to be able to get in touch with us. I am not sure if we would’ve gotten her one for any other reason. Of course she does use the phone to text friends, which I don’t mind, because I know that’s what young people do. But we have set the ground rules as far as when it’s too late to use it and so forth. Aja, it’s a tough decision as to the appropriate age. I guess if ground rules are set and the child has shown true signs of responsibility then maybe and if it is needed for safety purposes, then I would say yes.
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The absolute minimum age for a child to have a cell phone should be 14, and only if they are very active (ie sports, after-school activities, job) etc. where they will need access to you at varied hours/times. Other than that, they can wait until they are 16 and driving or with friends who drive. Earlier than that is unnecessary. Younger children are not (or should not be) away from you long enough to need a phone to contact you. And when they wish to converse with their friends, there is the house phone. That will teach them to share and will be easier for you to monitor and limit. Children do not need to be on the phone for hours at a time.
This article really got my eye of attention also…Back in the days,we didn’t have a phone,and when we gotten one,it was a party line and everybody,was up in your business…then star 69 came out,now the cell phone,I disagree on teens,with a cell phone,I know they good for keeping in contact with each other,that need be…but ,how many time you call your childrern’s,and get no answer,and how many times you threated to take the phone,for talking over they minute even if you on a contract…It’s a good thing for them to have,but is they using it,for the reason you purchase it…
There are so many things to consider. At this point I’m not worried about boys etc. but I know the time is coming when I will have to worry so I’m trying to prepare myself now. It seems that everyone that has allowed cell phones has set up really good ground rules for them. It’s just hard knowing that they can find their way around the rules when they want to. She would like to get one after 5th grade graduation, I’m thinking more like middle school graduation.
Aja – we went through this with our oldest son, who did not get a cell phone until the 10th grade. Before then, I thought that he was not old enough and that he was going to lose it anyway. He actually purchased pre-paid phones and lost the phones, let the minutes run out, and lost the chargers. And he only used the prepaid phone to call his grandparents ad cousins. But he lost interest in the quickly.
After he received his first real phone with texting capabilities, we had some issues with in appropriate texts and with his friends sending him pictures of naked women. He got in trouble for that and he knows that a phone check can happen at any moment.
@ED – thanks for all of the information on the t-mobile phones. I will look into that for our kids too.
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Aja I did that same “popcorn” (popcorn = 767-2676) trick when I knew my friends would call me back after “phone check homie” times. Looking back I was HORRIBLE when it came to the phone. And back then it was a landline phone. I would unplug her phone in her room, drag that long 25″ cord from the living room into my room, put my pillow over the phone so as to muffle the sound (thank goodness they invented the clear phone that light up lol). As punishment, my mom would take the phone to work with her. Needless to say, I bought a $5 phone at Rite-Aid and would just plug it up and go! lol Thinking about it, I should beat myself right now!!
As a mother of 3 girls ages 11, 13, and 18 this cell phone issue has reached the table more times than I can count. I bought my oldest a Metro phone for her 15th birthday (she’s born in August). She lost it by the end of the school year. I waited 3 months then found her an old beat up Metro which was not to be upgraded until she showed responsibility for her belongings. She held on to that like her life depended on it. After her 17th birthday I ended up getting a family plan with AT&T which allowed my then 12 year old daughter to receive a phone as well. During that 2 year plan period the oldest once again lost her phone and the middle went through 2 phones (washing machine tragedy twice). Determined to get another phone the oldest bought her a new pre-paid phone from her work check, went to AT&T store received a new sim card, put that puppy in and went back to life as normal on my family plan. I reluctantly bought my middle girl another phone when the oldest went away to college this past January. As with Cynthia I had the same issue with the school transportation system.
Other than losing/damaging phones they do well on conserving minutes and I have unlimited text which I do monitor both online and on their phones (I have the texting QUEENS try beating the record of 6500 text in a billing cycle – ALL outside of school hours). My youngest has yet to receive a phone as I don’t feel her maturity level is there as of yet. She can continue to use the house phone. But with the middle getting ready to enter high school leaving her sister behind I may have to revisit my position.
Kisha & Ed thanks for reminding me…I need to add that GPS feature RIGHT NOW!!!
I feel it is not entirely based upon age appropriateness but also maturity level on when a child should receive a cell phone.
@Connie, I feel you on that! As a teenager, I was very creative with the using of the phone since at some point my mother told me no I was not getting my own phone line just because everyone else had one. So I got real creative.. unplugging the phone, cutting off ringers, buying a pager that my mother didnt know about so that my friends/boys could page me and I would call them back until eventually I got my own phone line. I was in a freshman in college by the time I got it by the way. LOL. I use to think it was because my mother was a lot older than a lot of my friends mom’s by the time that I got to the teenage years. And by way of being older I mean that most of her friends had already had kids and some were even grandparents. I believed that if I had a younger mom that I would have been able to have the pager, my own phone line and be able to talk on the phone all hours of the night like a few of my friends did (not all, but some). I did learn however, that that was not the case at all. Having a pager, your own phone line, the ability to talk all night long on the phone and now having a cell phone comes with a lot of added maturity and responsibility. I can say that I was a mouthy teenager but I was responsible and I was very mature and wise beyond my years, but my mother believed that what could I possible need with a pager or my own phone line?
If I look into present day, kids with cell phones is a very interesting topic. Not having kids of my own yet, I have watched and been involved with the upbringing of my oldest goddaughter who will be 12 this year and who has had a cell phone since she was about 8 or 9. I think this was around the time that Aja brought her daughter the limited access phone for 4 ppl only. I remember discussing with my friend that the limited access phone is a great idea because she only needs to talk to the 4 important ppl and whoever else she wanted to talk to she could call them from the house phone since clearly you are 8 and have no business needing to call everyone from a cell phone. Well, she didn’t listen of course and in present day she has a full access cell phone complete with text messages and the internet. So, I thought to myself, clearly she is too young, but she is very responsible and she can handle this added responsible right? Wrong! I never liked the idea that she would text message me becuase I just thought that was way too much and she should call me after all, I am not one of her little friends, I am her godmother and a grown up. But when she thought sending me a picture text message of Santa Claus nude shaking his butt to the cupid shuffle was a good idea, I lost it! And so did her parents. Needless to say she was punished for a week and her phone was confiscated until she came up with a better response than, “I didn’t see anything wrong with it”.
After that I realized two things, first one being you can have the most responsible child and they will do the sneakest most immuture things and at the end of the day, you just laugh because you realize that had that been in your teenage days with an all access phone you probably would have been sending out the same text messages to your friends (but you would not have sent it to a grown up). And second, I realized that if cell phones have to given to children under the age of 14 there needs to be a good reason (i.e. walking home from school by themselves) and then once home, it needs to be up on a shelve until the next day. I think that maturity is a main factor in determining when to allow children to have a cell phone for personal uses. Hopefully, they mature by the time they hit high school or they may have to wait until their 18th birthday. 🙂
Great article Aja!!
i love how all these folks can come together and we can get so many different pov’s. love the BMWK website!!!! it does take a village to raise a child even if that village is a website!!!
LOL@ Connie! I had completely forgotten about the light up phone and yes I had one that I could turn the ringer off on and still see it light up. I wasn’t a bad kid but as Shayla said even the best of teens will do their sneaking around. I’m scaring myself remembering old times and what I might be in for in a few years!
My 9 year old Goddaugther has a cell phone… has had it for a year or two now. She calls to say absolutely nothing. I’m not sure which of her friends she calls, but to me… age 8 or 9 is way too early for a cell phone.
My little sister that I volunteer via Big Brother’s Big Sister’s is 13 now.. she also has a cell phone – when she can keep minutes, not lose it, etc. She burns through her minutes so fast via texting so her mom can’t “listen in” on her calls, that she never has them longer than a week. Her number is constantly changing.. it’s a mess! She has boys stored in her phone under girls names… I think in middle school, kids are really just discovering the opposite sex and are too sneaky to be trusted with a cell phone.
I actually didn’t get a cell phone until I was 17. I understand times have changed now.. cause back in middle school, I had a pager. But regardless of the times and what technologies are out, kids remain the same. They’re too irresponsible and sneaky to be trusted with certain things. I think the high school time frame is a better time to have the conversation.. I actually made up in my mind, that I wouldn’t get my child (whenever I have one!) a phone until they were able to pay for the minutes/bill!
True story: My 13 year old daughter has an acquaintance I’ll call “Kennya” that does NOT have a cell phone any longer because she had boys calling, storing them under girls names on the phone, sneaking around meeting up with them afterschool, etc. Kennya started using another friend “Stacy’s” phone to arrange a meeting with a young man to how did he say, “you know what we’re going to do”. According to Stacy, the texts went into dialogue from where they were going to meet to who was bringing a condom. Stacy talked to my daughter about it as she heard Kennya asked to use her phone as well to make a call to this young man. My daughter gave me the run down and I in turn let Kennya’s mother in on the secret “tryst”. Luckily Kennya’s mother found her before the meeting occurred.
Kids will always find a way to sneak by but we must come together as a village in order to stay one step ahead. Back in my teen years the best and the worst thing was that 3-way calling. But in this day of technology it gets harder and harder to keep that watchful eye out.
Mrs. Dickey….I know exactly the conversation you speak of with a 9 year old…what you doing?? Nothing. What are you doing?? Nothing. Dead silence for minutes. It doesn’t change until teenage years…. then it may change to: You hang up! No you hang up! lol
I’m only 20 and I’ve only had access to a cell phone for 4 yrs because my mom waits until all of us turns 16 before she buys phones because that is also the age that she allows us to start dating. She is considering getting my 14 year old sister (15 in Aug.) a phone b/c she’ll be alone in high school after my 18 year old sister graduates. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why all of my friends got phones in middle school but I was left without one but now that I’m older I completely understand my mother’s line of thinking. If and when I have kids, I doubt I’ll buy them phones before I they reach high school because I was a kid just a few years ago and I am familiar with a teen’s shenanigans…
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My 12 year old daughter has a LG Bliss (touch screen with all the latest n greatest feautures)!!! I purchased her cellphone when she started summer camp about 4 years ago. Although, I worked a couple of block from the park district she attended, but it was only for saftey purposes! Now my baby catches the school bus home & spends 8 hours @ dance class on Saturday’s and I want her to know that I am ALWAYS a phone call away. She’s a tween now and uses it for texting & keeping in touch with her dance & middle school buddies. She will not download or make any phone purchases without my consent. With that being said the choice is yours & I know it is a hard choice to make, GOOD LUCK!
LOL@ Brother Tech! a 2 year old! LOL
@Pete
Yeah, mang! As soon as the phone rings, she will yell out “I got it” and dash for the phone, pick it up and start speaking. She hasn’t mastered the buttons, but she already knows she has to press something before she starts talking.
Lord, what is we gon do?
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I guess we’re all having the same problems. My youngest will NOT stop asking for a cell phone! After doing a lot of research, I think I am finally going to give in. I’m thinking of getting her a pay-as-you-go cell phone. The Net10 phone I found is great because it only costs $0.10 a minute. This way, she learns about responsibility and that she can’t talk on the phone all the time. We also turn it into a math game. Every month she tries to count how many minutes she use and how much we’re going to owe. She’s getting very good at it and learning how to be responsible all while I have peace of mine because I know I can call her at any given moment (when she’s not in school).
My 14 year old just got one in March.I believe this is a responsible age and it is working great. We got a no contract Kajeet phone and pay only $14.99 a month for unlimited texting . There is a link for 15% off phones at http://www.kajeet.com/logcabin127
We love it and our whole family is on their plans now!
In this day an age, cell phones are a necessity in some cities. My daughter has had a cell phone since the age of 9, since she started walking home from school unchapperoned. She calls the minutes she is off the school premises and uses it for emergencies. Yes, she now has the need to text all her friends, and talk on myspace, aim, and anything else electronic they come up with on the internet. However, I think I have instilled good values, she knows the difference between right and wrong, she understands how kids will sometimes encourage you to do wrong things but I keep the door to communication open. She comes to me with issues. She has proven to be responsible, the longest she kept a phone was 1 year without losing it. Her consequence after that was getting the $10 clearance version, which she hated and since she has been upgraded to one with all the features, she takes care of it like it’s a living thing. Kids live and learn.
hey
During my son’s high school
days, I initially did not like the idea of kids having cell phones. Then
the Columbine High School massacre occurred. What changed my mind was
that the “good” kids who had cell phones were able to call their
parents and the police from their cells while hiding under tables and in
closets. With so many shootings going on during those days, I wanted my son to
be armed with communication outlets so if he needed help, help could get to him. I learned that bad kids will do bad things with anything – including their cell phones – and good kids will do good with anything – including their cell phones.
My children know that they’re not getting cell phones from me before they’re grown. If they need to call somebody at home, use the house phone. If they need to call someone in an emergency away from home, EVERYBODY ELSE has a cell phone or some kind of phone. They already have parentally-controlled email accounts that they can barely handle without getting into trouble… A cell phone?? Forget it. And mine aren’t even teenagers yet!
Besides which, it’s bad enough we grown people allow ourselves to be used as guinea pigs with these radiation-emitting devices planted somewhere on our bodies all day, but to subject still-growing, still-vulnerable bodies, brains and DNA to that onslaught? I don’t think so.
My husband and I attempted the cellphone thing with both children, a boy age 8 and girl she 13. My son lost his after only three months. My daughter, well we thought we had instilled enough values and morals for her to use the phone wisely, not take advantage, but after a short length of time she was sneaking and talking to boys after midnight and texting inappropriate messages to her friends. We learned it wasn’t worth it. The better age is after 15. Maybe more maturity will be present.
My daughter was in the sixth grade when I thought she could have her little girl friends call, but then I found out that her friends were fast and three way calling little boys. So, her phone privileges were taken away. She is in the 9th grade now and its the cell phone. I still feel the same way. She’s not old enough for a cell phone, and with cell phone comes responsiblilty. Which mean, when she has to pay her bill, she won’t take advantage of it. So I will wait till she of age to work then let her get one. Right now, I pick her up, take her where she need to go, so there’s no need for a phone. My boys could care less about a cell phone, just as long as they have their gaming devices, they are fine.
We gave our son a cell phone in 5th grade, Christmas last year. He had been asking since 3rd grade, but we felt 5th grade or beyond was ok. He knows it is a priviledge, NOT a right, and that it can be taken away at anytime my husband and I deem appropriate (i.e., misbehavior). He has had the phone almost a year without losing it. and any time he recieves a text, I need to know who it is and what they are texting him about. My daughter who is entering 4th grade wants one, but she knows our rule is 5th grade. I think it depends on the maturity of the child, and that they understand it’s a priviledge.
All four of my children have had cell phones for years. The first two when they were in the 7th and 9th grade and the younger two when they were in 8th and 1st grade. The first grader was young but she got the phone because it came as a free deal with the cell company, so we gave it a try. Although she has unlimited calling ability, she only calls her family and a couple friends. I have NEVER had to reprimand either child for misusing or losing their phones. The oldest is 22 now and the youngest is in the 4th grade. I think its all in how they are raised and taught to respect you and your rules. I thank God for having these type of children.
I have two kids, ages 20 and 12. Both got them at age 12. This was the age I picked because they do many things with me. Between band, track, chorus, football, girl scouts, school trips. I like the idea of being able to pick up my phone and call them.
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