re: Kids and cellphones

quote:

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With him and the younger brother running back and forth between houses I think a cellphone would serve him better. How many of you guys have kids with cellphones? Obviously I know I'll have to set the ground rules so we won't eat up data. How do y'all control the usage of them?

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Sounds like you could get him a phone to only use at home? Would be no different than him playing video games or on the computer, plus you can get rid of the house phone.

I don't see why not.

My older son turned 10 last weekend and we took 5 of his friends to the movies. All had phones and it was all they looked at before the show started. We went get pizza and ice cream after and had to ask the boys to put them away, they were all excitedly sharing screens for games and what not....it was crazy. What was even more shocking was that we found out none of them own a bike....blew me away.

We are holding out, kiddo doesn't have a phone. Don't see the need at this point in his life.

Side bar, we have phone at home that is for emergencies. We pay $8.99/month for the basic service. Only calls we get ate telemarketers....thank goodness we've not had to use it.

For me once a child starts attending activities that a parent doesn't stay the whole time a phone becomes pretty necasery. For instance at age nine we have encountered multiple times where dance class ends early or runs late. Tennis practice is suspended midway due to rain, and etc. At 5-7, we'd stay at such events the whole time.
Also if your going to leave a child alone somewhere for an amount of time. Same goes for a child who goes to friends houses alone as well.
In our community almost every 9 year old has one. There are a few parents who are opposed, but more often than not those children use their parents phones or iPads at night anyways.