Kids and cellphones

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Oldest son is turning 11 next weekend.

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He should have had a phone four years ago, now he's gonna be way behind the curve. Might as well have got him a MySpace account.

Parents who are scared of tech, tis tis.

My kid is 12. He asked if we could get service on his phone that he uses for games. I told him when he can afford to pay for it he can turn it on. I didn't need a cell at 12 and times haven't really changed. Check in, let me know where you're at, or don't go.

I had this same conversation with a buddy last week. When I was growing up I couldn't get a cellphone until I had a job that provided me income to pay for it. Nowadays you see young kids with cellphones and I'm like wtf?

I have a 9yr old who is currently asking for a phone for her 10yr old bday. I'm still about 80% against getting her one too. She has an ipod and an ipad with wifi she should be able to facetime me or imessage me.

Phones are status symbols for kids these days. Just like clothes and shoes. Teach them about the dangers of social media, put some parental controls on it. Also, I would suggest taking it away every night at a certain time. Tell him you have the right to look at it anytime you want and that it's a privilege to have one.

Both kids got phones when A. They turned 13 or B. Were playing sports where they had to travel for away games. We have AT&T and DIRECTV so we get unlimited data making overages a non issue.

Eta: the phone is contingent on grades. Daughter knows the phone is the first thing to go if the grades slide.

Mine are 11 and 10 and both have cell phones. We got them the Kyocera Rugged Go Phone from Walmart and they both like them. $60 each. We share 20Gb of data and the very seldom use more than 2Gb.

Similar to when a kid should have a car imo.
I think its beneficial for them to learn what its like to not have one, before they actually get one. And then would be a good idea for them to help pay part of it at least to have some skin in the game and learn to take care of it.

* also pay phones are non-existant now, so if the kid is away from home much, its pretty much a necessity.

We got my son a cell phone when he was going into 7th grade. We did this because (1) he was now in school sports where he'd need to call us for a ride after practices and (2) I wanted to teach him how to use a cell phone in a responsible manner. His first phone was my old iPhone 5.

The first thing we did was have a talk with him about ground rules for the phone. I let him know the phone was not his, it was mine and his mothers and we could and would inspect his phone anytime we wanted. There was no expectation of privacy on his part. We'd see his texts, any and all social media, and his internet history. If we checked his phone and found any of his stuff had been deleted, he'd lose his phone. We also let him know about limiting his data use when not on our wifi. And finally we talked about care for the phone, things like letting it fully charge, keeping it in its case, and generally keeping up with it.

He's going into 9th grade this year and so far he's done good and shown he can be reasonably responsible for a phone. He just upgraded to a Galaxy something or another that came with those virtual reality goggles. We still monitor his texts and Internet use but we've put him and my wife on an unlimited data plan so data overuse is no longer a worry.

ETA: my 7 yr old daughter has my wife's old iPhone 5. It doesn't have cell service. Instead she keeps it connected to our wifi and plays little games on it. She plays on it more than she does her iPad for some odd reason.