re: What age should a child be handed a cell phone?

(no message)

8 or 9

I don't see the big deal with people buying their kids a cell phone at a certain age. When it gets to the point where they will not always be with their parents and they are responsible enough to have one, then I don't see the problem. Does this mean they should have a smartphone? No. I think that's when the question of "at what age" comes in, but there are benefits in them having a cell phone.

If something ever happens they at least have away to get in contact with parents.

God forbid someone kidnaps them, but the phone can be used to track them, etc.

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and for all the excuses like "after school activities," its BS. kids want phones to text, snapchat and whatever else. parents just cant say 'no' to their kids anymore.

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Yup.

It's a different world. It makes sense for them to have one when they start going off on their own. That might be 16 because that is the point when most can start driving. But think if the kid has after school activities. It might make sense for the kid to be able to contact his parents in case anything happens or needs to let the parents know to be picked up. There's probably a lot of scenarios that you could imagine where it would be nice to be able to quickly contact your child directly. Emergency or otherwise.

Then the thing of lesser importance imo is that I'm guessing that kids' social lives are directly attached to these devices these days, and you would be cutting the kid off from that. It's not that big of a deal and limiting that to an extent would probably actually be a good thing. However, completely cutting it off might be a bad thing. That's more of something to figure out imo.

(no message)

Our 9 year old has one, most kids in her class do.

When the kiddos start going to stay the night with friends...so what 9-10? They don't need a smartphone, just something that can make a call or text.

However, I have taught high school kids who have had an iPhone in their hand since they were made.

When my kids were 12 said they wanted a phone and that EVERYONE else had a phone, I told them good if they need to make a call borrow a friends phone. They hated that answer.

When we got them a phone around 15, it's a great tool for punishment. When they screw up, they lose the phone (and the computer's internet access) for a time. They hated that much more than threat of a butt woopin'.