Tweens and their cell phones: Text education
Here's Liz Atwood's Tween Tuesday:
For his 12th birthday, my older son wanted nothing more than a cell phone. All his friends had them, he was involved in extracurricular activities that required him to stay late after school, and he had outgrown the baby sitter, so getting a cell phone made sense. But in recent months, the phone has lain in his room idle and uncharged. If he is away from home and needs to call, he borrows someone else’s phone.
I was regretting the waste of money until I read about Dena Christoffersen of Cheyenne, Wyo. Her parents recently were shocked to learn their 13-year-old daughter had run up a nearly $5,000 phone bill sending and receiving nearly 20,000 text messages in a month. Turns out their Verizon plan didn’t come with text messaging service. (My plan doesn’t, either, but I had only a few dollars of extra charges when my son was using it.)
A Denver Post reporter compared separating a teenager from a cell phone to “wrestling an acorn from a hungry squirrel.” But many parents like their kids to have phones so they can reach them in case of an emergency. School officials have to weigh the convenience with the distraction. (Dena did most of her texting in school, according to news reports, and her grades suffered.)
Have you and your tween found the right balance in cell-phone use? If so, how have you done it? If not, what do you regret?
Photo: AP Photo/Matt McKean. A middle school student talks after leaving school in Muscle Shoals, Ala.
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Comments
We first bought our tween a cell phone on a pay as you go basis for $10 per month for emergency purposes only. We bought her a texting phone with a family plan that allows us to share 500 minutes between the 3 of us and she has a $5 plan for unlimited text that she pays for. She texts early in the morning and during most of the weekend. She is afraid of having her phone confiscated by the school should she be caught using it within the school. Her grades have not suffered for it, she is an honor roll student with an 83 average. Should I see abuse on the monthly bill that shows the time she texts and that her grades would suffer, I would simply take the phone away from her for a day, then a week, then a month. She has been warned. She has access to the home phone any time she'd like for any amount of time. Fortunately we have 2 lines in the house, that makes it easier. They need to learn responsiblity with these "gadgets" they have access to these days.
Posted by: Francine | April 14, 2009 1:22 PM
My 12 yr old has a phone with unlimited texting. It gets a lot of use but not at school. We text each other a lot, and in some instances "the medium is the message" as I learn things and we discuss things in a detached yet constructive way not possible if we were face to face and "emo" over them. On the other hand, if she or one of her pals is upset and texts over-the-top things, it can be way worse than saying the same thing out loud, where it dissipates in the air and all can see the context because the speaker is clearly "not herself."
Posted by: Nicole | April 14, 2009 10:29 PM
I am chuckling that "emo" has entered our collective parental lexicon.
Posted by: Annelies | April 16, 2009 6:03 PM
I got my 12 year old kid started on the cell also by guying him a prepaid phone. He went through the minutes quickly!! and was without minutes for 3 weeks and to top it off, he dropped his phone in the pool! I decided to give him another change. This time I bought him a NET10 phone at WalMart for $30 which came with 300 minutes included. I explained to him that this was it and he had to plan his calls accordingly. The plan is pretty inexpensive so a little math went a long way. Calls w/ NET10 are .10 cents a minute and texting is .5 cents each. He got the hang of it and after a month he still has minutes. I think prepaid is definitely the way to go - teaches them budgeting, math and the basics of owning a cell phone.
Posted by: watchfulmom | August 23, 2009 4:48 PM