People also once got by without PCs, microwaves, cars, phones at all, etc. Doesn’t mean there’s any good reason to forgo them now.
I mean, very little of what most people have are necessities; we are lucky enough to be able to enjoy convenience and amenities, and why not? Unless an affirmative reason can be given to deny a kid an inexpensive phone, then why not let them have one if they want one? “Did people once live without them?” is not a great way of setting defaults.
I can only give you my experiance.
I did not get either of my children cell phones. When they got jobs they saved their money and bought their own phones and they pay the monthly bill. I used to have one that I would let them use when they went anywhere that required them to call me for a pick up ride home. I do not have one anymore. My BF has one if I really feel the need to have one on me.
My son started out with a Revol phone and he used it a lot when he first got it. He had one of the more expensive plans and a year or so later he hardly ever used it so he stopped the account and sold the phone. He just got another one about a month or so ago with a contract and a free phone. Again he paid for it and pays the bill. He learned what services he really needs and it costs him a lot less.
My daughter just got her first phone about two months ago. She saved up her money and paid a lot for it as she wanted a high end phone and went with the Revol plan. She also pays the bill every month.
In both cases the phone was the first monthly bill they ever had to pay on their own. I think it is a great way to learn responsibility. In my sons case he learned a lesson that more is not always better as he was paying a lot for services he never used.
My daughters friend got a phone for her birthday a couple years ago that her father added to his plan. She went over in minutes the first month. IMO he should have made her pay for the overage but he did not. She has done it again and again. I mean why not she suffers nothing for it. She also can not change services nor upgrade her phone if she would like to as her father controls the plan. So although she got the luxary of a cell phone at 15 she also has not learned any responsiblity.
I think there a lot of different reasons for parents to get a cell phone for their children. Sports, many after school activites, going off to college, non-custodial parents in other states etc. are all good examples and I would agree with these but just to get it because everyone else has it or as a status symbol is not teaching the children anything other than a part of life is to "keep up with the Jones’ ".
If it’s a necessity, then it’s warranted.
If it’s simply a social networking tool, until the kids are 12 or 13, not needed.
Just to put a twist on this - you could say that I, and many other adults, only have one because everybody else does. Everybody expects to be able to contact us by mobile phone. We’d be left out of things, overlooked, and be a bit annoying to deal with if they couldn’t.
Exactly. People, kids especially, don’t make plans like they used to. You can bemoan the effects of this in the aggregate, but on the individual level, you can’t ignore that it’s true. The majority of the social gatherings of kids these days are impromtu–two guys will send out a bulk text to their 12 best friends “Hey, frisbee at the park, one hour” and people show up or they don’t: if one kid suggests a movie to another kid, they are likely to say “Not sure, might be doing this other thing, text me like an hour before if you are still going”. People’s plans these days are so much more flexible, conditional, organic simply because cell phones make it easy to do that.
Texting is also quickly becoming an intermediate phase in making friends, between “someone I talk to in class” and “someone I call on the phone”. I know boys find texting girls to be much less nerve wracking than talking to them in person!
Twelve seems pretty young to need a cellphone 24/7. But it feels like an appropriate age for the child to start taking a family cellphone with them when they go out with friends, so that they can contact their parents if required. With the express rule that the phone is ONLY to be used to call the parents, or other appropriate adult.
I’d say 15 years old is about the time for a teenager to buy and pay running costs for their own cellphone, whether that’s through an allowance for doing chores around the home, or a part-time job.
Disclaimer: I don’t have any kids. Although I have been both 12 and 15.
We have an almost ten year old just getting out of third grade (he has a summer birthday and is the oldest kid in his class). Our school district is one with middle schools - he’ll move to middle school with sixth grade.
His third, forth and fifth grade friends are universally cell phoneless. In sixth grade the cell phone penetration is huge - more than half the kids are cell phone enabled. We’ve told them no when they ask (he has an almost nine year old second grade sister), but that “probably when they are in sixth grade.”
Since your kids are little, I’d drop the conversation (particularly around them - you’d be surprised how what they overheard when they were little will come back and haunt you). Wait and watch and see. At some point one of two things will happen: you will decide them having a cell phone will be easier for you than them, their friends will get cell phones and you’ll need to make the decision whether or not your kid will participate (and not may not result in not having friends - some kids are so charismatic or popular that their friends bend over backwards to include them).
We gave our daughter a mobile phone for her 10th birthday - a bit over a year ago. We looked at the “kiddy phones” but felt they were too expensive and too controlling - felt like an electronic leash. We got her the second cheapest normal handset available at the time (a flip-phone - keeeewl!)
Why did we give her one? Responsibility.
We set the ground rules, what and when the phone should be used for, what we would pay for and what she would have to pay for. It is a prepaid plan, and I buy her more time whenever she gets low, provided she has used it appropriately. She has made very few calls that weren’t necessary, so it hasn’t been a problem. If she did make a lot, she knows the cost would come out of her “spending” money. She takes care of the phone, hasn’t broken anything on it yet.
It was part of her starting to wallk to and from school by herself a few days a week. 2 years ago she was apprehensive about me not being there to pick her up inside the school grounds. We started her walking with the kid across the street who was a year ahead of her at the same school, and who had a phone arrangement with his mother.
Now she walks by herself. She rings when she gets to school to say she got there OK, and she rings when she sets out in the afternoon. She now comes home an hour before me 2 days a week - she rings to say when she is leaving school, and if she is going straight home or going “the long way” - meandering via a park with a friend. She also rings if her afterschool activities are changed, so I know when to expect her. She was initially apprehensive about coming home alone, and the first couple of weeks were very difficult, but her having the ability to contact me has helped enormously with her confidence.
We have found with her that she takes pride in having responsibility, so the phone was a tool in making her more independant.
Keeping up with the Joneses? Social pariah without one? Both ideas are completely irrelevant. It is just a tool.
My 3 kids (high school, junior high, elementary) all have cell phones so I can keep in touch with them (after school and weekend activities).
I don’t know what I would do without them, works great for us, kids don’t abuse them.
I’ve even started texting them because I can communicate in situations where I wouldn’t be able to make a phone call.
I got my son a cellphone a few years ago - he didn’t want it and returned it. Said too many of his friends who had them had nothing but trouble - with their parents, with the minutes, etc. He said he knew he’d just get in trouble with it and said he didn’t need the hassle and neither did my husband and I.
I have a pretty smart kid.
My daughter’s just turning 11 and we got her one a few months ago. There was an element of “everybody has one” about it, but mainly we decided on it because she is in more different afterschool activities than she used to be, including a few overnight field trips. We have our numbers and a few adult friend’s numbers in her phonebook and she’s not supposed to call anyone else or accept calls from unknown numbers. No problems so far.
In my experience I see kids (and adults) sitting in restaurants completely oblivious to their surroundings while they continually check their phone or text someone. Those are the social nerds who’ve lost touch with reality. It was such a pleasure to work at my last job where nobody looked at their phones and if it rang during lunch they would turn it off rather than rudely interrupt a social gathering.
I can imagine the scenario.
group of kids outside a convenience store talking on cell phones
“OK, Jimmy, you got your baseball bat, right? Good. Now you go in and whack the clerk while I go and steal the beer.”
Kids don’t need their own PC, microwave, or car and phones are the gift that keeps on taking (money).
I’m not against a child getting a phone entirely but phones are specifically designed to suck money from people. That is their purpose. A basic phone (used for talking) is not what kids want. They want to text, send photos, download music and whatever other service can be sold to them. It is a portable addiction and should be presented as such to a child so they can recognize it for what it is. Letting them pay for it is a good way to show them the value of money. It would also be a good time to teach phone skills and social etiquette.
Ah, you’ve met my stepson!
The media is entirely controlled by conservatives (if you’re liberal) or liberals (if you’re conservative).
Anything at all that a man does to try to get the attention of a woman he’s interested in is creepy.
Anything at all that a minor child does will lead hir directly into decadence and ruin.
If some stranger started talking to me in a restaurant, I’d be a little freaked out!
Or are you saying kids/adults who are absorbed in their devices while ignoring the people at their own table? Sure, I’ll agree that in some extreme cases this can be a sign of something detrimental. But, for the most part, people who are sitting at a table with other people are obviously not ignoring their comrades totally, and, in general, are probably in a more socially gratifying situation than the kids who aren’t sitting with other people at all.
Note that in this argument I’m insinuating that no cellphone = no other kids to sit with at a restaurant after school, which I actually don’t think is a terrible stretch in today’s world. This isn’t necessarily your or your kid’s fault, but so many people are dependent on using cell phones to make plans, update friends, and change plans at the last minute that such a kid is likely to be “out of the loop.”
The fact is that most other kids and young adults have become dependent on these devices. At least if you hang out with the yuppie and future yuppie groups 
It’s not a vicious ostracizing, it’s just not getting that text message right after classes are over for the day about a meet-up at the park. Because of this dependency, I feel like more people these days don’t plan things out ahead of time since it can be thrown together last minute.
Not having the cell phone is just that little bit more of hassle and time wasted that can tip a scale in the way of a different decision than might have otherwise been made. Personally, I hate waiting for people to reply to e-mails or facebook messages. You have no idea whether they are checking those or not. But phones offer, more often than not, instant gratification.
Of course, I’m biased. I don’t like talking on the phone, so I don’t spend more than a minute or so on the phone at any given time. But it’s remarkably useful 24 hours a day, regardless of how much actual time I spend on it.
Magiver didn’t say a stranger. But why would you be “a little freaked out” if a stranger talked to you in a restaurant? I’ve had enjoyable conversations with people I didn’t know in diners and fast food restaurants.
Nobody had cell phones really until I was in college (freshman circa 2003)… and even then not a whole lot. In high school? Nobody really… a couple people.
So I didn’t grow up with them… When I became adult cell phones became more prominent.
So… That’s my background on it.
I use my cell often. Its on me often but I don’t do the whole texting thing a whole lot.
If I had a kid, though, I just couldn’t imagine giving them a cell phone until they were… what? Maybe 16 or so?
Before that… wtf… Its like my neighbors that bought their 5 year old a Wii for christmas (along with about 3 times the value of that in other things).
When I was five (probably the first christmas I really remember)… I got a cheap electric train set AND I LOVED IT.
Buy them what they want, when they want it, and blame it on the school when they end up being little brats.