Kids and Mobile Phones

[Blade]

My son had his first one when he went to secondary school.

Personally i think its a bit harsh to deny them the pleasure of a phone as all the other kids will have one and its their way of communication between each other. Not saying that's great but its just the way of the modern world.

Not crossed this bridge yet myself but imagine I will follows Duke and Kwackys lead in allowing them to have one but have rules around its use. Hopefully the rules will cancel out the negatives and just leave the positives which they also have.

[D41]

Yeah, 'cos you're gay, and you prolly like Barbie and Ken, and think "Flight Deck" was a good game, when it was actually crap, and you prolly think "Joe 90" was the cinematic equivalent of 'Lawrence Of Arabia'.

I bet if you were in a band you'd play harpsichord.

[bb41]

I think it's important for us as parents to keep up with technology just so the kids can't hoodwink us with our ignorance

[Monty]

Yeah, 'cos you're gay, and you prolly like Barbie and Ken, and think "Flight Deck" was a good game, when it was actually crap, and you prolly think "Joe 90" was the cinematic equivalent of 'Lawrence Of Arabia'.

I bet if you were in a band you'd play harpsichord.

HAHA nice to have you back and no it would be the bass!

I'm more worried about TV than mobile phones, at least a lot of he stuff they do on smart phones and tablets is creative and/or improves their skills. My kids go into a vegetive state when they watch TV.

Although Will has become a Minecraft addict and if he mentions Stampy one more time it's going in the bin!

[Deegee]

We bought Mini Gee a phone when he went to Secondary school - they advised it tbh, but our reasoning was thus:
1, The school is 11 miles away and he has to bus it every day - if he misses the bus home, or it doesn't arrive etc we need to know.
2, His friends are not in our town due to the schools we picked - he needs to stay in contact.
3, He talks with his friends about homework - the school encourages this btw.
4, It gives us a way to check on who he talks to and if texting what they are saying.
5, If required we can find him (well the phone anyway) in an emergency.

To be fair to him he doesn't obsess about it; I've always used a mobile as just a tool for the job and not a toy - he's taken that cue and uses it similarly, it stays in his blazer pocket when he gets home unless it needs charging and generally he'll be chatting to his best mate at school on Skype via his computer whilst doing homework - not on the phone.

My take on it is that if you are always messing about with your phone or one of you is a new phone snob your children will likely see it as such and imitate you, we don't and mini gee doesn't either, we bought him a Samsung Galaxy Y and it's done everything he and we wanted for under £50, it's on a £7.50 a month giffgaff scheme and to date we've not had a warning to say he's getting near the limit, we are happy enough with both the costings and his use of it. At present that is.