I Got My 10 Yr Old a Cell Phone

I got my son one in 6th grade for the same reason- walking to and from school picking up his brother- he can have it in his backpack in school but the teachers cant see it or they take it away. There are time restrictions on school nights and during school accept the 4 authorized numbers he might need to call ( me, dad, gma, gpa) but that is all he wasn't as crazy about it when he was younger but now (14) I think it is attached to him permanently

Most schools do not allow the phones in school or on the bus; however, if you want him to have it because he is walking to school he should be aware to turn it off when he gets inside the building and leave it off until the end of the day. I did let mine take his because he had various activities after school and if practice was getting out early or had been cancelled, we needed him to be able to reach us ASAP. I think the rules just need to be in line with what/when/how you expect him to use it.

Check with his current elementary school -- even if the phone is turned off, they may have a policy that a child cannot have a phone at all during school hours. If he is caught with it, on or off, he may have to give it to them for the day and may get disciplined for having it on school grounds. Some schools are very strict about this and others have no policies at all, so check with the school to ensure he does not have to deal with discipline or embarrassment if he has it and it's taken from him. It sounds like he doesn't need it during school right now anyway, and there would be no point in sending it with him to school this school year; it would only increase the chance it would be lost or stolen there, too.

His middle school may have different rules, but that's next year.

My SD has had one since she was 7, but at age 7 she had one of those with the 4 buttons that only calls 4 people. Now she has a regular phone with text (she is 9 now).

We have restrictions on there so she can't use the phone after 9pm to call or text anyone not on her family/friend list. We also have a minute limit for non-family.

She is not allowed to text during dinner or while crossing a street. I periodically check her texts to make sure she's not doing anything she's not supposed to.

She's not allowed to give out her number to anyone without asking us first nor take anyone's number without asking.

She's not in public school so we don't have that as an issue.

The parental controls are great, aren't they? :)

We got our daughter a cell phone in 4th grade. She is 16 now, driving and of course will have a good phone. She has always been responsible so we don't have the same hard strict rules as some parents do, however, if she is not responsible with it, we will begin stricter practices.

Check with the school. I sub teach in elementary and a lot of kids have cell phones. I usually see them at the end of the day when the children are getting ready to leave school, especially the walkers and bike riders.

At high school, they are allowed at all times except being used in the classroom. The only time phones are taken up at high school is if they are using them in class. It is free for all in hallways and lunchtime.

We've always had text and that has been very handy for us. My daughter texted me in middle school twice about a lockdown in process.

We all 3 carry IPhones so we have the same chargers, data plans, unlimited texting, etc. I understand that a 10 yr old does not "need" all the bells and whistles that a 16 yr old does.

Just set your rules and don't let anyone make you feel guilty or wrong. You have to do what is right for your family and no worry about everyone else.

Good luck

My 1st instinct when reading your headline was "What?!" I mean seriously, what could a ten-year-old possibly need a cell phone for?! However, you sound like a very caring mother who is trying to provide something that will make life easier for everyone while still recognizing the potential for the situation to get out of control, and taking steps to prevent that from happening. I have to give you major kudos for that- your son is not mature enough to restrict himself, so you've already done that for him. I think you've covered all of the bases, I can't think of anything else. :)

I got my son a cell phone when he was 10 or 11 - he was going to an out of town soccer camp and I wanted him to be able to contact me whenever he wanted. Once he got home he was not allowed to carry it with him and was only allowed to use it on the weekends. He did not have text or data.

As he has gotten older (he is now 14) I let him carry it and bought a family text package for my plan. He does carry it to high school now - but never to middle school from 6th - 8th grade. He leaves it turned off at school and turns it on once he is on the bus on the way home.

I have blocked third party charges to the phone and blocked data access. I do occasionally go through his phone and read his text messages - most are from me, Hah!

I feel that since I pay for his phone and he is a minor, that I have a right to have access to it. He knows if he abuses it that I will either take it away for awhile or just call the cell company and have it canceled. He has been angling for a new phone and I told him when he is eligible for an upgrade he is more than welcome to buy himself one. :)

Its a privilege and I expect him to treat it as such.

Good Luck and God Bless

You are smart to have rules in advance. My daughters have had phone since kindergarten - for MY peace of mind - and we've never had an issue because they understood the rules to begin with. First - emphasize that when the phone comes in the house it immediately goes in the charger. When it is not in the charger, it should be turned on at all times - that way, if it gets misplaced somewhere (and we ALL do that, not just kids) it can be called to find where it is ringing. Set your phone so that he can only make calls to/ and receive calls from approved contacts. BUT some phones allow nonapproved contacts to leave voice mail messages. I have had both Verizon and Sprint - and with both of them you cannot set any controls so that only approved contacts leave voice messages. Your only choice is to turn off ALL voice messages - which I have done because my youngest daughter had an incident where some unknown person who was being chased by bill collectors forwarded her home phone calls to my daughter's cell phone. One day my daughter had 7 nasty, messages filled with fowl language. When I called Verizon to complain, that's when I found out that anyone can leave a message - and they explained that often people being chased by bill collectors will just pick some random number to forward their phone to. Third important rule is time of days you will allow him to call his friends and for how many minutes. When my daughters were really young, there was no time allowed - emergencies only. Now that they are older they can take calls only after 7pm or on the weekends- when the minutes are FREE - and only for 15 minutes maximum. Funny thing is that since they've had phones for so long, it's not really a novelty, so they don't even really use them now, even though they are allowed to. Also, I have a note on my child's phone that gives my cell phone number to call if the phone is lost - you may have a good soul call you - but you don't want to give a home number where they could reverse lookup the number and find out where your son lives. Also - make sure you don't put as a contact "home" with your home phone number, for the same reason. Instead, I put my child's name as the contact number under our home phone number. Don't forget to put your name under the "ICE" contact - which is the "In Case of Emergency" contact name that all emergency personnel are trained to look for on cell phones. Check with the school for rules about cell phones. In my daughters' schools cell phones must be kept in backpacks during school hours. Also periodically have him make a call so you can make sure he knows how to dial it and that it is working. Also - do you really want to set it so that he can't call during school hours? What if something weird happens like an early release day because of a snowstorm. Don't you want him to be able to reach you? Can you just instead trust him to not use when he is not supposed to? Also - make sure he can't connect to the internet with it, especially if you don't have a plan for that - because then you would get some huge charges. Good luck - I know you'll feel better with him having a phone - I certainly do. I once read a horrible, horrible, story of some girls who went to a weekend sleepover. Turned out the mother, later the next day, got drunk and took all the girls for a ride. They were in the 11-13 year old age bracket. Half of them were killed. The ones who survived said they knew she was not acting right but they had to get in the car with her. What else could they do? One of the fathers said his message to parents is to empower your children with cell phones. If his daughter had had a phone, she could have called him for help. I agree with that. Just by setting the rules up front and having serious consequences for breaking them, I think your son will do just fine.