If you have children, you’re going to make a lot of decisions as they grow up. How much TV should they watch? How much junk food are they allowed to have? Should you pester them to do their homework, or just let them flounder and hope they learn a valuable lesson?
There’s one question you may have trouble answering, since it’s a relatively new one for parents. When is the right time to get your child a cellphone?
Sure, cellphones have been popular for so long that there are likely many millennials who begged their folks for a cellphone when they were younger. But today’s millennials were probably teenagers when they were pleading their case. These days, it’s not unusual for elementary school kids to be asking for their own mobile phone.
So when is the right age for a child to get one? Obviously, the answer is whatever you want it to be. You’re the parent, after all. But if you’re conflicted, you have good reason to be. There are solid arguments to be made that your kid should have one early, and there’s a case to be made that he or she doesn’t need one at all.
These three questions can help inform your answer.
Is there really a need for a cellphone? For Mindy Jensen, of Longmont, Colorado, the answer is no. She is the community manager for BiggerPockets.com, a social network for the real estate community.
Jensen and her husband have two kids, ages 8 and 6. Her 8-year-old is in third grade, “and barely anyone she knows has a phone,” Jensen says.
Jensen and her husband work out of their house, less than a mile from the school. If her kids need to reach her, she says that someone, like a teacher or administrator, could call her. So for now, there’s simply no reason to get her kids a phone. But she has a feeling she’ll change her mind in the next year or two, even though she’ll still likely be working out of the same house, near the same school. What will have changed? Jensen assumes her daughter’s classmates by then will have cellphones.
“I remember being the only kid who didn’t have this or that in school, and it really is difficult when you are excluded. I will most likely break down and get one for her in fifth or sixth grade,” Jensen says.
But it may be another story if you work far from school, and your child is being shuttled around often from school to day care or extracurricular activities.
Kathryn Hauer, a certified financial planner in Aiken, South Carolina, and the mother of two adults, says she got her kids cellphones when they were 11 years old, back in the 1990s.
“We considered the cellphone to be a parenting tool for us, not a privilege for the children,” Hauer says. “Today, I’d get a cell for a 5-year-old. The cell helped us keep track of the kids and helped the kids negotiate a scary, dangerous world alone with help available when needed via text from parents — without their friends necessarily knowing.”
Can you afford it? Even if you believe a mobile phone is a must for a minor, money is quickly going to become a factor.
Joe Orsolini, who owns College Aid Planners and lives in Chicago, says, “I recently wrestled with that question when my sixth-grader decided he wanted a cellphone. He earned some money cutting lawns over the summer, and he wanted to buy it himself. I was back and forth on this.”
He even posted a survey to other parents in a newsletter he sends to clients. “They voted yes,” he says.
Orsolini wasn’t convinced. His sons had iPads and had used them responsibly and, “remarkably, not broken or lost them, so I wasn’t concerned about that issue. What concerned me was the cost of the service and purchasing a phone.”
Of course, cellphones aren’t cheap. Some studies have indicated that the average monthly cellphone bill is now over $100.
In the end, Orsolini bought his son a Droid Mini on eBay for $125. Then, he says, “rather than sign him up for a service plan and data package, I got him a Google voice number. This allows him to make phone calls and send text messages over Wi-Fi just like a regular cellphone, but eliminates the $40-a-month fee. Just about every place he is at these days has Wi-Fi, so it has worked out as a great alternative.”
Just be warned that this solution can backfire if you have other children, Orsolini says.
“The problem, of course, was that his 8-year-old brother wanted one, too, so I buckled and got him one as well. He is not as into the phone as his older brother. He still prefers his iPad. They have had them for several months without any issues,” Orsolini says.
Can your child manage the phone, and can you manage your child with the phone? Not only is a cellphone a pricey piece of equipment that you’d rather your kid not break or lose, there’s often the issue of having the Internet at his or her fingertips, and you’ll want to think about identity theft. (Speaking of which, you may want to check out thesmarttalk.org, produced by LifeLock, the identity theft protection company, and the National PTA. It’s a website about online safety and privacy.)
Jensen says when she buys a phone for her daughter in the future, the No. 1 rule will be “that if she changes the password to anything, and does not tell me about it, I immediately take the phone. In this day, you can’t not monitor your child’s online activities.”
But you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t buy your kid a cellphone, says Chester Goad, who lives in Crossville, Tennessee, and is an administrator at Tennessee Technological University as well as a former K-12 principal and teacher. He is also a parent.
“A strong argument can be made against giving kids or even teens phones. After all, most parents today didn’t have phones when they were kids, and these days phones offer up just as many dangers as they offer comfort and safety,” Goad says.
But he also says you shouldn’t feel bad if you do buy your child a cellphone. “In some cases, phones may benefit kids with anxiety disorders or other emotional challenges,” he says. “For example, going on an overnight [visit] may be a challenge for kids who are insecure or who deal with anxiety, but a phone may help them push through.”
Goad says there’s no magic age that qualifies any child to have a phone, but a good age to consider buying one is 13. Before that, it’s really only necessary, he says, if it’s a matter of safety or needing to communicate with your child.
“The best thing parents can do is consider everything on a case-by-case, kid-by-kid basis,” he says.
Which is probably just what you were hoping someone would say. If you have children clamoring for a phone, that’s the last thing they’ll want to hear.
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When Is the Right Time to Buy Your Child a Cellphone? originally appeared on usnews.com
