On the eve of my only child’s 12th birthday, I find myself contemplating parental choices and wondering how we deal with this Herculean responsibility. My biggest challenge this year is whether or not to finally advance my poor deprived child into the 21st century. Cell phone? Or wait another year until she is a teenager?
I taught my child the value of a dollar early. When she wanted a Nintendo DS, I refused to buy it for her. She saved her money and bought it herself – at the ripe age of 7 – and even opted for the Lite version so she would have enough money left over for two game cartridges. When the salesman asked about the insurance plan, I made him explain it to her. She asked a few questions, citing examples of how her new equipment might get damaged and whether or not?it would be covered. After he answered her questions, she looked at him and said,
“I’m only 7, and I’m kind of a clumsy kid because I run a lot and I don’t always watch where I’m going. I think I should pay the $17.00 for that insurance stuff because then if I break my DS it can get fixed.”
The salesman was in shock. I have always said that my kid was a miniature 30 year old. We have tried to always treat her in a manner that allowed her to grow into a responsible and well-grounded tween. We are trying to teach her how to be a successful adult, because we know we won’t always be there for her. She needs to have communication skills, reasoning skills, the ability to save money for the things she wants while spending money on the things she needs, and all the life skills that she will need.
Our primary argument against the cell phone was cost-based. While she would see ads for iPhones for $99.00 and point them out, we would answer with a detailed accounting of the service costs associated with a cell phone. We calmly explained that the cost of the phone was a one-time expense, but that the service would be a monthly charge, Month after month, for at least two years.
The other children in her class started getting their own phones in 1st grade. Out of 28 children, approximately one-quarter of them had been endowed with the power of cellular communication at the age of 5 or 6. My child was all about that. She begged us incessantly to advance her status in class. Yes, even in the lower elementary grades children are greatly subjected to peer pressure. We said “No.”
In 2nd grade, about half of her classmates had their very own phones. And by 3rd grade, all but four children in the class had phones. This was much higher than the national average of 20% of 3rd graders. I think that might be community related, because we are in a suburb that, while not affluent, is firmly rooted in the middle class.
We settled on 13 as the appropriate age for our daughter to join the rest of the most electronically-connected generation ever. That was a good age. When she would beg, we would simply remind her that we would not entertain getting her a phone of her own until she was a teenager. The begging continued. We offered to move the age from 13 to 14 and the begging slowed some, but it was always there, lurking in the background.
She is now in 6th grade, and is one of very few students without a phone. She does have a computer with Internet, a Kindle, and an Android tablet. The computer is my spare, the Kindle was a gift, and the tablet was a prize she won for $1.00 playing a Stacker machine in an arcade. She is not unmonitored. I have all her passwords and software to monitor her online activities in real time. She is a good kid. We think we have raised her well so far. But the phone? That scares the heck out of us.
In considering the pros and cons of giving our child a phone at 12, we considered everything we could think of and also conducted a lot of research. In an article titled “Cell Phones: What’s the Right Age to Start?” on the HealthyChildren.org website, they state:
“There really is no ‘right’ age to allow our kids to dip a toe into the digital pond…”
and,
“Studies and reports show that middle school is the time that adoption for cell phones and technology really takes off.”
PartSelect.com offers a very comprehensive list of the pros and cons of giving your child a cell phone. We had thought of almost everything on their list, but it was nice to know that other people had the same concerns and reservations.
My child will be opening a small box on her 12th birthday. Inside that box will be her first cell phone, with her very own phone number. It is not the iPhone she was lobbying for, but it is a very functional LG Optimus L90. I am both looking forward to it, and dreading it.
It will be nice to be able to text her if I am on my way to pick her up from a friend’s house, so she can be ready when I get there. It will be nice for her to have the ability to text me after chess club so I don’t have to sit in front of the school for 20 minutes waiting on her to finish her last match and clean up their supplies. I will worry that she will use it in school and get in trouble, or that she will forget to turn it off and one of her friends will text her in the middle of math class. I worry that she will have increased access to the Internet.
But in the end, 12 is a good age and she will have her phone.
Me? I’m developing ulcers and she hasn’t even opened the package yet…
