Parenting Tip #3

Children & Cellphones

When Christian started 7th Grade he decided he wanted to play football and we decided to get him a cell phone.  Oh, it'll be great, he can call us if practice has changed or when he will be back from the away games we don't attend, that kind of thing.  Everything worked out pretty good, he didn't get into trouble with it at school and wasn't calling people or texting them at all hours of the day and night.

We do, however, have this rule that when they go to bed, their phones are to be left with us.  And that we have the right to look at any text messages, etc. on their phone.

During the summer before Christian's 8th grade year, he started 'socializing' with a young lady.  I knew this young lady, very sweet, strong faith...so James and I approved.  At this time Christian had a 200 text message limit per month and free nights and weekends for phone calls (those start at 9 pm).  At 9:01 most nights, girlfriend would call and he would leap from the family room for some privacy.  We just kind of giggled at them, it was no big deal.  Christian did go over 200 text message a few times and had to pay up or work it off and then eventually we got unlimited texting and he started running into the thousands of text messages...whew, just in time.  We never found anything unappropriate on his phone and I randomly checked to avoid the just in case deletion of messages.

Now, on to the summer before Cameron's 7th grade year.  Cameron gets a phone, he is very excited...texts messages everyone and anyone who will let him and maybe some who won't.  He was asking grown ups at church if they had a cell phone and if they said yes...Game On!  He would get their number, I finally had to put a stop to it, he asked a senior lady at church for her cell phone number and I said "Cameron, she probably doesn't text...no texting her!"  "Okay", he said.  I would hear of people casually making comments about getting a random text message from Cameron, most of the time we would laugh about it.  He was obsessed!  Our cell phone mayhem doesn't end there, I found a few text messages that he sent when he was mad at I or James about something...now that hurt.  But when he got a girlfriend during 7th grade, it was really crazy...I would find things like "love you baby" and other equally disgusting things.  (*to learn more about that read parenting tip #2)  Well a breakup later and being busy all summer and he has forgotten all about his phone.  He doesn't care about it anymore and neither do we...so I am going to take his number off his plan, save a few bucks, and just let him borrow someone else's phone when he's off playing a basketball game that is too far to drive to and wants to let us know when he will be arriving back at school so we can come pick him up.