Phones and kids
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive August 2008:
Phones and kids
So what are your rules? And why?
My dd has a cell phone (14), she really has just started talking on it in the past few weeks (she has had it 2 years). She has free nights and weekends. Well I discovered quite by accident that she has been spending her late nights, like past 11 on the phone. Some time with her cousin, but sometime with a boy. This boy is someone who goes to school with her cousin, lives in a different town that she has never met. He will be an 8th grader.
Ultimately I don't care if she chats with him on the phone. But I don't like the time. I just feel like if you repect someone you don't call them after 10 pm. I know kids are a little different, but really! So I have removed her phone from her for the weekend. I just missed a call from him..LOL...I hope he calls back. She knows how i feel about the phone and the hours. So she knows she is in trouble. She is getting her phone back on monday, and we will be checking it for use. Any after 10 calls made or received, she will lose her phone for a week, the third offense she loses it for a month, the fourth offense, she loses it for good.
So is this reasonable? Do other parents care what time their kids are on the phone. I mean really it isn't keeping me up, and she is getting up and doing her stuff in the am (she has to be at school for band by 7 am). Also how mean am I to answer when he calls? I told her I would. She is so mad at me!
Anyway...I hate to fight battle not worth fighting, any btdt advice.
My dd is almost 15 (sophmore), and has had her phone since 8th grade graduation. She has to leave her phone plugged in in the living room overnight. She usually goes to bed at 9 or 9:30 (has to get up at 5), so she just plugs it in and goes to bed. I konw over the summer she had some late night LONG conversations, but that didn't bother me, but school nights there is no option, has to be out of her room. I know if she had it, she'd get late calls and take them, and be texting as well.
More than a respect thing for us, it's a break from communication, we often have her turn her phone off or forfeit it to us so she can have a break from being needy or accessible for that constant contact. When she first got it, she hated our rules, she was terrified she was going to miss something, but she's OK with it now.
Never be afraid to fight a battle, if it's important to you, it's worth fighting for, you are the one setting the morals and rules for your family, so if you find late night calls disrepectful, than don't allow them. My mom would have been in siezures if we would have made calls in between 9PM and 9AM, I remember watching the clock on both ends, hanging up right at 9, or waiting until the clock turned to 9AM and the dialing would start, and of course, not end until 9PM
I totally agree with late night calls, cell phones, or landlines. My kids are not allowed to make or take calls after ten. Actually, I don't let them dial after 9:30 because I feel it's just too late. And they can only call that late to friends I know the parents don't mind.
I would simply not allow her to have the phone in her room during the night. It isn't necessary, and it is only causing temptation. If a friend calls or texts her, it would be very difficult for her not to answer it.
Times are changing, aren't they?
Two of my dd's can read a text then answer back without even looking at their phones! It's like typing on a keyboard for them; which btw, I still "hunt and peck" on my laptop. lol
I allowed them free reign on their phones during the summer and I will tonight, too. First day of school tomorrow they aren't going to sleep too well anyway, just too excited and chatty about their first day. They will wake up early on their own to primp.
However, I think making them recharge their phones, in my room or the kitchen, at night, may be a good idea, as the school days go on if I see a problem.
My dks don't have phones now, they are only 8 and 10. But, my 10 year old has already started bugging me. It cracks me up because he doesn't even like to talk on the phone.
I don't think you are being unreasonalble, especially when school starts. Personally, I would just have her leave her phone with you at night. When she goes to bed, you get the phone, that way there is no temptation. Why have her deal with that?
When I was growing up we couldn't talk on the phone after 10pm.
We had the same problem with Randy when he first got his phone. He was actually texting in his sleep and not remembering it at 4 in the morning! We made him give us the phone at night and we'd give it back in the morning. He's also one of those kids that can text without looking at the phone. He's fast at it, too! lol He rarely uses the phone for actually talking, but he's a text freak.
If it's an issue (and if it bothers you it is, even if she doesn't think so) and she can't simply follow the boundaries you've set, I'd suggest like others have suggested and take the phone at night or put it somewhere she can't use it. Good luck. Aren't teenagers fun??? 
I don't think you should feel bad about setting this boundary with the phone. I was having girls call the house after 10pm on school nights.When my boys were in jr. high. My boys were too embarrassed to ask them to stop calling so late. It was MORE embarrassing for them when mama got on the phone with one girl and asked her if her parents KNEW she was calling our home so late. She said "yeah, sure, they don't care"...I said "I do care! This is our bed time and we need to sleep now. Please call before 9pm from now on." ROFL
The texting is awful for my 11th grader! He will text WHILE talking on the phone. So he'll have 3 conversations going at once?? lol He has unlimited texting...I was considering taking that feature off our phones to save money. I looked at how many texts he uses per month. One month he had 3000 outgoing and 4000 incoming. He is going to get carpal tunnel. ugh
My kids don't talk on the phone. Emily only uses the phone if she really has to. I make her make the phone calls that pertain to her, but she doesn't like it, so phone limits are really not an issue. She and I share a cellphone, but she only uses it to call for rides home from school.
Sarah is 19, so I don't really have a say, in how she uses her phone, but she pretty much only uses out of necessity, too. They've just never been kids who talk on the phone for hours. That would be Gary and me! (Him worse than me, actually!)
11pm is too late, for a young child to be talking on the phone, free minutes or not. I think your penalties are reasonable. There's plenty of time to call him, before 10pm.
No texting at our house. It's too expensive!!! We already pay enough, for three phones.
Recent letter from US Cellular:
Pay-as-you-go: .25/picture or text
Unlimited $14.95/line (we have three!)
Text messaging 750: $9.94/line
Text messaging 250: $4.95/line
Sarah and I occasionally use the pay-as-you-go to email a picture to Flickr, so we can get it off the phone. Incoming texts and pics are free. We just don't want to add the extra cost, on an already big bill.
They can text without looking at the keys? I'm not that good. I haven't done it enough. I can type on a keyboard without looking.
My ds has a cell phone. I think he is too young for it but we got it for my grandma and now that she doesn't live with us we are stuck with the 2 year contract. At first it sat in the drawer collecting dust. Then we decided to give it to him incase there was a problem while he was walking to and from school. He really surprised me and has been very responsible with it. He knows to ask his friends if they have sprint or nextel and if they don't he tells them that they can't call before 7pm on week nights. I even heard him on the phone one day....the phone rang, he answered and said its not 7 call back later, the kid must have argued because he said my clock doesn't say 7 yet call back later! and then he hung up. It was 6:55. That is not a rule I gave him either. He just knows that I get charged before 7 becuse he had heard me repeatedly tell grandma that she needs to use the house phone (which was sitting right next to her) to make those calls because it is not after 7 and she is running up our shared minutes. My dd who is going into the first grade is asking for a cellphone. I don't think so.
I like the idea of leaving the phone plugged in overnight in the living room. So far his phone hasn't been an issue but if it becomes one we may need to do the same. He starts middle school next week so we shall see.
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