Dispatch: Toddler Calling
What’s the right age to give your kid a cell phone?
by Jeanne Sager
July 20, 2009
When Roseann Styczynski tells people her son got his first cell phone at age six, she's prepared for the "Are you crazy?" look.
But while a 2007 poll by MSN/Zogby found that 47% of adults believed children should be in high school before owning a cell phone, parents are apparently talking outside of two sides of their mouth. A more recent survey in the U.K. pegged the
average age of first-time cell phone owners at eight. Plenty of parents out there are buying phones for very little kids.
Styczynski says her job at Verizon had nothing to do with her decision to buy her then-six-year-old, Matthew, the (since discontinued) Migo, a mobile made for kids that would allow them to dial only four numbers plus 911. There was no voice mail,
no texting, and GPS came standard.
"We were at a birthday party at one of those giant party places and while I was chatting with another mom, my son ran into the men's room to go to the bathroom," Styczynski explains. "When I noticed that he wasn't there, with the assistance of a few other
moms I scoured the place and finally found him. He was gone for about five minutes, but it was the longest five minutes of my life."
The next day, she bought the phone.
"I do get that look, that 'You got your kid a cell phone?' look. But when I tell them my story, they say, 'Oh'," the Saratoga Springs, New York, mom says. A second passes while it clicks. "Then they say, 'Oh, does Verizon still have that phone?'"
Many parents would be hard-pressed to find fault with Styczyinski's reasoning. We've all been at that giant fun-center with what sounds like a thousand screaming first graders and a man dressed like a mouse riling them up.
54% of eight- to twelve-year-olds will have cell phones within the next three years.
It's why Daniel Neal created
Kajeet, a phone company that bills itself as "the cell phone service made 4 kids." The number one request from parents is the GPS phone finder, he says, a feature the father of two preteens made available from the get-go. Founded by a group of fathers,
Kajeet was a company formed to fill what seemed to be a niche market — cell phones with family-specific services. It's working. The company incorporated in 2003, and has been making deals with the likes of Turner Broadcasting and Amazon to bring their phones
and services to the masses.
And no wonder — a recent U.S. Cellular survey estimated 60% of teens have cell phones. According to market research from the Yankee Group, 54% of eight- to twelve-year-olds will have cell phones within the next three years. You don't
even have to go to a phone company to get one — today the Firefly is available right at your local toy store.
"If you've seen a teen today or a preteen, you'll notice that their cell phones are almost tethered to them," says psychologist Dr. Jerry Weichman, PhD., author of
How to Deal. Every patient in his busy Newport Beach, California, adolescent practice walks in with a cell phone.
Weichman isn't a critic of cell phones or even of kids with cell phones. He is, however, a critic of parents who don't put their foot down.
"A cell phone has to come with a lot of rules and regulations," he says. "They need to start off with clearly defined rules — no forbidden sites, no naked pictures, no explicit texts."
The problem of kids taking naked pictures and sending them out via cell phone, commonly known as
sexting, is not just media hype, Weichman says. "I've seen girls as young as eleven sending naked pictures and being caught. The boys are relentless as far as trying to get the pictures."
The stories of
kids sending out thousands of texts in one month aren't hype either. Peter Robertson of Ohio found that out the first month after he and his wife finally broke down and bought their thirteen-and-a-half-year-old daughter a cell phone.
"We resisted a long time, but our target date kept eroding," Robertson says. "Originally it was when she got her driver's license. Then it was when she entered high school. Then it became halfway through eighth grade."
In her first month, their daughter sent 1,200 texts.
©2009 Jeanne Sager and Babble
About the Author
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Jeanne Sager is a freelance writer and photographer living in upstate New York with her husband and daughter, Jillian. She maintains a blog of her award-winning columns at jeannesager.blogspot.com. |
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