Parenting Matters- August 2011/3

THE CELLPHONE DEBATE

When is the right age to give your child a cellphone? This seems to be the million dollar question amongst parents at the moment. To be honest, in an ideal world I wouldn’t advise that any child under 12 has their own cellphone. Why do they need the added pressure of having to look after a big ticket item when they can barely remember to bring home their school lunch box each day? Primary school is also a time when children should be playing carefree without having to worry about precious belongings or hovering virtual parents.

But, and this is a big but, every parent will give their child a cellphone for vastly different reasons at different ages. Safety and security is usually the number one reason. We want our children to be able to contact us if they are in need or in trouble and giving your child a cellphone enables the helicopter parent in you (yes, there’s a streak of it in all of us) to micro-manage their children. The other common reason is for us to be able to contact them out of sheer convenience – usually if we are running late, or if we need to get a message to them urgently about a change in plans – we can bypass the school secretary system and connect directly with our child (that is if they actually switch on the phone and even check for messages which many don’t do, because they are so busy playing – good for them!).

My eldest son got his first cellphone at the age of 12 – a very basic one, while my youngest got one at the age of nine (also very basic), purely because he goes to school on a bus and we need to be able to connect with each other if the bus is running early or late. Regardless of when or why your child has a cellphone, here are a few good pieces of advice to keep your cellphone toting child safe:

Use a cell phone service provider that has parental controls. If your child’s cell phone has access to the internet, find out if your service provider offers some sort of parental control feature you can subscribe to.

Make sure the phone’s features are age-appropriate. If your child is under 10, there’s no reason to get them a cell phone that has unlimited social networking or email capabilities. Likewise, the actual phone itself doesn’t need built-in features like a web browser or video messaging. For a young child, get them a phone that’s extremely basic – five buttons which each have a pre-programmed number – end of story.

Pre-program numbers. To help keep your kids safe, make sure their cell phone has all important phone numbers preprogramed into it so they can always get hold of someone if they’re in trouble. Install ICE details into the phone (In Case of Emergency) and there are a number of services you can subscribe to that will automatically call a set list of people if your child hits the relevant button on their phone in a situation where they cannot speak for themselves.

At the age of 13 my eldest son sent the five people on his ICE list into a spin while he was quite oblivious to it all. He had something in his pocket with his phone and when he sat down this object pressed against the button that sent out the SOS. Picture the scene: Of course we all tried to phone him at once and none of us could get through because his phone was on silent, as it should have been. Next we all phoned the school sending them into a panic, and then we were trying to contact each other while all racing off in our individual cars to school to save the dear boy. In the interim, the school found Ryan happily and safely sitting in class as he should have been – emergency rescue mission aborted in full flight! After this happened again we no longer responded to the call for help – a real cry wolf story – and we disabled this SOS feature until he got another phone that was not so sensitive. Oh, the joys of technology! May the forces of technology be with you, not against you!

NIKKI BUSH

Creative parenting expert, inspirational speaker and co-author of Future-proof Your Child (Penguin, 2008), and Easy Answers to Awkward Questions (Metz Press, 2009)
nikki@brightideasoutfit.co.za