A Cell Phone for Christmas?
Last Christmas, my friend came over and told me what she was getting her 13-year oldest son a cell phone this year. “I wasn’t going to get him a cell phone yet,” she said, “But it’s all he wants!” She then asked me for ideas for keeping him safe and wisely monitoring his cell phone use.
Her family already had a policy of only using the internet in the family room where others were around, and I urged her to keep that policy with phones too. She said that actually they planned to disable the cell phone’s internet completely. That is wise for one so young. My clergyman warned us: Why would we give something to a child that adults struggle so much with! He was referring to the pornography that is so accessible there.
I told her about our charging station in the hallway, where everyone is expected to plug in their phones by 9:30pm on a school night, later on weekends. I told her about our monthly interviews with our kids where we ask them “How do you feel about your electronic usage?”, “When is the last time you saw something inappropriate on it and what did you immediately do?”, and “Are you trying to live a transparent life?” (See more about parent/child interviews at: https://theanswerismorelove.com/…/fortify-them-from-our-for…/ )
She and her husband might consider talking to him about when to put the phone away and choose face-to-face communication instead. Certainly, during church would be one of those times, or when company comes to visit. Our tongue-in-cheek rule is that cell phones at the dinner table have to go in the oven!
This family only did computer games on weekends, so they opted not to allow games on this son’s cell phone, in order to stick to their rules that were already in place.
This friend told me that now they would have something to take away from her son, if ever he misbehaved. That’s great, but I would urge her to set parameters together and be careful about random or angrily snatching it away. We have to all grow in our self-discipline and we want our kids to feel like we are helping them do that. Matter-of-factly saying, “I’m sorry, I guess I’m going to have to take your phone away for a couple of days to help you remember to keep our rules, because your safety is so important to us” might be a good approach, and then “I’m going to give this phone back to you, because I know I can trust you to do your best to manage it well.”
Another idea that a friend recommended from a parenting class she took was that rather than give a cell phone as a birthday or Christmas gift, instead have the parents buy a phone and then allow the son or daughter to Borrow it! This way they can set the rules, and have better watchful control. She is adamant that phones as gifts often end up as a nightmare. So a borrowed one is a good idea especially for a starter phone.
If you do decide to give the gift of a cell phone for Christmas, do so with controls in place and a sharp eye. It would be well to have a message along with it that, “Dad and I feel that you are growing more and more responsible, and we feel like you are old enough to take care of a cell phone and to follow the family rules. We want to be able to trust you to manage it well, and not let it manage you!”