best ages to get a cellphone?

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by jzeig104

I dont think you understood my point, or I didnt make myself clear. It is sometimes difficult to get things across in writing on a forum. I didnt mean that a child should not get a phone "simply" because I didnt get one until I was in my 60's. As a matter of fact, I have used a cell phone for at least 10 years. What I didnt do, and what I do not recommend doing for a child, is to get a smartphone or expensive phone. Reason? Because for one, they lose them. Another reason? Because it isnt absolutely necessary to have a smartphone for a small child. A simple phone with minimal charges is going to give them the ability to call mom or dad, which is truly enough for a child in my opinion. To each his own...just giving my opinion.

My child (now 19) was the first kid she knew to get a smart phone way back when she was 12 or 13. It was my old iphone, so there was no cost and she never lost one, actually of my three, not one has every lost a phone and only one was ever broken. Last year her five slid out of her pocket while in a cab, and due to the fact it was a smart phone we got it back in an hour. Wouldn't have been possible with a regular phone.

Oh, and the whooping charges for these phones? $10 a month. Can't get much more minimal than that.

[FinsterRufus]

I think the crux of it is this... kids have a world of knowledge at their fingertips that none if us had back in our day, I can't imagine what I could have learned if we had had Google.

I embrace it as the wonderful thing it is. You can point out the pitfalls, because with the freedom of access comes responsibility, but to discourage it just because it's not what we had is shortsighted and worse, fighting the inevitable.