your 13 year old wants a cel phone for christmas

[isekii]

just imagine the phone bill

 

[dragonballgtz]

If my kid was responsible enough sure why not. Ex:

My boss at work gave his 11 year old son a cell phone. But I have to admit though his kid deserved to have a cell phone. He gets straight A's in school, was bump up a grade and plays hockey 3 times a week and practices 3 times a week.

But I would be smart about it. I would get a family plan with a crap load of minutes.

 

[FinalFantasy]

I would normally say no, but you know your child and how responsible, mature and trustworthy your 13 year old is. So unless you can honestly say that you can trust your 13 yo with a cell phone and it is not going to negatively effect her school/relationship with boys/girls/family/etc etc then do not give him/her a phone.

 

[Mr. Lennon]

Just get a prepaid one. Shes at the age where she will probably want to start going out to the movies and hanging out with friends. If she has a cellphone you can keep in touch with her at all times. All you a$$hats that say she doesn't need it need to get over their deprived childhood.

 

[amol]

I have a neighbor who has a 12-year old daughter (spoiled brat, she is)

Anyways, a relative gave her a Nokia N-Gage (SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE THE DAMN THING!)

Anyways, since she had the phone, her parents signed her up for a $25/month plan . . .

Needless to say, she talks for about a total of 15 minutes every month on the phone . . .

It's just a "COOL ITEM"

 

[Mr. Lennon]

Originally posted by: Amol
I have a neighbor who has a 12-year old daughter (spoiled brat, she is)

Anyways, a relative gave her a Nokia N-Gage (SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE THE DAMN THING!)

Anyways, since she had the phone, her parents signed her up for a $25/month plan . . .

Needless to say, she talks for about a total of 15 minutes every month on the phone . . .

It's just a "COOL ITEM"

Man where I live (southern cali by the beach) girls that are 13 act and sometimes look like they are 18. Very hard to recognize jailbait. Almost have to card a girl before going past kissing lol.

 

[Allio]

I got my first phone when I was able to pay for it myself.

I pay for the airtime myself.

I suggest you do the same for your kid. It's 95% likely it's just peer pressure - you can verify this by offering them the ugliest and cheapest phone available - I'm sure he/she will ask for the sort of phone their friends have 😛

 

[badmouse]

It's a very good idea. It's the starter phone - let her ring up a $400 bill in her first month, and then spend the next 3 years paying it back out of allowance, chores, etc. It will guarantee that she will be fanatic about paying attention to the minutes when she's older and really needs one.

This may sound like a joke but it's worked this way on both of my kids and on several friends' kids too. I now have very responsible cell phone users, both of whom pay for their own phones.

 

[amol]

Originally posted by: Zeppelin2282

Originally posted by: Amol
I have a neighbor who has a 12-year old daughter (spoiled brat, she is)

Anyways, a relative gave her a Nokia N-Gage (SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE THE DAMN THING!)

Anyways, since she had the phone, her parents signed her up for a $25/month plan . . .

Needless to say, she talks for about a total of 15 minutes every month on the phone . . .

It's just a "COOL ITEM"

Man where I live (southern cali by the beach) girls that are 13 act and sometimes look like they are 18. Very hard to recognize jailbait. Almost have to card a girl before going past kissing lol.

Yep, I live near Pasadena. . .

dunno whats wrong with So Cal girls . . . . . .

 

[neonerd]

i got mine at 13...well, 13th birthday

 

[imported_Kainz]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Kainz
i'm 16 now.. when I was 13 my dad gave me his old pay-as-u-go phones.. it sucked balls but gave me the realization of time vs money.. its a good learning experience.. I now have an actual cellphone on a plan that my parents pay for.. (family plan) now that AT&T is cingular we wont have as many problems that we had with AT&T. I say yes, but go with the pay as u go phones.. once I went on a band trip out of state and my dad didnt put the plan on national.. so we had a $500 phone bill at the end of that month... I was only gone for 4 days..

You make it sound like that was your dad's fault... I bet he wasn't too happy about it. 🙂

we didnt hafta pay it tho 🙂 we called at&t and they switched our plan to the national and didnt hafta pay for the extreme bill