Responsible Teen Cell Phone Use – Know When To Say “No!”

Responsible teen cell phone use is a topic that many parents dread. It dredges up images of screaming matches, sulky, angry children, and family tensions that man would avoid in an effort to keep the peace.

However, it is important to monitor your child’s cell phone use and be able to keep track of who they are calling and when. If your child is making their cellular phone calls away from you, then they really could be talking to anybody and you wouldn’t even know it.

Not only that, but there is new evidence that suggests cell phone use may be habit forming, and your teens may have the desire to “junk out” on their cellular phones at the expense of normal face-to-face contact.

So what’s a parent to do?

Cell Phones: A Gateway to Your Teen’s Life

On one hand, a cellular phone is an extremely important safety feature that many parents (especially those living in large cities) feel their children need. Being able to call home or emergency help in the even something goes wrong is an important facet of cell phone use. Also, being able to get in touch with a child at any time is an important selling feature for many parents, and a main reason why so many teens are walking around with cell phones these days (there are about 20 million of them in the United States alone).

On the other hand, a very wise man once said that as soon as you hand your child a cell phone you are taken “out of the loop” as a parent. He couldn’t be more right.

Children with cell phones effectively remove parents from that side of their lives. Their cell phone address books become secret property, as does their phone book, meaning that potentially if a teen is getting into trouble there is little a parent can do to even find out about the problem.

For an extreme example, teens may think twice about contacting drug dealers and other malcontents that prey on them on the family phone, but they may not think twice about that kind of behaviour on their own cell phone. In either case, a parent whose teens have gotten into that kind of trouble has a much better chance about finding out about and stopping it before it gets really bad if the child isn’t hiding everything from them via their cell phone.

Managing Cell Phone Time

One of the easiest ways to manage your teens and cell phone time is simply to provide them with a predetermined amount of cellular phone airtime on their phone per month. Buying phone cards for their cell phone is one way to do this, or several cellular phone companies have “Teen Plans” that allot a certain amount of airtime for personal calls and the ability to call specific numbers (such as the numbers of family contacts) for no charge.

Of course, if your child has a means to purchase their own prepaid cell phones or phone cards, then all of your planning could be for nothing. Additionally, if a child uses up all of their cellular phones minutes for the month in the fist week, a parent must make the decision to either let the teen go without (and perhaps teach them a valuable lesson on managing their cell phone minutes) or buy more cell phone airtime.

Some parents have found a modicum of success by making their teens ask for the cell phone when they go out, or demanding that they take it if they are going to be out past curfew such as when they go to parties and other events. In this way, the times when your teens may need a cell phone the most they have it, and the times you want to phone and check up on them you know you will be able to find them.

Parenting by Proxy

One of the dangers of teens owning cellular phones is that parents see them as a kind of leash for their kids. Studies have shown that teens that have cellular phones are generally able to go lout later, travel farther away from home, and be away for longer periods of time than teen that do not have cell phones.

This is because parents often feel like they have less to worry about if their child has a cell phone. When your child is only a phone call away at all times, it lends a false sense of security that can lead to lapses in parenting and “parenting by proxy”.

A situation where most of the parent’s contact with their child is by phone should be avoided at all costs, because teens find it easier to lie about their whereabouts and what they are doing on the phone than they do in person.

If you feel your teens need cellular phones for whatever reason, then be smart about it! Don’t simply give them a phone and let them go into the world. It is important to set rules and boundaries, and it is important for both you and your child top respect those boundaries.

Also see; teen cell phones.

Author Notes:

Bill Schnarr contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.cell-phones-n-plans.com. A cellular phone industry resource that features service plan comparisons, cell phone reviews and articles.