Phones for Kids Vent

[ellipses84]

I'm normally opposed to phones for kids, but I think blended families are the exception. We got SS a phone years ago so BM would have no excuse to not have SS call (calls are now court ordered). We started out with kid phones and hand me down phones but SS has shown he can be responsible so we are planning on getting him a new phone.

Here's my phone company vent! Almost all of our available upgrades are for smart phones. I can even get him a free older version iPhone, which he would love. However, we would have to also add a data plan. We already pay for parental controls and the only way you can control the Internet is to block it completely. At this age, I don't trust him with web access at BM's where she wouldn't monitor it and I'm not going to pay $20 for a service I have to pay $5 to block!

What phones/plans do you have for your kids? At what age would you let them have web access?

[sigir]

what is your sc's age? I would probably get one of those phones from a convenience store that you pre-pay minutes on.

[ellipses84]

He's 12. He's already on our family plan and they do have a couple of non-smart phones. We need the parental controls to block numbers without the actual phone.

[wendilea]

Both of my girls have dumb phones. They have no internet access, all they can do is call and text, and I've blocked some numbers from calling/being able to be called. IMO, at this age, they do not need smart phones.

[CurlyQ284]

BM gave SD her old phone but maybe blocked the internet on it? She is 10. She stays home alone sometimes (which we don't agree with but we are 9 hours away)

[lobstertail]

We got my 13 y.o. SS a dumb phone from MetroPCS. For a $25 monthly plan the phone gets unlimited calls and texts. Plus, no picture texts can be sent and there's no Internet. We don't want to get into arguments about overages, hence the unlimited plan.