Mobile Phone For Your Child

Up until very recently, very few children had their own mobile phones. This was partly due to widespread reluctance amongst parents to let their children have them, and partly due to the prohibitive cost of both the handsets themselves and the phone calls made on them.

Affordable phones with pay as you go contracts, and the introduction of specialised phones for children with parental controls built in have changed all this, however, to the point where nearly half of all children under the age of 15 in the UK have their own cell phone, and this figure is growing all the time.

A cell phone can provide parents with a method of getting in touch with their children in an emergency, or to let them know if they are going to be late. Some phones even come with a GPS device, which allows parents to track the movements of their children via a laptop or a PDA, which could be a lifesaver if they go missing.

A lot of parents also see a mobile phone as being a good way to teach children the value of money and how to handle responsibility. Pay as you go phones force children to evaluate their cell phone use in terms of the money that it costs. If they cant afford to go to the movies because they spent all of their pocket money on an hour long phone call, they will soon learn to restrict their phone use to more sensible levels.

However, many parents still have concerns about getting children their own cell phones. As with the internet, a mobile phone can give a child a freedom to communicate with others that you may not be comfortable with, or expose them to influences that you would prefer to shield them from.

Another common concern is that children will run up giant phone bills by talking to their friends all the time, without realizing how much it is costing.