When you think of buying a cell phone for your kid, ask yourself a question what it will be used for. If the main purpose is communication, then it is probably the high time to buy one for your child, nevertheless, there are some restrictions to be made at any age.
When children reach 10 years they text, talk and play 30% of the day, which is almost 50% more than adults. In addition, they have unlimited access to the internet, which makes it even harder to bring them back to reality. To save your kid from a cell phone mania you should stick to especially designed cell phones for kids, which are the best solution for parental control. Below is a list of top 3 things you should keep in mind while buying cell phones for kids.
- The most important device you are looking for is GPS tracker. It will save the day for parents who work a lot and have limited time to control their children. GPS tracker will show the exact location and further movement of the telephone so you don’t have to call your kid’s friend parents to see if he/she is actually there for a sleep over.
- The second significant feature for a kid’s cell is a possibility to access and deny several internet pages. There is no need to explain why some of the pages should be prohibited as you are reading this article online – you know that there are some pages aimed only for parents. While cell phones don’t offer internet control function, you can install parental control apps at pumpic.com, it will allow you to monitor kid’s GPS location, calls, text messages, surrounding noise (in case your child is not picking up the phone), contact list, videos and images. It is rather frustrating to trust online chats today, as 20 % of users are said to be child molesters. I recommend using all functions (In God we trust, the rest we check).
- The last one is to consider pay as you go plan. This plan is different from most US plans because it is not a contract. You pay a fix rate and then add more when your child spends it all. This way you control your child’s appetite and save your budget.
Where can you buy a cell that has it all? Right now there are numerous companies that produce cell phones for kids. The most popular ones are: LG Migo, Buddy Bear Phone and Firefly Glow Phone. These ones are perfectly designed inside and outside. Having all top 3 things for kid’s cell, they are nicely decorated outside as toys. One cell phone that stands out is Filip, a telephone shaped as a watch so it can be used by the youngest ones. For older kids you can choose Nokia Lumia 710 and Sanyo Juno they are pretty affordable and they look just as good.
My opinion don’t give phone to kids…
For me, it depends on age and need. We insisted that the boys wait until they were 13 years old. Given that they were mostly at home until then, this made sense for us. Now I want them to keep their phones on them so we can reach them if there is ever an emergency. There are often situations with younger kids who are out of immediate reach of parents; having a phone and way to connect is a good thing. 🙂
Same here,wait until they’re old enough. Don’t really like the idea of tracking my kids with a gps. They need their privacy. Just my 2 cents…
Very interesting. I like what cell phones offer and for kids it is also very important. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Well, I will wait until they’re old enough to use cellphone. I don’t want to overact but there are plenty of scams and dangers out there that your kids don’t know.
I will allow my child to use phone. Firstly to control and know where they are. Although I know it’s not good to allow children use phone too early, it will bring some benefit, after all, if you don’t allow them to have phone, they may get it in other ways. My friend is a really nice girl, always obeys her parents, but she hid her parents and buy herself a phone.
I think only trackinng them by GPS when they are under 13 years old.
It’s up to children’s awareness, but let them have their own phone is better, or you can give it to children as a gift for their efforts at school.
In my point of view tracking kids with gps is an good idea they to have their privacy. Thanks for sharing.