Part 1 - Cell phones and difficult child's

[totoro]

You all make me wanna go live in a cave.
I know, I know, I am fully aware of it all!

Doesn't mean I have to like it! Even husband's lame single guy friends will send him *stuff* in the past, he had to finally tell them to knock it off. He would show me laughing, what this ding dong sent him. it is funny, because of who the friend is!
But of course I freak out because of the girls!
"Get that off of your phone!"
The worse thing is what the girls send the guys!

 

[DammitJanet]

I think T mobile actually has a plan you can customize the time, minutes, and what the phones can do. I saw a commercial where the parents were using the plan as a sort of allowance. Something like...good grades = so many minutes. The kids were in the driveway washing the car.

I have T Mobile but dont have this plan because I dont need to monitor phones.

 

[gcvmom]

difficult child 1 has an AT&T GO phone. No camera, no internet. He was caught going to inappropriate sites on MY phone as well as the easy child at home, so no way in Helsinki I will give him the tools to do that again.

And starting this summer, he will be paying for the phone service himself (he just doesn't know it yet).

 

[compassion]

My difficult child is WAY too immature to havea cellphone. When she is semi stable it can be OK but genrally can't handle it/respect limits around it. That was the deal throught his last manic/using subataqnces again. I got her a cool phone for Christmas: she had been pretty stable: not runing/uiosng. The deal was she had to show me daily ehat numbers were on there. She eas and then she started agian and refused and beat me up. I just was looking yheatsday; all the druggies were back in the phone I was also moniroting my space daily and she changed the password. When she comes back, I will not allow a phone. She does not have impusle control/boundaries to handle it. My 18 year old son, he uses it to talk to friends an dme only. For difficult child, it ws a way she could make contadcts for peple to pick her up, to run, to use drugs, etc. I would take cel phone awasy, she would steal mine and run up charges. I di not want her texting, but then got unlimite dtexdting. This worked OK until she got rally unstable again and she refused to let me monitor her phone. Now, at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC), they are not allowed to have cellphones.
Yes, you can get phones withour camera: I have doen that before. She really wantd the cool phone to text and I thought, it is hard for her to communicate verbally but I lost all control of beign able to monitor it.
I liked what you said about her earning it. She has racked up thousands in charges, epseiclaly when she has run away Lst week, I did suspend service and she went into a rage and teffifed, truend it back on. I want to see her is contacting her now. Sadly, she has few contacts that are healthy. When she gets mainic, there will be alot sof peopel I donot recognize.
Compassion

 

[Marguerite]

That's why I really like the Tic Talk. YOU put in the phone numbers you permit, as well as the hours during which the numbers may be called. YOU set the limit on how many minutes can be used on the phone. YOU can call the phone any time, but the child can't unless you give permission. And your permission is remote, you set it online with a password only you know.

It also is very tough, can't be easily broken. And when I saw it displayed, they were even able to use it to track the phone - the parent could go online to see where the phone was and if the phone went "out of bounds" (limits set by parent) then the parent would be notified. "Out of bounds" also had a time limit, so a child could be out of bounds if they go home during the day, but not when they go home after school. Again, that would depend on whether this is available in your country. Australia is much more comfortable with "Big Brother" types of surveillance than the US, I gather.

Tic Talk has no camera, no texting, no email. There is no number pad at all. The numbers are already there (installed by parent, online) and the child scrolls through the list to make a call. For us, all calls made to the phone show up on the bill; who was rung and how long the call lasted. Our home phone bills have been like this too, for years, for all long-distance or mobile calls (local calls are not listed on the bill except as a tally).

When difficult child 3 was transferred to a school on the highway, we let him have a mobile phone because he was very anxious going to school such a long way from home. The school insisted that all mobile phones be left at the school office during school hours, or they would be confiscated. However, difficult child 1's & easy child 2/difficult child 2's high school permitted mobile phones; easy child 2/difficult child 2's first boyfriend asked her out via text message; the relationship was carried on almost entirely by text message and finally she broke up with him via text message. With hindsight, I really wish I'd bought a box of Tic Talk phones!

Marg

 

[Nancy423]

we gave difficult child her uncles phone (he passed away) so she would be able to call us if the bus didn't show up in the morning, or if she was at the park with- a friend she could check in with us. However, once we saw some inappropriate pics on there, it's been locked up ever since. she says it was the neighbor boy who took the phone from her and snapped away.........this kid is younger than her, and sadly, I believe her in this case.

But it wasn't just the pics, it was the bringing it to school, dropping it in the hallway, and not following the rules. so now, if she's going to a friends house, she can use their house phone. If she's going to the park, I'll allow her to bring the cell just in case - but she has to give it back as soon as she walks in the door.

As for texting - I didn't even know she KNEW how!! Then the sitter texted me (my phone was left at home) and my difficult child texted her back....

my feeling is that there are still enough land lines that she's got access to. there's no reason for her to have a phone. Yeah, there are times that it would have come in handy (like after the basketball game and I didn't know they got out earlier) but not enough for me to permanently give the phone back.

 

[MyFriendKita]

We learned the hard way that our son can't be trusted to self monitor (even at age 20), with regard to minutes, downloading, texting, etc. (he was having his horoscope sent to him daily at a cost of $5.99 per month ). So we had everything disabled on his phone (we have Verizon). I told them I didn't want that phone to be able to do anything except make and receive calls (husband's phone and mine still have all capabilities). The only time we have had a problem is when he got a new phone--they didn't transfer all of the restrictions onto the new phone, so I had to call them again (when I discovered he was able to text). The only thing he zings me for now is the occasional charge to 411, but I guess I can live with that.

 

[Marguerite]

An option we had a few years ago (I think it's still available, but we no longer need it ourselves) was an automatic reverse charges call to home from any public phone (or even someone else's home phone who didn't want to pay for the call). It was called Homelink and it worked with a combination of numbers which included our home number plus a password of our choosing. The kids could call home using Homelink, to let us know their wherabouts. For example easy child used to use it a lot to let us know she'd missed the boat home (a fairly common occurrence). We had a friend from the US visit Australia so we gave him the password also, so he could call us from wherever he was in Australia if he needed to.

Mobile phones have made HOmelink almost obsolete, so it's not advertised like it used to be. But I do think it still exists.

It might be worth your while to ask your service provider if such an option exists in your area, it could make contact a bit easier for your child in those situations where they need to call but you can't risk them having a mobile phone. Or they are out of credit, or their battery is flat. Or any number of istuations.

It also can't be abused, because the numbers show up on your bill (where called from, and when, and for how long) and also, how could you abuse it?

Marg

 

[Nancy]

rm, I have verizon also and have everything blocked on her phone but occassioanlly something still slips through like last month when she ordered ringtones from the internet and entered her cell number onto the website and they billed two subscriptions for $9.99 each a month. Evidently I forgot to tell them to block sms text messages. So now all she can do is make and receive calls. I even pay $4.99 a month to be able to go in and block certain numbers from being called from her phone.

Nancy

 

[DaisyFace]

Marg--

I'm not sure if "Homelink" exists in the United States. (At least, I have never heard of it). But here, it is very easy to sign up for a personal toll-free number--and that works pretty much the same way. Anyone can call me from any phone by dialing my toll-free number...and it won't cost them anything because the charges are billed to me.

We have used this feature several times when cell phones have had poor reception or were not allowed (like in a hospital).

 

[susiestar]

I am amazed. ALL my kids with phones ( Jess and Wiz) barely use them. Wiz almost got in trouble because one of Jess's friends was calling him every 10 min. He didn't even like this girl, but she sure liked him. I put a stop to it, telling her that her calls were going to make him lose his phone.

Jess and Wiz NEVER go near their minute limit. They prefer to talk in person, they say. Both have nice phones, but don't text at all and don't do on the internet.

They know they would lose their phones for that, but it amazes me they stay with-in limits.

 

[Sheila]

I'll learn from your experience, if you don't mind?

Exactly the point of my post, e.g., these gals have been holding out on us.

[FONT=&quot]Sexting goes on without cameras too. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Say what? [/FONT][FONT=&quot]25,000 text messages...[/FONT][FONT=&quot]. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Amazing what these kids can do when they put their mind to it...[/FONT]
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And I'm not talking forehead

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[FONT=&quot]I was afraid of that..[/FONT]

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My difficult child is WAY too immature to havea cellphone.

[FONT=&quot]Mine, too. And I said he wasn't getting one -- there was no need. [/FONT][FONT=&quot](Still trying to work one foot out of my mouth.) [/FONT][FONT=&quot]He's taken to school, bussed to after school care, picked up from there, chauffered everywhere else. [/FONT]

self monitor

Not even close to being on my son's radar.

she ordered ringtones

Yep, yep yep, he did too.


Lots more I'd like to comment on but I'm off to try to do Part 2.


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[wakeupcall]

My difficult child is doing really well with his cell (uh-oh, hope I won't be sorry I said that!). When he first got it he was ordering ringtones, I called ATT and had it stopped. Then he was looking at his email, so I called and stopped the internet. If he wants and earns a new ringtone, I call ATT, they release the hold while he orders, then I call and put the hold back on it. He's surprised me with how responsible he is with it. BUT I think for him it's like a lifeline.....his connection to ME (unlimited mobile to mobile) because he'll even call me from the front yard. Periodically I check him online on the ATT site to see all numbers coming in and going out, along with all texts. He takes really good care of it and I think for him it's like a baby blanket.....security. I've had to take it away one time and that's all it took for him to realize it's a privilege, not a right. Lucky me, so far.