I’m sorry. What? If you, "had to choose?" Why would you as the parent HAVE to choose?
There are a couple things wrong with all of this, if you ask me.
The first being what on earth is a 10 year old doing with a cell phone? I understand medical emergencies, I can even understand sports practices and games as a means to call for a ride if the school is locked up and you can’t access the office phone. But even in those circumstances, there is no good reason for a 10 year old to have a cell phone at their disposal whenever they want it. If that phone is for emergency purposes, then it would prove to reason once they’re home and back under you watchful eye, you should have the cell phone back in your possession, in your room charging, in the kitchen, etc. It doesn’t need to be in their pocket, and going into their bedroom with them at night. They’re 10!
Secondly, I don’t care what age your child is, if you’re paying for that cell phone, it’s yours and not theirs. That means you have the RIGHT to pick up that cell phone any time you want and look at the call history, the text messages, and anything else. You have a right, and a responsibility, to know who they’re talking to. Your child should know that at any given time you may ask to see their phone and they will hand it over, without having a moment to clear the history, because they’re not paying for it. And if you tell me “Well, it’s coming out of their allowance so technically they are,” my response will be “And whose name is it under since they’re not 18 yet?” You are doing them a favor by having it in your name, probably with a contract. It’s your phone.
Third, nobody NEEDS a cell phone. Do not justify to me “they’re driving now so they need their cell so I can’t take it away from them.” If they break the rules under which you are ALLOWING them to have that phone, not only should that phone go away but so should the car keys if you don’t feel comfortable with them driving without a cell. Make those two privileges go hand in hand. If you lose one, you lose the other. How did they get to school before their car? School bus. I’m pretty sure there’s a school bus after school that will take them to the vicinity of work. And don’t tell me you don’t want them “walking in that neighborhood” because they were driving in it just fine. Or, if your schedule so allows, you can pick them up and take them to work. A bit of an inconvenience, perhaps, but just because they’re 16 and can drive themselves everywhere does not mean your obligation as a parent is over with.
Now, those things being said in regards to young kids and cell phones, let’s go back to why you have to choose what is the lesser of two evils you’d rather have your child participating in. I don’t know how it was for others growing up, but I know in my house my parents didn’t settle for the lesser of two evils. Had “sexting” been the big thing when I was a kid, they wouldn’t have looked at my phone and saw a sexy message and said “Well, I guess I’d rather have you doing it on your phone than in person.” In fact, instant messaging was the big thing when I was a kid. Chat rooms initially, followed by AOL instant messenger, which eventually gave way to MySpace. I have no doubt, in fact I’ve been reaffirmed, that my father went in and checked the computer history of the internet. He knew EXACTLY what sites I’d been to, if I’d been to chat rooms, and how frequently I was there. If something came up that was not “kosher” you better damn well believe I was called out on it and questioned about it.
AIM has this nifty little feature when installed that it logs all of your instant message conversations. My father was smart enough to move that folder to his user name that was password protected so I couldn’t get in and delete it or edit it, and the function to turn off AIM’s message recording wasn’t an accessible one at the time. I can clearly point out to you times when a conversation I had had with a friend was pulled up on the computer in front of me and my father asked what we meant by things we were saying, and I also clearly remember being grounded and having my computer privileges taken away.
There was no computer in my room that had internet access, and once I got a lap top that sucker didn’t go into my room at night. If I was on the internet and chatting with people it was done in the living room, where anyone could walk by at any time and see that screen. This was done for 2 reasons. 1.) to keep the content of my instant messages honest and 2.) to make sure I wasn’t talking to people I didn’t know. I wasn’t allowed in chat rooms, I wasn’t allowed to make internet friends, and any RPG games that I may have played had to have the chat function disabled because you never know who’s on the other end of that computer. And if you, as a parent, think that it’s gotten “safer” over time you’re very much mistaken. Firewalls and virus software may have gotten better, and new operating software may give you more control of what your child has access to, however pedophiles have gotten sneakier and smarter. And with the popularity of MySpace and Facebook it’s become easy as pie to make an uneducated child believe they are in fact talking to a 14 year old boy from Kansas from their living room, rather than a 30 year old man from just down the street.
And kids are constantly updating their status of “school, practice, and then home until my parents get out of work,” to unknowingly let that 30 year old man from just down the street know that they’re home all by themselves. And you give a kid a cell phone with internet abilities and they can “check in” anywhere they go and it immediately posts on their Facebook where they are and with whom should they opt to include it.
It’s proven the more a child is exposed to something the more desensitized they become. How many times have violent video games in combination with bullying been to blame for a school shooting? They say that the child has become desensitized to the blood they see on TV and therefore taking someone’s life doesn’t seem that hard to do. Physically it’s proven, the more you expose yourself to certain things you become desensitized, you grow a tolerance. The same can be said for sexting. Instead of settling for your kid to be sexting because at least it’s not real sex, consider this. The more they talk about sexual acts, and be flirtatious beyond their years, the more they see naked men or women, the more they talk about the details of the sexual encounter they want to have…the less will stand in their way for them to do it. The easier it will be for them to take that “alternate reality,” if you will, that they’ve been imagining and talking about and implement it into their everyday life. At the risk of sounding crude but in a desperate attempt to get your attention… the more your daughter talks about letting a guy feel her up, the less difficult it becomes to let them do it. The more she talks about letting a guy pleasure her, the easier it is to let him do it when the opportunity presents itself. The more your talks about letting a girl blow him, the easier it is to let her do it. The more he talks about her riding him the easier it is to let her do it.
And it’s not just easier because they’re desensitized; it’s easier because they’re now curious. The thought is already there for preteens and teens the minute they go through sex-ed, and sometimes before that. They already wonder what all the hype is about. After all, they see it on TV, on the internet, in advertising… it’s there in their faces already. But when they have to start imagining letting a guy or girl do things to them, imagine the pleasure they’ll feel out of it, and try to think about how great it will be because of all the hype that’s made about sexuality in our society… the easier it is for them to let it happen, the more they want it to happen.
And for some reason, with all the information that’s available online about security issues, pedophiles, teens who were kidnapped or raped, and stupid stuff kids get themselves into. With all that’s out there on studies of desensitizing our kids and the risks of an over-sexualized society on young children, parents still feel that they need to accommodate their child to allow them these privileges and settle for the lesser evil. I’m not saying they can’t have a Facebook, I’m not saying your 16 year old who is now driving shouldn’t have a cell phone, I’m not saying they should be allowed to meet new people. What I am saying is this.
Scare them. Scare the living crap out of your children.
Make them scared that you could pull their cell phone records at any time and see who they’ve been texting and what the texts have said.
Make them scared that you’re monitoring their Facebook and at any time you require them to log on to their account and give you access to check their messages, you could see anything they’ve written.
Make them scared that you will ask them who certain friends are, and ask them to draw a link.
Make them scared that the friend they have on Facebook that just doesn’t quite match up, you will in fact contact and make sure this person is who they say they are.
Do not make them scared to live in the world, but make them aware of the dangers and possible consequences to their actions. Make them scared of what you will do if you find out. Don’t just tell them they can’t go into a chat room, but explain to them why you don’t want them doing it. Give them the tools and information to make those good decisions for themselves.
And for the love of God, make sure they know that anything past a roof over their head, food on the table, their education and the love they get from their parents is a privilege and not a right. So their car, their cell phone, the TV, hanging out with friends, their bike, the 4 wheelers, etc. can be taken away at a moment’s notice should it need to be as part of a punishment. I’m not saying your child should believe they’re not deserving of fun or nice items…but until they can buy them on their own, pay for the insurances or monthly bills, and appreciate them, those items are yours.
My parents didn’t hesitate to ground me from life itself if I required it. And honestly, I’m better off for it. My dad didn’t pick “well, I’d rather have you sexting than having real sex.” Hell no. My dad didn’t want me doing either, and I knew it. The punishment for one was not any less severe than for the other, and the knowledge I had of how aware my father was of my actions put a fear in me that made me entirely too nervous of being caught to try and get away with it.
As a teen did I hate that my parents could have access to anything I wrote at any time they wanted to, yes! But did I feel like they didn’t trust me? No. It was only brought to my attention that they’d read something when I’d done something wrong. If I gave my parents a reason to distrust me, then I couldn’t really be upset about feeling like they didn’t in the first place. As an adult, it hasn’t hindered my relationship with my parents in the least.
Wouldn’t you, as a parent, rather be preemptive and be pleasantly surprised to find out your child isn’t doing anything they shouldn’t be, than to allow them to have the world at their fingertips and trust them to use it correctly and have nobody to blame but yourself once you find out they’re not? And more than likely, unless you have someone talking to your child who has a loyalty to you and will tell you when something is not right… you’re not going to know that something is wrong until it’s very wrong. Which side of caution do you want to err on? You’re not your child’s best friend, you’re their parent. There will be plenty of time for a friendship when they’re older.
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