Yesterday there was an article in the Arizona Republic about AT&T’s new cellular phone service that allows parents to control to whom teens can make a call, as well as when. It can also place a limits on the number of text messages a teen can send.
All this for $4.99 a month.
Sounds like a bargain.
Or it sounds like yet another way for adults to literally force their children to comply with their wishes, rather than teaching their children a bit of individual responsibility and how to respect limits.
I don’t understand that mentality. It seems so much more mature to simply teach children that there are limits and that if those limits are violated, there are definite consequences--like removing of privileges or taking away the cell phone.
By circumventing the child’s chance to show responsibility, the parents are--in effect--making the child even more irresponsible.
It just seems that in our current society, as adults get in tune with the technology that has enraptured our youth, there are lots of cases when an adult might rely on a teen’s own responsibility and technological savvy; there are times when an adult might expect a teen to actually show some responsibility.
For instance, I have all of the girls from my cross country team programmed into my cell phone, and if I need to remind them of something, I can send a mass text: ”Practice has been changed to 6PM instead of 5:15AM for tomorrow,” for example.
I realize that there are situations in which a parent might want total control over a child’s cell phone use. For example, a parent might want to keep close tabs on a child who has already shown a penchant for drug abuse; but barring something like that, I don’t understand the mentality of forcing compliance rather than teaching responsibility.
Chris Marsh--mother, teacher, runner, coach....
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Chris,Spoken like a true teacher. I'm a bit more pessimistic as, although I don't have kids of my own, I have seen plenty of teenagers in action and many can't be trusted. However, many are good kids and will comply with their parents' wishes. Let's give them a shot to do as they are told: one chance only! As soon as they abuse the privilege, call AT&T and sign up for the $4.99 program or better still, take away the cell phone completely.
One other problem these days is the parents themselves. In many cases the kids are more mature than they are.
My home-version of Young Einstein lost his cellphone to my dresser drawer after he got lazy with his homework. He gets it back at the end of the grade period, if...
So the new business model is to create a problem then charge a premium for allowing the actual consumer to control that problem..I get it.. sort of like charging extra for an unlisted number eh??
I totally agree with the premise that responsibility should not be an elective in today's lesson plan- but if ''da- chowe'' is already a teenager and has no concept of what is expected and no internal parameters have been established, it could be a little late in the game - and you are going to have to police everything they are into, which is a much harder method of raising kids.. I for one am sick of seeing every crumbcruncher in public running up airtime.. somewhere along the line, society has made some pretty irresponsible decisions and I believe that establishing the right to own a cell phone at 10 years of age might be one of them..
Someday I'll get my kids cell phones and I'll give them rules. Violation of some of the rules will result in the immediate termination of their privleges.
Why is that so complicated?