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Kids, cell phones: What's right call?

November 10, 2009 12:35 am

BY EDIE GROSS

When Theresa Rasmussen's daughter was 13, she made the Ni River Middle School basketball team.

Rasmussen was thrilled--and worried. What if after-school practice was canceled or ended early?

Or what if Rasmussen, who works at Fort Belvoir, was stuck in traffic on her way home to Spotsylvania?

How would the two communicate in an emergency?

Rasmussen had already been through that rigmarole with her son, who'd also been a middle school basketball player.

"He would call, but he'd call from some office in the school, and if he didn't get me, I couldn't call him back," she said.

This time, Rasmussen wasn't taking any chances. She got her daughter a cell phone.

"It's come in very handy," said Rasmussen, whose daughter is now in high school. "I never know what traffic is going to be like on 95. That way, I could call her and let her know, 'Get a ride with a friend to her house, and I'll pick you up there.'"

Seventy-one percent of teens ages 12 to 17 own a cell phone, up from 45 percent five years ago, according to research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

But how does a parent know when a child is ready for the responsibility of phone ownership?

There's no magical age at which it's appropriate, said Lynn O'Rourke Hayes, a Quantico native and family communications expert in Bozeman, Mont.

Rather, she said, circumstances should dictate whether a child needs a cell phone, and it's up to the parents to set the boundaries.

"What I hear is, 'Oh my gosh, my child wants a cell phone.' And they feel like they're giving in," Hayes said. "The shift I like to encourage parents to make is, it's not really for them [the kids]. It's for you to have peace of mind."

'IT'S A PRIVILEGE'

Karen Child Ogden, a licensed family and marriage therapist in California, urges parents to remind their children that the cell phone belongs to the adults in the house--and the kids get to borrow it to keep in touch with their parents.

It's not a toy or a tool for fitting in at school, she said.

"Really, the thing we drive home is it's the parents' decision," she said. "They can say 'no.' It's not a right. It's a privilege."

Lisa Taylor bought her 10-year-old daughter a cell phone to take to camp this summer--but she had reservations about it.

"I questioned myself--At the age of 10?--but then I thought, 'It's peace of mind for me,'" the Stafford woman said.

While on field trips, her daughter would text her to let her know she'd arrived safely, said Taylor, who works in Northern Virginia. She lets her daughter take the phone to the babysitter's house in the morning but not to school. And the 10-year-old is occasionally allowed to text her cousin--but she must pay $1 per text to mom.

At the Mitchell home in Mineral, in Louisa County, the two oldest boys got cell phones when they turned 13, said mom, Kim Mitchell.

"Thirteen seems to be a year when they take a little bit of control of some stuff, where they're responsible enough to be in charge of the phone," she said.

Her oldest, now 14, can ride his bike around town to see his friends and stay in touch with her via cell phone, she said. Both boys know if they fail to keep their grades up, the phones can be taken away, said Mitchell, who has five children.

"It's a way of staying in touch. We won't all sit at the table and text together, but when we're apart, we will text and we'll call," she said. " It's comforting for me that there are ways for them to reach me."

TEACHING RESPONSIBILITY

Both Mitchell and Taylor monitor their kids' cell phone use online through their providers.

Keeping an eye on who kids are texting and calling and how often they're doing it is key, said Ogden. At the very least, she said, parents should limit usage so kids aren't texting late into the night, using their phones during class time or becoming so dependent on the phone that they can't communicate face-to-face.

In a worst-case scenario, unmonitored use can lead to cyber-bullying and even sexting by kids too young to understand the legal consequences of their actions, she said.

"There's no other tool that opens a kid up to so much risk: sexual risk, legal risk. I think some parents underestimate the power of the telephone," Ogden said. "It's too much responsibility, too much freedom for a curious little mind."

That said, it can prove a useful tool if handled responsibly.

For instance, Ogden said, going over the bill with your children and having them chip in some of the cost teaches them financial lessons.

Detailing what kind of phone behavior you expect from them and explaining that you're monitoring their usage establishes trust, she said.

It's not unlike loaning your teen a set of car keys and establishing a curfew, added Hayes.

"Yes, you could drive to California, but I'm telling you that's not one of your options," she said.

Rasmussen said she had no intentions of buying her 13-year-old a cell phone until the teen made the basketball team. At that point, she realized her daughter might occasionally take an activity bus home from school after practice. She'd be dropped off at a central point and still have to walk a mile or so home, and Rasmussen wanted her to have a phone.

"If they're not going to be somewhere on their own, they don't need it," said Rasmussen, whose daughter occasionally had to pay for exceeding her text message limits.

These days, her daughter, now a sophomore at Riverbend High School, tends to contact her friends more on the cell phone than her mother. But mom likes knowing the two are only a phone call apart.

"Peace of mind was absolutely worth it," said Rasmussen. "It really made all the difference."

Edie Gross: 540/374-5428
Email: egross@freelancestar.com