#MomWisdom Monday Week 4
We’re happy to have you with us again this week! We are going to be doing things a bit differently this week. I am hosting this week’s post, so Julie S. and Julie T. have asked their readers to pop over here and leave a comment! Next week, one of our other hosts will be hosting the weekly post, and comments will be on their posts. That way we can keep the conversations together and help each other out!
When is Your Child Ready for His/Her Own Cellphone?
If you have not already had it happen, be prepared for it to happen. Your child is going to come home from school and begin begging for his/her own cellphone. All his/her friends have one, so why can’t he/she?
We live in a technological world, and, while that may be an advancement in some aspects, it is a scary world for parents to allow their child to venture into alone.
Let’s discuss in the comments below – just click here! Tell us about your experience.
What is #MomWisdom Monday?
Let’s be real. We’re raising the next generation. The generation that will one day run this country. Will one day vote for our leaders, may even be our leaders. We’re raising the next teen idol, Hollywood heart-throb, the next Miss America, Babe Ruth, or Steve Jobs. It’s a tough job, and those little ones don’t come with an instruction manual. Trust me, I’ve checked every nook, cranny and orifice of my kids trying to find it. It doesn’t exist.
#MomWisdom Monday is all about sharing what you’ve learned with your own kids (either from the experts or by trial and error) and lifting each other up when we need it most. Parenting takes a village – an army sometimes. It isn’t a matter of parent vs. parent. We’re all in this together, so let’s share the love and raise a future generation that we all can be proud of.
Meet Your Hosts
Julie S. from Velvet-Rose.net
Julie is a 30-something wife, first-time mom, engineer (woo hoo – another Girl Geek!), reader, blogger, and fangirl blogging about her journey through life, career, pregnancy, and parenthood. You can connect with Julie on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, Pinterest, and Bloglovin’.
Julie T. from Joyful Gifts by Julie
Julie is the mother of a 17-year-old son who is forever keeping her on her toes, making every day a new journey, even more so now than when he was small. Julie T. brings to the table experience with the sadder aspect of motherhood, miscarriages, the loss of a child after birth, and issues with pregnancies. A compassionate and caring individual, Julie T. will be a huge help in addressing any questions you might have in this department – as well as raising the dreaded teenage boy! You can connect with Julie T. on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest.
Kim M. from Life in a House of Testosterone
Kim is the mom to three beautiful children, a grown daughter (getting married October 2015), and two sons still at home, a 16-year-old son and a soon to be 13-year-old son. She lives in Richmond with her husband of 20+ years with their Jack Russell/Chihuahua mix, Mollyanna. She loves a good bottle of wine or some finely aged whiskey, and is an avid fan of comedies and #TGIT television shows. You can connect with Kim on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google.
If you would like to be a weekly host on #MomWisdom Mondays and share this link-up on your blog, contact Kim at LifeInAHouse@outlook.com.
Have a #MomWisdom post that you’ve written and would like to share with our moms? Link it up below!
Parenting is Tough. We’ve Got Your Back.
[inlinkz_linkup id=563667 mode=1]
Visits: 256
Obviously times are different, but I didn't get a cell phone until I was driving, and it was because I didn't want to get stranded (I got stranded once when my car broke down, and then my parents got me a cell phone). Obviously my baby isn't old enough yet but I wonder what will the "standard" be when he's a teen. I definitely plan on him having a phone when he drives, but it might be necessary for him to have one younger to be able to call us for help if he's out with friends somewhere and something happens. I just don't want to deal with the endless texting and overages heh.
That was one of the underlying reasons as to why I wanted the boys to have a phone. I didn't necessarily want them to have a smart phone – one that would make and receive calls only was just fine with me. They are very "social" boys and were constantly out and about on the property or in the neighboring neighborhoods visiting their friends or hanging out and skating … and when it would get dark and they still were not in the house – I worried. Being able to communicate with them and tell them when to be home or ask them to pick something up at the store when they were walking home has made life much easier. That's the upside of it. You can actually get Virgin Mobile service through Best Buy for just $35 a month – unlimited talk and text and I think it's like 2GB of data. I tell the boys – once you use it up, that's on you to wait another month. If they keep their phone on WiFi then they can do what they want with social media and watching videos and such without using their data. I have to admit – prices for service have gone down quite a bit since April was their age.
My daughter wanted a cellphone when she was in high school, but at the time, I couldn't afford to buy her one – let alone afford the service for it. So she was 17 or 18 years old before she had her first cellphone. The boys; however, have been a different story. They each received their first cellphone in November 2014, when I had the chance to work with Virgin Mobile on a promotional campaign. Tre was 11 and Jonathan was 14 (almost 15). In hindsight, I wish that I had been stricter on the rules of using the phones and what was / was not permissible. I also should have insisted on knowing what their lock codes were at all times. While I monitor their accounts on social media – text messages and in-app messages (such as KIK which is big with their crowd) – aren't as easily accessible.
There is a great program that you can add to your child's phone – http://www.smstracker.com – that allows you to track their location as well as monitor their phone calls, text messages, websites that they visit, and more. You download the actual app from their website when you are on your child's phone, and then once your account is active, you can simply add another phone number to your account, and then delete the System Health app – which is the SMS Tracker app only with a different name – something your kids won't think twice about if they see it in their apps listing. If they think it's part of the phone system they won't delete it, and you'll be able to see everything that they are doing on their cellphones.
In this day and age of predators, sexting, and SnapChat – we need to be vigilant as to what our kids are doing on their cellphones. I was not as vigilant as I should have been, and my eldest son was arrested last Thursday for felony assault via text message for threatening another child. Needless to say – the courts take these things very seriously, and as parents, you need to be aware of the ramifications your child could be faced with if they say or do something stupid on their cellphone before they think. As parents, I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the laws in your state so you are not facing the same situation that we are facing. A teenager who is about to celebrate his 16th birthday in November – on house arrest – and the possibility that he will be spending Christmas in juvenile jail instead of with his family.
Wow Kim that's a horrible situation. Though it isn't limited to cell phones, but "in my day" people just verbally threatened each other in high school, whether serious or not, but now we all hide behind screens and say things we wouldn't necessarily say in person. That tracker is a really good app option.
It is Julie … and I wish desperately that I could just *handle* all of it for him … unfortunately, he's at an age now where I can't do that any longer. He's becoming a young man and he needs to understand – one way or the other – that each and every one of his actions has consequences. If you make the wrong choices, then you have to deal with the consequences of those choices. I think that the entire situation could have been handled differently – meaning the other boy's parents could have easily contacted Jonathan's father and I about any concerns that they had – because that is what we would have done. Unfortunately, people would rather just clog the court systems up nowadays instead of handling matters like adults on their own. Jonathan's not a bad kid … stupid sometimes, but what teenager isn't? This is a kid who gets tears in his eyes every time he sees a homeless person and will give them the last bit of change, food, whatever he has just to see a smile on their face. This is the kid who started the #JonathansHeartProject last year and has been putting together care packages for the homeless population of Richmond as he is able to and distributing them. Jonathan wouldn't hurt anyone in the manner he stated … it was said purely out of anger … however, every action has a consequence, and I have to let him see that and learn to deal with those consequences and hopefully he will be able to learn from this experience and become a better person for it.