opinions wanted......11 yr olds, mobile phones and downloading without permission??

[TheLadyEvenstar]

without permission...what would you do?

delete game?

let them keep it?

tell them not to do it again but let them keep the game?

I would look to block internet access from mobile.

DS has a mobile which he can only use to call/text (although now he can't even do that as he has lost the battery from it after he dropped his phone in the park & it fell out ...am thinking of making him use his birthday money to replace it!)

Also, none of DS's friends has the 'latest' mobile, to be honest most are old models passed down from parents or siblings.

Take the phone away. 11year olds don't need mobiles.

how frigging frigging frustrating I bumped into friend earlier whose dd has done this hence the reason for this thread. I have jut (20 minutes ago) gone into ds1's bedroom and guess what........he has done the same thing....phone has been confiscated and game deleted...I did not put credit on it for him to waste it on blasted games. I didn't even know the phone had internet access on it!!!!! I searched for a basic phone as well, so tomorrow i am off to car phone warehouse to find how to block it.

My ex-husband got a contract mobile phone for our son when he was 5 years old.

The ex-husband lives 200 miles away and spends the majority of his working life travelling so is only really contactable by mobile.

He got a contract mobile for our son so they could contact each other via phone and text, thus maintaining their bond without it being a financial burden on me.

For this I truly thank him. I have a mobile, but I have my own life to deal with on that mobile that I pay for with my own wages. I also have a landline, which again, I pay for with my own wages. As a single parent I need to watch my money.

Our son ONLY uses his mobile to contact me when he is with his Dad or to contact his Dad when he is with me (DS is now 11 years old - you work out how much it could have cost ME for him to phone his Dad 5+ times a week for the past 6 years - and also, our younger DD also uses the phone to chat to her Dad - she is 8)

My DS never takes his phone out - it has a place in the kitchen drawer when not in use. It can only be used to phone his Dad.

To be honest, it has been invaluable. I simply could not have afforded for our children to call their Dad on an almost daily basis to a mobile or a city 200 miles away for years.

So that is the arguement to alnyone saying kids should not have mobiles - in general I agree - but in this instance I really do not know how I would finacially cope had my DS not had a contract mobile for both his and DD's use.

WRT downloading without permission - My DS never DL's on his mobile and always asks permission to DL anything on the net so I dont know. If he DID, I would probaly go with the confiscate method - or just leave it to the ex-husband to deal with when he sees the bill lol

xxx

lol prune, this is a payg luckily!!!

What was the game? If it was age appropriate and you hadn't specifically said no downloads then i don't see a problem.

I think a mobile phone used responsibly by an 11 yo old is a good idea.

I intend getting DS on when he starts senior school. This arguement that we used to do well without on when we went to school is nonsense tbh, we coped pretty well without a lot of things in the past, eg cars, buses, televisions, but most people tend to use them now as the facilitate life and in the casse of mobile phones, stop people worrying un necessarily.

My attitude is though that DS will only get the most basic phone and a fixed amount of credit, simply because if someone tries to take his phone off him he has been told to just let them have it iykwim, I am all to aware of instances of being mugged for your phone same as being mugged for your money or your bike, this is why DS's bike is a rather cheap ebay affair ...as for downloading stuff, if you give a child tha avility and the money to do this they will do it and that is their choice as long as the down load is age appropriate I cant see the problem unless the instructions were specifically that downloading wasn not permitted in which case why buy a phone with that facility?

omg my spelling is appawling lol....blame the keyboard!!!

We live in the country and dd would miss out on a lot of stuff if she didn't have a mobile - because there are only a couple of buses she can get and if she wants to do something that means she misses the bus she has to be sure that I can pick her up. And I'm not prepared to sit at home just in case she rings to say she's going round to a friend's house after school!

Mind you I do think that people who say their children have phones "to keep them safe" are a bit bonkers. Dd's is purely for convenience - mostly mine!

Mummee - can I ask how old your child/ren are please? All three of mine are over 11 now, and the youngest certainly had a mobile before he was 11. He probably didn't need it, but he wanted one, saved up for one, and we felt it would be useful for him to have one - as seeker says, for our convenience at the very least.

A child doesn't have to need everything they have - some things are for fun and because they want to fit in with their peers - it's up to the parents to decide whether or not to allow the child this or that piece of kit - and I think that, for children, a mobile often falls into this catagory.

I think kid's having phones is fine. The world moves on. DS (5) doesn't need one now as he is never without a responsible adult keeping an eye on him. But when he gets a bit older and is out and about more then I don't see the problem.