At what age do your DCs have mobile phones?

[emlu67]

DD has asked for one for her 9th birthday. I would not even be considering it but she does have a hobby that takes her out of the house three or four times a week and she wants to be able to phone/text me when she is out. She is well supervised so it is not really necessary but she also wants the games apps although does not have a lot of time to play them.

Round here most of her friends have phones and I have heard of children of 6/7 having Iphones. She would not be getting one of those. I was thinking of a basic smartphone so she can take photos etc but have no idea which one and I am worried about safety on the internet and extra data charges. If we put on £10 a month she would need to understand that once it has been used up there is no more credit until the next month. She has offered to pay £5 a month out of her pocket money and is a sensible girl for her age.

Opinions please!

My ds1 got one for starting high school so 11 yrs.

Ds2 will also get ons this summer before going to high school when he will be 11.

My DS is 9 and quite a few children in his class have phones. I think it's more for the games tbh. He doesn't have one and doesn't seem to want one - when he goes to secondary school he'll have one but at the moment not before.

DD is having a phone for her birthday next month. She will be 11y and starts secondary school next year. We would have been getting her one this summer, like many of her friends will be - this way just means we only need to pay one gift!
Only 2 or 3 of her friends have them already.

My eldest was ten so I guess my eight year old will be ten also even though she wants one now.

dd got one for her 9th birthday

I am seperated from her dad so I'm happier that she has a phone so she can contact either of us when she is with the other

I've also allowed her to start calling for her friends to go to the park

she has a samsung galaxy mini on a capped contract with t-mobile for £10 a month, think the phone cost £40 but it was a birthday present

she uses it for minecraft, minecraft & minecraft!

DD got one when she started Y7. My junior and infant age children do not have one.

The Christmas in the year they turn 9 in our family, DD1 is now 16, so it is 7 years ago that we started this and have stuck to it for all three.

Started them all on pay as you go and once proven that they can be trusted, moved onto contract - much more cost effective and means they can never use 'no credit' as an excuse for not telling me they will be late / need me.

DD had a PAYG phone when she was 11 ready for when she started high school.

At 13 she now has a contract phone for £5 per month as that was actually cheaper than what we were paying for her top-ups on PAYG!

For that £5 per month she has a Samsung Galaxy Y with more than enough minutes and texts plus some data.

My 9 yo will probably be getting my phone in a couple of years when he starts secondary school and I get an upgrade.

The Christmas before they start secondary school. PAYG only, probably on Giff Gaff.

Thanks everyone, NorbertDentressangle I would be interested to know which network and tariff you use for £5 a month.

Me too. I'm looking at the £7.50 per month Tesco tariff at the moment. I've swapped to it myself as it has more than enough calls/texts/data for my use and it's £10 a month cheaper than my orange tariff.... once orange had put VAT on top and then put the price up.

Tesco promise not to raise the cost for the length of the contract, you can cap it at only that useage and the VAT is included in the £7.50.

If the £5 tariff can beat that I'd be very interested.

emlu67 - its through talktalk but I think you might have to already have a landline or broadband through them to get a deal like that. They do small/medium/heavy usage packages that range from £5pm

IIRC Tesco were the other ones who were offering a good deal for the type of phone and package that we wanted for DD.

Why not get hold of a cheap no camera phone that she can take with her to activity & otherwise works as a house spare? That's how we got started. I wouldn't be keen on spending £10/month for my 9yo's phone bill.

I think DD was 10 (yr5) when she got her own, huge blitz thru credit for first few months & mostly forgotten since.

Giffgaff is fab for teens, btw, all the texting teens do. I just buy cheap clamshell style phones on Ebay for DC, PAYG. Any phone you choose needs to be very lightweight ime. DC spend far less than £10/month (even my teenager).

I bought my oldest 3 DSs a cheap (£10) pay as you go phone, each when they started grammar school, for occassional use and contacting home. They have a limit of £10 per month, but rarely use this much. The oldest still has his, the 2nd had it replaced 3 times after breaking them and now doesn't have one. The youngest of them is on his 2nd phone.

Personally I wouldn't buy a phone for a younger child. I feel they are often a completely unecessary expense.

My dd1 got hers Christmas of p6 (year 5) just before she turned 11

So did ds - he's in p6 right now.

So for dd2 (who is 10 months younger for her year than the other two) it will have to be Christmas when she's just turned 10, but also in p6.