Children And Cell Phones; Do they Mix?
In an age of technology where virtually anything is possible, people feel more and more compelled to protect their children. One of the ways that they do this is by purchasing state of the art cellular phones for them. Their intentions in doing so are good because they have the desire to know where their children are every second of the day, and that is good. The problem with this is that in most cases, the children often have other ideas for their cell phone which you never would have even dreamed of.
One of the hugest problems with cellular phones these days is that a cellular phone is more than that. It may have many other functions including text messaging, picture messaging, a camera, and internet access. In addition, kids tend to have the ability to pick up on new technology much faster than adults, giving them a chance to do bad things without their parents knowing. In addition, you are no longer just listening for an inappropriate phone call because your child can text without you even knowing it.
In an extreme case, it is possible for your child to be taking nude pictures of themselves and picture messaging them to friends, to a love interest, or could be posting them up on the internet. They have know coined this type of activity as “sexting” which simply means “sex texting”. These acts are not anything to be taken lightly, as your son or daughter could be charged with child pornography offense, sentenced to jail time, and have to register as a sex offender in your community, making it diffucult if not impossible for he or she to ever get a job.
If your children are begging you for a cellular phone, then keep in mind all of the traffic accidents related to cellular phones, mainly surrounding text messages and the sending of them while in heavy traffic. They may give you great reasons for why they want a cell phone, and all of these might sound excellent, but you need to consider the ulterior motives your children may have.
If they want one so badly, then it would be best to inform them that they need to go out and find a job so that they can pay for it, because cellular phones are part of an adult world, and if they are so eager to become a part of that world, then they need to fill out applications and maybe have some business cards printed up for themselves; after all there are some sites offering free business cards these days!
If you are insistent on letting your child have a cell phone for security reasons, then you should look into getting an older one from a cell phone reseller, or even a pawn shop. Most companies will still activate older cell phones that do not have the text messaging or internet capabilities. By doing this, you will ensure that you can find your child no matter where they are, and theyll be able to make all the phone calls they need without the added hazard of unsupervised internet and messaging access.
No matter how tempting it might seem, make sure you do the sensible thing and keep your children safe!