safety!

[babysunshine]

what do you think about parent taking away teens cell phone? dont they need it in case of an emergency?

[IceKittyNM]

what do you think about parent taking away teens cell phone? dont they need it in case of an emergency?

I had to take away my son's cell phone a couple of years ago because he abused the privilege (and the phone!). In my opinion, teens are so social in nature that they are almost always around someone, so if they have an emergency, they can borrow someone's phone. My son has done just fine without a phone since then....not that he likes not having one, but oh well. Kids lives seem to revolve around their phones.....we didn't have cell phones when I was growing up and we did just fine!

[babysunshine]

oh yes we did do just fine! and yeah they do abuse it!  to your reply

[Lusie]

what do you think about parent taking away teens cell phone? dont they need it in case of an emergency?

I had to take away my son's cell phone a couple of years ago because he abused the privilege (and the phone!). In my opinion, teens are so social in nature that they are almost always around someone, so if they have an emergency, they can borrow someone's phone. My son has done just fine without a phone since then....not that he likes not having one, but oh well. Kids lives seem to revolve around their phones.....we didn't have cell phones when I was growing up and we did just fine!

Prepaid phones are awesome for teens you set them up with a$10 text message plan a month thru Verizons or a 15 dollar plan to make sure they have enough mins and after their time runs out you put another card on it. I would wait till their time ran out just so they dont try and use it to make calls.

[babysunshine]

oh i see thats a good thing to do also 

[syntheticbeauty]

I don't own a cell phone never have...I am a technophobe sometimes. Thankfully if anything happens I have friends or family around me with phones.

[karenkpc]

it's not a necessity...it's a privilege. 
the world didn't insist kids have cells until the last ten years.
as someone else said, we all got along fine without them.
as with every other privilege, it should be removed when abused.  it's one way of learning choice/consequence, which is critical to thinking through things and subsequent making of decisions.