Should your child carry a cell phone? There's a case to be made both pro and con. A cell phone is an expensive device, easy to lose or break, and a child with a cell phone can potentially ring up astronomical charges for airtime, messaging and downloads. Not to mention, some experts are still concerned about the health effects of holding a radiation-emitting device a few inches from your brain for years on end.
That said, an increasing number of parents see the cell phone as a vital tool for staying in touch with children of all ages, especially in emergencies. Today 55 percent of teenagers carry one, and so do 25 percent of their younger brothers and sisters.
If you do decide to send your child out into the cold, cruel world with a cellular lifeline, here's how you can minimize the potential for problems.
Handsets for Little Hands
Several manufacturers have designed cell phones with built-in limitations to keep the youngest users out of trouble. The Firefly (offered by Cingular), for example, is a fun, colorful phone without a traditional numeric keypad. Instead it has two big programmable buttons (one each for Mom and Dad) plus an emergency button for 911 services and a 20-number phonebook programmed in by the parent.
Parents can also control which numbers are allowed to call in to the Firefly phone. Kids can have fun choosing from a variety of preloaded ringtones, screen colors and graphics, but there are no expensive downloads available. And there's no external antenna sticking out to break off or poke somebody.
Verizon offers the Migo, built by LG. Migo is even easier to use than the Firefly, with only four buttons to dial numbers entered by the parent plus a red emergency button. Like the Firefly, there's a speakerphone feature, the option to have the phone vibrate instead of ring when there's an incoming call and a preloaded choice of ringtones, though parents can't screen incoming calls.
Tweens and Teens For older children a parent's chief concern is reining in the cost of cell phone usage. There are three approaches to the problem.
Most cellular carriers let you add several phones (each with its own number) to a single "family plan" for about $10-$20 each-–much less expensive than setting up a separate account for each phone. You get a predetermined number of included minutes with additional charges if you go over that allotment, but with a family plan all the phones share that bucket of minutes.
Typical family plans also include unlimited in-network calling at no additional charge, so you can talk to family members and friends who use the same carrier as much as you want.
The trickiest part, of course, is managing minutes among multiple users; depending on your phone habits and the number of minutes in the calling plan, usage hogs can cause family friction. And there's no built-in limit on charges for additional cellular features like downloadable games, ringtones and entertainment services.
Total Control
For total control over cellular expenses, you have two options. A pay-as-you-go plan requires users to buy minutes in advance (online or by purchasing a calling card). When those prepaid minutes are used up, the phone stops working until you buy some more.
Another alternative is a monthly prepaid plan that works much like a regular cellular plan, with a predetermined number of minutes and whatever free in-network calling the cellular provider offers--but no monthly bill. You pay for the month in advance, and service stops when you've used up the included minutes or time runs out.
The cost-per-minute for these plans varies widely depending on how many you buy at once, and prepaid minutes expire if they're not used within a predetermined time. Cellular phone selection is limited, and there is the inconvenience involved in keeping track of remaining balances and refilling your cellular tank periodically.
On the other hand, there's no chance of nasty surprises when the cellular bill arrives, which will help parents stay on speaking terms (by phone or in person) with their teenagers.