Kids & Cell Phones Part 5. By Robert Lett.
 

   Things to keep in mind when buying a cell phone for a child: With most all of the newer phones, you can send and receive SMS (Small Message Service), which means the phone is also capable of sending and receiving email from the web. Some of the phones allow Internet access just like your home computer. Some phones will display graphics; this means "all" types of graphics. Some phones will take low-resolution pictures. These pictures can be sent to anyone that can receive a picture via SMS or the Internet. What if a picture was taken in the Physical Education dressing room at school and sent across campus and off through the Internet. Do you get picture?

   There have been many complaints in school about this type of Hi-Tech bullying. You have to make your children understand the do's and don'ts of the new technology. Make sure your child isn't being bullied and make sure your child is being the bully. All this new technology needs to be monitored when children are at play. Just like your home computer, you must be careful where your children are going. One simple way of tracking who your children are calling, even on the prepaid phone models is to check the call history. Some phones allow you to set the call history at to save up to the last 999 phone calls made. Other phones may only go up to 100 or even less. You can check that history and see who they called, when, and for how long. You can see if it might have been late at night when they should be sleeping or if the call was made in the middle of a class at school, which could denote skipping classes, hey, you never know. But there are many ways to find out what your child is up to just by looking at the phone history. It tells you much more than just a bunch of numbers!

   Just remember, most of these camera phones can send and receive pictures, inappropriate material can also be sent and received. Just be aware of this.

   Most phones will access the web just like your home computer. This means graphics of all kinds can be viewed.

   If the phone will send & receive text messages, SMS, it will have the ability to send & receive Email.

   Many plans have free night and weekend minutes, but make sure your child understands the company definition of  "night and weekend," Most start around 9 p.m. and end around 6 a.m. the next morning. And your weekend minutes begin around 9 p.m. on Friday and end around 6 a.m. on Monday. Incoming and outgoing text messages, incoming and outgoing calls, Web access, and special features such as downloading games, screen savers, and ring tones all costs money or costs part your cell minutes. Just make sure your child understands that before it becomes a co$tly argument. Most of the horror stories I've heard about where a child ran up $1000 or more in cell phone bills within one month is usually a case where the child thought they were on free minutes of some kind, but were not.

   Cell companies have confusing plans for a reason, to get you to spend more and make it difficult to keep up with peak minutes used. Most services have free mobile-to-mobile calls. If you are on Verizon and you call someone else on Verizon, it costs you nothing off your peak cell minutes. This is free for peak and non-peak calls. (Check with your own carry to see if they offer this feature). Soon we'll be able to keep our cell numbers as we bounce from carrier to carrier. Let's say your on Verizon, your friend used to be on Verizon, she switched to Sprint and she was able to take her old cell phone number with her. You still call the same number and think she is on Verizon, so it's a free call, right? No, since she moved to Sprint. It becomes a costly mistake at the end of the month when you get your bill. What I'm trying to say is this; we adults get caught in the cell company’s confusion trap too. It might not completely be your child’s fault for bringing home a cell bill with high scores on it, instead of their report card.  

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