At what age do you buy your kids a mobile?

affordmylife

another way to look at it is without your interfering ex you wouldnt even be having this conversation cos there would be no son.

loobylou2

After much nagging I caved in and bought my only just 10 year old son one from E2 save for Christmas. It only cost 3 and came with 10.00 credit and is a Motorola model, he wanted something much more expensive but I gave it to him with the proviso that when he"s used all the credit up he"ll be the one paying for more out of his pocket money. I suspect he'll probably only use it for phoning me whilst I'm at work anyway and its actually giving me peace of mind to know that if he ever needed to talk to me whilst I wasn't around at home he's got the means to do so!!! Hope this helps

dieseldog

I remember when my daughter had her first mobile,she thought it was uncool because some of her friends were on contract and the one we got her was pay as you go.One of her friends on contract her first monthly bill was £170 I think her father took over the phone and got her a pay as you go,this was about six years ago she was 13/14 years then.still amuses me now.

diamonds

the thing with payg & all the no-no'ers on this board have not considered is its a valuable tracing tool for the police if a child goes missing/abduction
( god forbid )

the network can tail you with 10 metres wherever you have a signal & police have access to this information - live via the networks, always worth putting a mobile on silent/vibrate on your child ask them to randomly check for texts from you- you dont actually have to top up the phone except every 6 months

child safety over thier age ! ask yourself - is NO really worth the reassurance ? there are networks round the world that allow free payg calls to 1 contract number on the same net, the nearest we have is £4 a month FAMILY on Voda

in this day & age shameful REALLY the nets dont allow calls FREE to 1 same net number - even at 1 min per call

HugoSP

I first bought my dds mobiles when my youngest was around 10, the other was 12

They were Sendo 300s and they cost £20 each on a Virgin contract. TBH they were just cheap toys.

Since then each child has bought one more each themselves. One mislaid her first one but the other sold (via me) her sendo 300 on e bay and got £15 for it after we pursuaded Virgin to unlock it.

Then last Chistmas they each got the one they wanted (within a budget). These are now fashion accessories

princessmoneysaver

My DD got my old mobile for her 8th birthday in October & apart from one instance she has looked after it really well so I've bought her a new one for Christmas. It's on O2 & gets free texts on PAYG so hardly uses the credit apart from going online or the odd phone call. She's 8 going on 18 most of the time as she is very grown up for her age so I think it depends on the child, a lot of the kids in her year group at school have them & she was forever using mine to text them so that's why I let her have one.

Hapless_2

My 10 yr old has a basic mobile, no mobile internet, no camera. she only has it when she goes to a friends house or when she goes to fencing or riding, so there is always a method of contacting us in an emergency, otherwise she is not allowed to carry it or use it.

Theboys!

My son will be getting a mobile in September as he will be starting secondary school and will be getting a bus across town.He has tried to get one out of me sooner but i am not prepared to cough up for the credit until he really needs one.
Also he has very weak spelling and i hate to think what words are going to be thrown out of the predictive text when he finally gets one !:D

diamonds

he prob get better spelling than non - predictable text, you prob denied him the help his mobile could have gave him with his spelling so far...bad meanie parent hope he gave you grief for xmas

shazrobo

oh my god, i'm going to sound a terrible mother. i bought my sons a cheap phone at age of six, cos some friends had them and they liked the games on them. cheaper than a games console at the time, very much played with, more than can be said with most toys, and six years later they are now 12 and still have same phone. any credit is usually won via vouchers at school, so hardly ever paid for a top up