Children's Cell Phone
Childrens Cell Phone
Which way for your Childrens Cell Phone? Contract or Prepaid which is better?
We have all heard Horror stories about Childrens Cell Phones.
A friend of mine's son met a girl in Canada online and started calling and talking to her all the time. He had had his phone for several months but up until then had mainly been talking to friends that were on Verizon. Before mom even found out he had run up a $1200 phone bill in less than a month. By the time she got it stopped he had run up another $1000. She was able to get Verizon to knock some of the bill down but she still paid over $1200 for her son's international calling.
Contract--Post Pay--Phones in the hands of a child can be very hard on your bank account.
The Motorola C139 from Tracfone
I strongly recommend a prepaid phone for your first Childrens Cell Phone experience. Your child can only spend the money that has already been placed on the phone. When they run over their minutes they lose access to their phone. You will never get a $400 or $1200 bill because your child sent 2000 text messages or talked for an hour to someone in Mexico.
There are a lot of prepaid options. First of all how much are you and your child willing to spend monthly on his cell phone. The purchase of the phone is just the tip of the iceburg.
Types of Prepaid cell phones.
Major Contract Cell Phone Companies like Verizon, Alltel, AT&T, T-Mobile all have prepaid plans. These plans tend to run $30 a month or more. Often you can get the option of free calling to other phone in the same network. This can be handy if your child has a lot of friends who are on the same network.
Pay by the minute phones. These are the more common Prepaid phone plans. Tracfone, NET10, 7-Eleven, Virgin Mobile and others have a simple plan where you buy minutes for your phone and the minutes come with activity time. The minutes usually roll over if unused if you put more minutes on your phone before your activity time is up.
Cricket Unlimited
If you are lucky enough to live in an area where Cricket is available they are the best Children's Cell Phone. They offer unlimited minutes and unlimited texting for $30 a month. They are only available in 40 metro areas in the United States. I would recommend them as your child's best cell phone option because your child will be able to talk and text all they want and it is one low price. No other cell phone carrier Prepaid or Contract comes close to Cricket Unlimited pricing.
NET10 Prepaid
Net10 prepaid phones are a very simple prepaid plan. You buy the phone and a phone card. This card will give you 300 minutes for $30 and 60 days of access. If you run out of access time or minutes your cell phone service will end. You need to add a phone card every 60 days. The screen on the phone always shows how many minutes are left and when your phone service expires. Of the Pay by the minute phones this is one of the best plans.
Text Messaging and your child
Texting is really popular with kids. It is not uncommon for kids with unlimited texting to send and receive over 100 texts a day. 2000 texts in a month is not uncommon. If you are paying per text lookout. Most contract and Prepaid phone plans charge between 5 cents and 25 cents per text. This can add up quickly. You will not have an overage with a Prepaid phone. The phone will quit working when your Childrens Cell Phones runs out of money/units.
Fixed Dial for your child's phone
Many phones have what is called "Fixed Dial." This allows you to limit the calls the phone can make to the numbers in the phone's phone book. First you will want to reset the password in your child's phone. Then you can set the phone to "Fixed Dial." If you only have your number in the phonebook then your child will only be able to call you.
This could allow you to take use of the phone away and yet you will still be able to get in contact of them and for an emergency they can get a hold of you.
Motorola W370 and the LG Cg225 Prepaid cell phones from Net10 and Tracfone.
Unlimited Prepaid Texting Options
If you are on a contract plan you can often get unlimited texting for $5 to $15 a month to others in the same network, if you are on Verizon to anyone else who is on Verizon you can text for a flat rate. The perfect phone for a Childrens Cell Phone would have unlimited texting. They can easily rack up a couple of hundred a day. Amazing they cannot get their homework done but their cell phone will have 100+ texts.
Cricket Phones - Unlimited Texting, Minutes and no contracts! Cricket has unlimited Texting to anyone in the area on all new cell phone plans.
Alltel also has an unlimited Texting option with their prepaid cell phone plan.
Both the use of a cell phone and unlimited texting can be used as a great incentive to your young teenager to keep grades up.
What phone should I get for my Child?
I would recommend not getting the basic phone. In my experience the Flip phones will take a little more beating because the keyboard is hidden most of the time. Your Childrens Cell Phone with a camera will be a lot of fun for taking pictures even if they cannot afford to send them.
Be aware that kids are likely to break their phones so I would not recommend spending a lot on a phone either.
Water will kill your Children cell phone
The most common accident to kill a cell phone is dropping in water, Puddle, toilet, sink. This is not covered on any cell phone insurance plan.
Childrens Cell Phone link to Tracfone Tips Home page