There may be a compromise in this situation.

Yes, the responsible parent needs to let the child know they have been let down, in as gentle way as possible. The child will eventually "get the picture" that this parent is unreliable in their actions.

But, I have found that a cell phone IS necessary for children as young as 10. It provides independence while giving the busy parent a little more security, knowing what the child is doing with a simple phone call. It can also be a teaching tool for finance and responsibility. My childrens first phone was a prepaid. This allowed the child to have that highly desired item....with responsibilty. The kids earned the minutes cards (through chores and behavior), , and were responsible for being accountable for their earned minutes per month. So, more chores and responsible behavior = more minutes.

So, my initial expensive for this was about 40.00. 20.00 for the phone, and 20.00 initial loading minutes. If the child doesnt perform....no minutes, the phone is not usable for calls. But 911 is always available if the phone is charged. That is a comfort.

If you really want to raise an independent child, don't plug him in to the herd mindset that young.

You teach the child more responsibility by teaching him to be where he is supposed to be when he is supposed to be there. Asking the parents permission to go someplace, or even telling the parent where he is going within a pre-approved range of destinations is no great burden. He'll keep an eye on the time and on where he is, rather than assuming he can go anywhere or doing anything, since Mom's just a phonecall away if he gets in trouble.

The argument that you'll always know where he is holds no water. Kids forget phones, lose phones, leave phones off, or simply don't answer phones if they don't want to talk to someone. I can tell you on the internet that I am in California, but be in New York, or even in Tokyo. Just because he tells you on the phone that he is at the toy store with George doesn't mean he is. He could be anywhere, with anyone, doing anything. Giving a kid a phone just gives parents a false sense of security.

I agree that young children shouldn't necessarily have cell phones. I wasn't allowed to get a cell phone until I got my driver's license (true they were more expensive back then) my brother got one younger because he rides on his bicycle over town more and my mother is a worrier.

Since I don't have children I don't know what I would do, if I would get them one or not before they drive. However as to the lying thing my cousin (who is 9 I believe) has a cell phone that has a GPS. So if my uncle calls him he can know exactly where he is because there phones are linked.

I have a question for the OP though. Since your child has his own cellphone and earns his minutes by doing chores and behaving is he still allowed to use the house phone? What if he uses all his minutes for the month with a week left to go? Can he use the house line to call his friend to go to the movies? Or because he didn't use his minutes wisely is he stuck without being able to contact his friends?

I remember being in elementary school and upset that we only had two phones in the house. One was in my parents bedroom and the other in the kitchen. In essence if I wanted to call someone without someone evesdropping I was SOL. I remember asking for a phone in my room for a long time (although never got one) so I can see why young children would like a phone (besides the fact that it is a new toy)

magicienne:

I remember being in elementary school and upset that we only had two phones in the house.

Ha! You must be younger than I. I was in high school when my parents got their first extension phone. The original phone (permanently plugged into the wall) was between the kitchen and living room. If we wanted privacy, we used our own form of a language - multiple layers of slang or nicknames, combined with the occasional German phrase (once my best friend and I started taking German.)

There was one small advantage. If someone called I didn't want to go out with, and I didn't want to say say "drop dead creep", I'd ask Mom where he could here if I could go wherever it was, and shake my head to tell her to say "no". She was good about playing along. It was rare, but it happened.

The telephone in my parents room was very short so I never used that one because if you needed to get something you were stuck upstairs.

The kitchen phone was the really long telephone cord. The kind the got wrapped around over everything and when you hung up you had to let the phone spin so it wasn't twisted... kids today don't know the fun about spinning the telephone...

I know I am not that old but sometimes I feel old when my 9 year old cousin has a cell phone. Who does he need to call?

My understanding is that Europeans use prepaid wireless almost exclusively. Only Americans, apparently, are dumb enough to pay $40/month for a cell phone for a 9-year old, or even for an adult who rarely uses it. Plus, if the kid misbehaves, and you take away his phone, you aren't paying anything extra with prepaid. With monthly, the parents are being punished (financially) as much as the kid is.

I try to keep an older, corded phone plugged in at least one room, so we can call out without looking for the cell phones when the power goes out. Somewill will notice it's not cordless, and run out and buy (yet another) cordless one to replace it. Now I can't find the corded one.

Frequently there were parties that I just didn't want to go to, so I'd hold the phone out on it's cord and ask loudly if I could, while shaking my head at Mom. She would say "no" in a very clear tone....getting me..pun alert...off the hook.

I got an old fashioned plug in desk phone for my office in nifty stainless steel. Not only can we call 911 in a power outage, it looks keen with all the retro furniture in there.

IncogNeato:

I try to keep an older, corded phone plugged in at least one room, so we can call out without looking for the cell phones when the power goes out. Somewill will notice it's not cordless, and run out and buy (yet another) cordless one to replace it. Now I can't find the corded one.

We have to keep a corded phone around for the numerous times my wife leaves the cordless ones off the charger too long (or talks too much). Nothing sucks worse than to grab one cordless and find it is dead then go grab another and it is dead too. I honestly don't think it would be any better if we had five cordless phones.

There are also all those fun instances where the cordless ones are nowhere to be found. I'll usually find both of them right next to each other in a place I wouldn't ever think to look. It is even worse when they are both dead and can't be paged.