Well, first cell phone flub.

[Shari]

We put restrictions on cgfg's phone, but she's already pushing the limits. She's spent more than one night attempting to text people at 1-2-3 am. I talked to husband and told him he needed to talk to her. This is her one warning. If she does not handle it responsibly, she does not get a phone.

Of course, husband said "well, I don't know what the circumstances were. We need to know that, first."

Uh...no, we don't. She is with my mom. There has been no emergency. She attempted to send text messages to 3 friends, her mother, her sister, and 2 cousins in 40 minutes last night between 1:20am and 2am. What "circumstance" justifies that as being responsible with the cell phone when she's been told the hours it is ok to use it in?

He talked to her. Don't know what he said. We'll see. I really hope she doesn't blow this with her friggin' rules-dont-apply-to-me attitude and lies.

 

[gcvmom]

We had to put tough restrictions on my difficult children' phones, too. It just comes with the territory, sorry to say -- even with TTs'.

 

[seriously]

Are you actually able to stop the phone from working during those hours?

If you are, that's what I'd do and leave it at that. If they can't actually do it, why give them something more to argue about by discussing it?

And I wouldn't punish her for trying to text - provided she actually can't of course. I don't mean be lenient but sometimes it's better (in my humble opinion) to just ignore certain things because there are usually bigger fish to fry.

And, a note of warning, our easy child figured she could get around the time restrictions on her cell by using the house phone to talk to her friends at 2 am. Jeez.

so now I take all the phones extensions in my room at night. No big fuss or argument - she just doesn't have the use of the phone after 10 pm at home anymore.

 

[PatriotsGirl]

With T-Mobile you can actually block certain times that they cannot use the phone - I have done this with easy child's phone....and he actually texts more than his sister - didn't know that was possible!!!!

 

[AnnieO]

Even with T-Mobile though... you can set your phone up for IM and email, including facebook and yahoo IM... And it does not show up, nor do the blocks work.

 

[Shari]

The browser is blocked. I don't think she can get past it, and she has a zero-data limit, if she can get past the browser block. So I don't think that's an issue.

She can't actually text people at those hours. The texts don't go through, but they appear on the bill. UNLESS the person is an "approved" number, and then she can text or call regardless of time blocks. So some of the people she tried to text DID get her texts - including her mom and sister! She's gonna shoot her own foot with that one...

For now, I have removed everyone but husband and I from the "approved" numbers list. So the only texts or calls that will go through in the middle of the night will be to us. Not the way it should be, but her mom will can the phone in a heartbeat if cgfg is texting in the middle of the night. I can still see if she tries, but she at least won't get the messages through to them.

 

[Shari]

I can't wait to hear the story she gave husband to defend herself. It will probably be that she thought my mom was having a heart attack or something. And he'll probably have bought it.

 

[AnnieO]

Onyxx and I have zero data... And I can (and she could) still IM. It's not part of the browser, it's a separate thing. Ugh.

And, yes, any approved numbers are anytime, even when blocks are active. I also discovered that SOME less-than-7-digit numbers go through and never show up on the bill...

 

[Shari]

Would she already have to have an IM account, tho?

 

[seriously]

Our solution to that was to disable/not pay for internet access. I believe that you can't do that stuff if you don't have internet access.

 

[Shari]

Her internet is supposed to be blocked. But since the option was available to also limit data, I went ahead and set her data limit to 0, also.

I couldn't make it get into anything, but I'm old and don't know anything. lol

She's not computer-savvy as she's not allowed to use them except when being closely supervised. However, I know some of her friends are.

The cell phone she has, tho, is 7 years old. So someone would probably have to do some digging to figure it out. Its not like she has one that all the kids have these days.

 

[seriously]

the other thing I do is simply turn the phone off completely. It will still dial 911 but that's all. we have t-mobile and you can deactivate the phone as often as you like through the website and leave it off until you decide to turn it back on. It would be a big pain to have to do that every night but it's an option.

 

[Shari]

We can do that, too. To make it so it will only receive calls. Yes, that would be a pain every night, and I'm not sure if its worth that bother if it comes to that. She's not allowed to use the computer here or her mom's unless someone is sitting right there with her. She has no access to FB or email (even if she has those things "covertly", her access is extremely limited by her not being where she has access to internet.) Her mom canceled her home phone, partly because she was tired of two brooms calling her. So they only have cell phones, and they have limited minutes and messaging, so cgfg isn't allowed to use her mom's phone to just "chat" with friends. I am looking to get rid of our landline, also, and between that and giving her a way to keep in touch with her friends is why we gave her this phone to try out. If she blows it, she blows it. Its not a "need" for her right now.

 

[AnnieO]

An old phone, maybe not.

Newer ones, yes, though.

For instance: I have a yahoo account. I push Menu-4-1, choose yahoo, enter my login and password and I'm IMing...

 

[Shari]

we have another similar old phone. I'm gonna go charge it and put my sim in it and see if I can get into IM. She'd have to figure out how to set up an account somewhere first...but that could be done.

 

[AnnieO]

School, library. Anywhere she could get 10 minutes' access.

What make/model phone?

 

[Shari]

The last time she had "unsupervised" internet access, she attempted to get into facebook by trying to guess other people's emails, and then by creating her own in the "email" field of the facebook login. Given then, I assume she does not have a valid email anywhere. BUT that has been a few months back.

There is no computer at her mom's. Computer and wifi here but its password protected, and I kill it when I'm not around, just in case. Usually take the modem.

She has way more opportunity to get access when she's with us, cause we go places. Like McDonald's. She doesn't with her mom. Library is out. School would be an option, but she's been out since the "facebook" attempt. But I have no doubt she could GET an account.

Just got off the phone with customer service. Don't think she could have gotten into IM, anyway, but they just put a complete data restriction on the phone. They say for certain now, even if she gets a newer phone, she can't do anything that requires data transmission, including IM.

 

[HaoZi]

Note to self: If Kiddo ever gets a phone, buy one that is only capable of voice and text.

 

[AnnieO]

HaoZi? Good luck with that...

 

[Shari]

That's why we gave her the one that was 7 yrs old....its capabilities are limited.