When somebody would have asked me a year ago if I would buy a mobile phone for my child, I would have answered "NO".

Seeing children who can barely pee without a Pamper walking around with a mobile phone.

Watching children who can barely pee without a Pamper at school walking around with a mobile phone and even using them during the classes (the teachers are not doing any better).

Reading all kind of medical documents about the damages of using a mobile phone.

But now that my child is in the first grade (P.1) and she can dial anyone on my phone and on the public telephone at school the question if I shall provide my child with such a gadget.

Would it not be great if my child is in a situation where she need urgently help and she could call her parents of her closest friends to help?

The price of a new mobile phone starts at about 750 Baht (BIG-C) and different SIM's are available on the market to limit the use of a mobile phone if desired (SMS Sim from TOT for example).

What is the opinion of other TV members with children?

Did you buy a mobile phone for your child and what is your experience with that?

Or don't you want to buy a mobile phone for your child and why?

That’s why they invented toy Cells to give to toddlers, they make the sounds like a real phone and some times have cookie monster pic up at the other end, now you should be asking is it ok for your child to talk to a cookie junkie or a or a gender confused Elmo. My opinion sure there cute.. I still enjoy my toy phone

What does this have to do with Thailand?

I think the Family & Children's forum is more appropriate for this thread.

Moved.

I don't like my children to use mobile phones.

- I don't think anything can be extremely urgent to a child who is still in studying age that he must have a mobile phone. Public phones are everywhere. They can make phone calls with coins or phone cards bought in 7-Eleven. Accident? How many percent? Sick in class? The school don't let them die. The teacher will phone parents.

- They will spend money on making nonsense calls during the night and they can talk whole night. Who can monitor whom they talk with and what subject? Nights with not enough sleep don't do any good to their health. If they're home, they'll sleep whole day the next day after the sleepless night. As they sleep whole day, they can't sleep at night. The cycle will continue. Night: stay. Day: sleep. Are they using American time zone? Day time is for activities and studying.

- Their main duty is to study well. With the phone near them even in no-ring-no-tone mode, if someone calls, it still takes their attention away from the teacher talk. They may message in class instead of listening to teachers.

- When they become teenagers, mobile phone is a tool to help them have better communication chances which are in some cases faster access to sex before marriage. With the combination with internet, it is a disaster.

- Having a mobile phone now is no longer something to be proud of. The maid who cleans my house or any "chup kang" (laborer) can have.

I think the possible damages caused from using mobile phone are still not certain. I'm not too worried about this.

(Too late. Mine all bought their own.)

Edited November 18, 200817 yr by Koo82

i didnt get my first phone till i was about 10 i didnt need one really but as she hit the teen years she will want one but i dont think she will need one now still abit young she got more to think about than carry a phone around with her its quite a responsibility to carry a phone about.. and think about it someone might beat her up for her phone as she young and shes an easy target

My 16 month old daughter loves phones and I can see already that it is going to be an issue to deal with as she gets older. I would prefer her not to have one until she is much older but I see it as a probable inevitability that she will get one sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your reponses.

Children need a mobile phone depending on where you live from the age where you allow them the liberty of travelling home alone from school etc so probably around age 11 or 12. Good luck OP

Children need a mobile phone depending on where you live from the age where you allow them the liberty of travelling home alone from school etc so probably around age 11 or 12. Good luck OP

Thanks for your input Nampeung,

As mentioned before, seeing kids from Primary 1 in school interrupting classes by walking out the classroom to answer their mobile phone (sometimes a mobile phone from the higher price range) makes me thinking where this world is heading to (the teachers who should give an example are not any better).

Maybe that I have been trapped in the "generation conflict", as all these electronic gadgets came first in the market when I was 35 or so.

I bought for my kid a while ago a TOT card which can be used in school and most public phones.

But a lot of (Thai) kids in the classroom have a mobile phone, and I do not want to look like another "stingy fahrang" father who denies his kid these luxuries beacause of my principles.

A few days ago, she went with the school to visit Safari World in Bangkok and she had been asking for a "real" photo camera since a while.

Nowadays, you can buy a cell phone with a decent photo camera for a few thausend Bahts.

So, I was anxious to know the opinion of other (fahrang) parents in order to see if they ware stuck in the same age gap as I or if I was the only one.

Maybe, I should ask the same question in a Thai forum and see what answers I get on this question.

Every teenager I know likes to talk on the phone. They love the mobile phone so much to keep in touch with friends and others.

When being asked (by friends) "What's your cell phone number?", any child will feel bad if he doesn't have one, especially when phones are so cheap now.

My kids have mobiles, partly because it's easier to pick them up after school if you can call them. Also as my eldest seems to be in every school sports team, she's forever having to tell me about delays coming back from whatever school they were playing this week. (She gives a better estimate than the school does for when the bus will finally return)

But I am very stingy with the top-up cards.

Children need a mobile phone depending on where you live from the age where you allow them the liberty of travelling home alone from school etc so probably around age 11 or 12. Good luck OP

Makes me wonder just how I survived childhood without one We had to remember lots of phone numbers as well and have watches.

Times have changed, I don't know what we would have done without the invention of the wheel

Interruption of classes is a little extreme, but a mobile for emergency is essential, simply because you can, for convenience a little less obligatory, but useful, I agree 10 or 11 sounds about right.

Moss

Interruption of classes is a little extreme

Interruption of classes is indeed a little extreme. But I guess that young children (< 10) are simply imitating the behavior of the teachers who does the same thing.

My opinion in this matter is that a mobile phone should be switched off before entering the classroom.

but a mobile for emergency is essential, simply because you can, for convenience a little less obligatory, but useful, I agree 10 or 11 sounds about right.

When I had in mind if I should buy a mobile phone for my child, the first reason that cames to my mind was ONLY because a mobile phone was indispensable in emergency cases.

For all the other "telephone chats" she could go to the nearest telephone boot with her telephone card and make a call from there.

Off course, that would not look so "cool"

But I guess that young children (< 10) are simply imitating the behavior of the teachers who does the same thing

Gotta agree with that, how would they know it is wrong if they are following the example of those who should know better.

My opinion in this matter is that a mobile phone should be switched off before entering the classroom.

Yup, agree with that too.

Good Luck

Moss

Bought at 11 years, taken away at 12. Don't do it.

Bought at 11 years, taken away at 12. Don't do it.

Did you take the mobile phone away or was it lost/stolen?

Lot's of things get lost/stolen nowadays.

Even cars and complete nations.

A mobile phone at a few hundred of Bahts would make barely a difference.

Are you denying your child everything which she lose or get stolen?

Appreciate your answer anyway.

I see nowadays many children at school and everywhere carrying a mini-computer and all kind of electronic gadgets which didn't exist when I was young. Some of them in the higher price range (Sony camera's).

Are you denying your child all these "gadgets"?

I don't buy the "cell phone for safety" reason. To start with, most of concerns about safety are not well founded. Even allowing for a risk of - say - kidnapping , robbery, you name it, would your child have the time and cold blood needed to make a phone call? If you mean running into an accident, then someone will call an ambulance for her/him. If he/she gets lost, all she needs to know is YOUR cell phone number and ask anybody on the street to give you a call, or find a public phone.

I think most of the concern about safety nowadays is due to exaggeration of rare events broadcast by the media. Where I live (Italy) most of the parents would be really scared of letting a 6 year old child walk to school on her own (I used to do it when I was 6, and it was perfectly normal). Scared of what? Once they learn how to cross the street safely I don't see what they should be worried about. Kidnapping? Robbing him? Abuse him? If you look at the numbers, that has a 1/10 to 1/100 chance of occurring with respect to having a car accident; that means that a parent should be 10 to 100 times more worried when taking off for a weekend trip than for his child walking to school on her own. Still, most people I know wouldn't even consider the former as a risk and would be frightened by the latter.

In this context, how cell phone would help with safety I have no idea. Having said that, I think there may be other good reasons for giving a child a cell phone, as well as many other good ones for not letting him having one.

Where I live (Italy) most of the parents would be really scared of letting a 6 year old child walk to school on her own (I used to do it when I was 6, and it was perfectly normal).

Hi Matcube,

Thanks for your opinion.

A few remarks.

The things you summarize about "safety questions" could be true in Italy or somke Western countries.

But I let you try to go anywhere at the city where I live and ask a Thai to dial a number for you on his cellphone. You will be on a long ride unless you can pay 100 Baht.

As for the ambulance, I have been myself in a situation where I needed an ambulance while a lot of Thais were around me with mobile phones, but nobody made a call until the police arrived.

In the time that I have been living here, I have witnessed a lot of accidents where an ambulance was needed, but never saw anybody making a call.

One time, I saw a man on a motorbike being run over by a car and wanted to stop to help him and to call an ambulance. My wife luckily stopped me from doing that and advised me to act as if I didn't saw anything happen. According to her, if I had stopped to make a call and offer first aid to that man, as a foreigner, after that man would be in the hospital he would cliam tht I would be the one who has runned over him and sued for a lot of money.

As for the second part of your response, I have quit making all sort of comparisons between "in my time" and nowadays.

In my time, I went to school about 10 km away every day by walking.

But in that time there were hardly 10 cars passing me on the way to school and the cars which could reach 120km/hr were very scarse.

In my time there was no computers and notebooks like now, there were no mobile phones and Bluetooth devices, there were no MP3 players with a whooping 4GB memory and smaller than earphone, there were no electronic calculators, etc.

All these things are now available at a reasonable price for most of us.

But on the other hand, all these things have been adding to the danger of being robbered and/or killed.

Last year, a teenager was murdered for his MP3 player in Belgium.

Last year, a teenager was murdered for his cellphone in Pattaya.

I could continue this list with lots of examples.

But should I take all this "extremes" as a reason for denying my child access to all these electronic gadgets?

Maybe, buying her a cellphone would not be advised for her age.

But what about buying her a photo camera?

What about buying her other electronic devices that are very normal at her age, but other children did pay with their life for?

Sure things can be different even from town to town. I lived several years in Thailand as well, but my experience on the matter was not as negative as yours (I had Thailand in mind, or at least my view of it, when I wrote my message).

The second part of your message seems to be imply that cell phones may be a concern of unsafety, rather than safety, for you:

[...]

Last year, a teenager was murdered for his MP3 player in Belgium.

Last year, a teenager was murdered for his cellphone in Pattaya.

I am not here to deny that these things happen. But remember that TV and papers are a very concentrated summary of the whole word's happening. I invite everyone to run a mental count: how many people that you know, friends, or direct friends of friends, have had a relative that died or was terribly injured in a car accident? I could count more than 10, easily reaching 20 or 30. Now, how many that lost their lives or were terribly injured or kidnapped because of their belonging, race, sex (still among your "community")? I couldn't find one. I am not advocating for walking alone at night full with jewelery in the worst part of towns, in the same way that I am not advocating to shut yourself in your house because cars are too dangerous. I am not particularly fighting a war against car accidents (I could have picked other examples). I am just trying to put things in perspective.

As for the original question, yes/no to cell phones for kids, there are reasons for and against; I haven't made up my mind yet (my oldest one is 5 and she does not have a cell phone yet). One reason for "yes" that has not been mentioned yet (or that I missed) is responsibility, that is the teaching of. Is giving a week allowance to kids good or bad? It's bad because they will spend the money on (what to us appear to be) frivolous things. It's good because they learn money management at a younger age (well, maybe ...). A cell phone may be a similar concept, it could be regarded as a money and time management teaching system: do you spend all your time in front of the TV, speaking on a cell phone, or doing some more interactive activity? Those are skills to be learned, mostly by example (from your parents up to teen age, and from your friends thereafter), by the way.

Edited November 30, 200817 yr by matcube

Bought at 11 years, taken away at 12. Don't do it.

Did you take the mobile phone away or was it lost/stolen?

Lot's of things get lost/stolen nowadays.

Even cars and complete nations.

A mobile phone at a few hundred of Bahts would make barely a difference.

Are you denying your child everything which she lose or get stolen?

Appreciate your answer anyway.

I see nowadays many children at school and everywhere carrying a mini-computer and all kind of electronic gadgets which didn't exist when I was young. Some of them in the higher price range (Sony camera's).

Are you denying your child all these "gadgets"?

Taken away. Major distraction for a child from all the things that are actually taking place around them. Major improvement in behaviour, consideration for others, awareness and non materialism from that day forward. The kids I have seen who get these too young become vapid and unaware. Just take a look around you, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Book Recommendation:

http://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Generation-S...s/dp/1585426393

Edited November 30, 200817 yr by lannarebirth

My 16 month old daughter loves phones and I can see already that it is going to be an issue to deal with as she gets older. I would prefer her not to have one until she is much older but I see it as a probable inevitability that she will get one sooner rather than later.

Why is it going to be an issue? you are the adult and parent, you decide if and when she gets a phone, not her.

A few years ago, my (now ex-) wife was thinking about buying our son (then 9 years old) on of those "kid" phones (I forget the marketing name)...no keypad, just programmable buttons for "home", "emergency" and a couple of others.

I told her that was silly to buy a "crippled" phone...just buy a regular phone and set up the incoming and outgoing restrictions, so he can only call to and receive from the numbers you specify.

As far as children in school taking calls in class, that is a school issue. In most if not all USA schools, cell phones/pagers/PDAs must be off during classes.

There are legitimate arguments for and against children having cell phones...bottom line, you as the parent get to decide, not the children.