Last year I posted an article for us on developing a Facebook contract for teens.  Being that we have one, we didn’t just want to open the floodgates and give her free reign.  We’ve talked to some parents who have different types of ways to accomplish this.  As we began tackling this, I dove into some research on similar types of deals with cell phones.

Wild West

I remember when Grace was in third grade, one of her classmates came to school with a bedazzled Blackberry.  And so it began.  What do we do with cell phones?  When would she need one?  How would we address responsibility and empowerment?  We didn’t need a cell phone when we were in school.  Why now?

Our Strategy

We decided when Grace turned 15, we would find a service with some parental controls to teach her responsible use.  After lots of searching, I found a company called Kajeet.  It uses the Sprint network and has parental controls at the network level.  They’re simple and work well.  After over a year, I’d recommend this service for first timers looking for something simple, safe, and no contract.  You can customize the way the network is setup based on each phone.  For instance, you can decide what numbers work, what times of the day they work (inactive during school hours or after a certain time at night), and students can earn points towards minutes using a wallet system.  Find out more at www.kajeet.com

Our Custom Contract

Similarly to our Facebook contract, I created a cell phone contract as well.  Being that there is no long-term contract to sign, I decided to create one based on a lot of Google searches on what other parents are trying to do.  You can download the PDF, Pages, and Word versions.

Resources

• Cell Phone Contract – Microsoft Word
• Cell Phone Contract - PDF