I'd rather not have the Iphone.

[RedRoseSpiral]

Personally, if you need a list like this then your kid shouldn't have a smartphone. This is a high powered machine. With the time restrictions on it (not at school, not after 7:30p, etc) he wouldn't be able to use it to any where near its potential. The kid would be better off with a quick messaging phone like the LG Xpression. A phone like that would be a much better fit.

The mother does remind me of my father. Nothing he ever gave me was mine. It was his and I was allowed to use it. He tried going as far as stopping me from taking furniture that he had bought me for my birthday (large and small book shelves) when he kicked me out for "being a nagging cunt who ruined my life" and "being a fucking bitch like your mother".

He also pulled rules like this out of his arse, but didn't actually act like that himself. I've found people like this tend to be hypocrites.

[SongsOfDragons]

What's wrong with reminding your kid to be respectful and not say hurtful things? To think about what you say (or in this case, text) before you put it out there for the world to see? To realize there is a time and place for certain things and a time when you are expected to give your undivided attention to others? Similar rules applied long before cell phones were common, it's good parenting.

Not always. As I gave in my example, my mother's attempt at this on me backfired spectacularly. It may have worked for other kids, as we see here in the OP, but part of parenting is being flexible enough to know when your rules and discipline are failing to produce the desired effect on your child.

I was already a good kid at home and out. I'd read every book in the house. I never spent more than a couple of hours a time on any game before I went to do something else, or turned the game off to use Paint or Word or Encarta. She didn't, and still doesn't, understand that a computer is a tool rather than just a big game machine. She still says to this day that she's going to hide my laptop from me because I'm 'playing games too much'...

My parents only started giving me limits on computer games when they noticed it becoming a "problem." That is, I was getting semi-addicted to the point where I was not doing my schoolwork, not playing outside on beautiful days, and sometimes even snubbing my friends just so I could play more video games.

I think a lot of parents forget that much of their limits should be more reactive than preemptive.

Ah see, it might have worked there. I wasn't addicted. At all. Even my Dad said it was unfair to me but she kept on because she probably assumed I was on the verge of total massive addiction of the kind you get sent to rehab for. If they were available when I was under her thumb I bet I'd have been sent there, despite being a pointless exercise. Yeah my mum likes applying sensationalist bollocks.

First of all, it's not theft, even if you've bought it yourself at 13. I once bought a bunch of candy when I was a kid using my allowance and my parents took it from me and didn't give it back until I ate my dinner. Had I called the police over it, they'd laugh and give my parents high fives.

Second of all, even if that were the case, he is on his parents' mobile plan. Because these are contractual agreements, a minor cannot legally sign such a contract to get on his own plan. If he's still on his parents' mobile plan, they still can impose rules.

So, if his parents took his bought phone away from him because he wasn't doing his homework or was otherwise being a brat, I doubt any judge would prosecute.

Thanks for clearing that up. See in the UK you can buy phones on Pay-As-You-Go, I think you might be able to from a young age, not sure. I don't think the iPhone is part of that but I know plenty of other smartphones are, hence the confusion.

It just seems unfair that if he does prove thrifty enough to save up all that money, it's taken away from him with no reward to show for it.

Oh, and I'm a she. :P No worries though, you just missed off the S.

I hope I'm calm enough to be dealing with this nicely now ;;

[Ginger Tea]

I've read yor name os Son's of dragons many a time, I did post about the diversity of music tuesday but it ate it along the way, luckily it was cached.

The whole "types of music to listen to." bit, well she is giving him an iPod Touch that just happens to have the ability to make phone calls and with 32GB available (unless they still make the 16GB phones) that's alot of music to sift through, I filled my 160GB classic till I migrated to using my phone instead of carrying both (classic is now my traveling oop norf hard drive) it was ecclectic (and 99.9% ripped from CD's I bought) I used to say (till no one I worked with got it, "my music tastes go from ABBA to ZZTop and from Scott to Janis (Joplin)" I've stumbled upon bands by accident or via links other bands promoted and would not have gottten into a fair few bands without Nine Inch Nail's in/direct involvement.

Direct
Saul Williams
Christal Castles due to the remix of the Health song Crimewave being on a tour sampler download
and Health to see what they were like although I only listen to Die slow and the afore meantioned remix

Indirect
Sonio, a friend who got me more into NiN than just those songs at the club I liked linked me to the Tetsuo 3 track he did (can't find the mp3 anymore) and I saw a link I liked about a noise box and found the track sampler of the band that made it to my liking even more the remix album which then got me into
Big Black Delta whos debut LP and EP has some nice intence end of the ambient music spectrum instrumental tracks.

Hell Metal Machine Music I listen to more than anything else by Lou Reed or the Velvet Underground, but the average 13 year old might not be into intence ambient and only exposed to hip hop / RnB via commercial radio stations, I didn't dive into my parent's record collection as deep as some do, but both me and my brother ended up liking more 60's music than they did and these bands were not in the collections that I recall.
iir his stemmed from the Veitnam TV show and movies like Platoon and Appocolyps Now having music from the era.

[bex1218]

Thanks for clearing that up. See in the UK you can buy phones on Pay-As-You-Go, I think you might be able to from a young age, not sure. I don't think the iPhone is part of that but I know plenty of other smartphones are, hence the confusion.

It just seems unfair that if he does prove thrifty enough to save up all that money, it's taken away from him with no reward to show for it.

Oh, and I'm a she. :P No worries though, you just missed off the S.

I hope I'm calm enough to be dealing with this nicely now ;;

We have that here in the US that I know plenty of kids pay for themselves with chore money. No contract, which means parents don't have to sign anything, making it the kid's if they paid for it. But I don't know if that means anything to the parents when the kid gets in trouble. Maybe limiting the money for them to refill so they could stay in communication while out at school or grandma's.

I had two phones at 16 cause my dad refused to let me text on the one he gave me and also refused to call me/text me on the one my mom gave me . He finally learned that I am not gonna worry about two phones when I turned 18 (saved him money). When I got in trouble he took the texting phone away and my laptop (which he gave me for birthday). But he gave it back. There was no restrictions on when I can and cannot use it other than that. Granted, I was 16 not 13.

I actually didn't get a smartphone till last June. Never saw the point. But now that I am in communication with a a few people from CS on Facebook, comes in handy. I could live without a smartphone, but I don't want to.

Back on the music thing, I always had different types of music in my collection. But I had my mom listening to 80's rock, some Limp Bizkit ontop of that and my dad with his random collection from Elvis Costello to Ministry. Rap slightly irritates me. I always liked certain songs (brings me back to good memories like Coolio Gangster's Paradise and Eminem). Hip hop and rap these days, some are good but thats what teens are exposed to these days. Ever go to a school dance? Soulja Boi was a big hit when my prom came around. There was no rock music whatsoever. You can't force kids into liking certain kinds of music. You just gotta let them be with that. You can expose them and let tehm decide.