Not Ready for a Smartphone? Give Your Kid a Tracfone!

Thanks for watching! Please subscribe and leave comments below!

Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and today I'm going to talk about how I handled the year or so before I was ready to give my kids a smartphone.

My kids, who are 15 and 13, both have smartphones now -- for better or worse. But I thought a lot about what age is what appropriate to give them cell phones. Middle school seemed like the right timing based on my research, so my son got a cast off iPhone for Christmas his 7th grade year. By the time my daughter reached middle school just 2 years later, the cell phone demographic had shifted somewhat dramatically to much younger, so she got hers within the first 6 weeks of school.

With both of them, they began to gain more independence earlier than that. In 6th grade, both had extracurricular activities for which I dropped them and then came back to pick them up. Both were walking the mile to school and back. Both were allowed to walk into town or to friends' houses in groups. I could get in touch with their friends -- all of my daughter's friends had cell phones in 6th grade -- but I found myself wanting to reach my kids directly.

The problem was, I wasn't willing to get them a smartphone in 6th grade. Why not? Part of it was that I knew it was a genie I wouldn't be able to put back in the bottle. Part of it was I wanted at least another year of developmental growth before I trusted them to keep track of an expensive mini-computer. After all, we were a family that considered gloves, hats and swim goggles essentially disposable, we lost them so frequently. And, truth be told, part of it was just stubborn resistance to all of the things a smartphone represented for me: maturity and independence -- yes, but also materialism and entitlement.

So, here was my compromise for that year or so: I bought a "Family Tracfone". Tracfone is one of a number of companies that sell prepaid phones or what The Wire referred to as "burner phones." I found a great deal on Amazon for the phone plus triple minutes -- I think it was $20 total. Let's unpack that a little:
• Phone - Basically, you are buying the phone outright -- there is no 2 year plan situation. Ours (I still have it) had a slide out keyboard and wasn't smart in anyway. By that, I mean it didn't use cellular data -- I think you could play a couple of simple games on it. Just in glancing at their website, they seem to offer mostly smartphones now, but there are still some very basic options.
• Minutes - the phone comes with prepaid talk minutes. Those minutes usually expire after 3 months, but some phones come with a carryover option. Since the phone I bought had "triple minutes" that meant that when it was time to purchase more minutes every 3 months, I could buy the lowest option, like 60 minutes, and actually get 180. Texts use 1/3 of a minute per text.

So, basically, less than $7 a month for my peace of mind. I thought it was entirely worth it. Also, since it was the Family Tracfone, it didn't really belong to anyone, so I could give it out to whomever needed it that day. If my daughter had a soccer tournament, she got the phone for the day, but mostly my son carried it around since he was more independent at the time.

I'm not going to lie and tell you this was a total panacea. My kids liked the Tracfone for about 5 days at which point all of the negatives became more clear. The biggest negative? There was NOTHING cool about the Tracfone. It had zero cache and became a bit of a joke among my daughter's friends. Another thing? Emojis didn't translate. I think they came up as gobbledygook on their phones, which if you know anything about how kids communicate, was a severe drawback. That is probably better now. And the last thing was their dawning realization that the Tracfone was just a parenting tool for ME to reach them.

Since the phone wasn't as important to them, I need to remember to keep it charged (something I never have to worry about now that they have smartphones) and also make sure it came home in backpacks and went back out with them for the day.

But to me, the hassle was worth it since it helped to bridge the gap between the beginnings of their independence and our readiness (both emotionally and mentally) to make the leap into the smartphone world. And can I just take a quick minute to marvel at our parental need to be in contact with our kids at all times? Think about our parents and grandparents. Cell phones weren't even an option for them, so when it was time to let go -- they let go. It gives me pause to think about how all of this easy connection and surveillance will affect our kids and their future identities.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, questions, and experiences in the comments section below. And thanks for watching!

[deliroous]

Honestly... tracfone is okay but I would probably only use it until the kids proved they could get a real phone without breaking it or anything.

[damianharvey]

Please parents dont torture your kids by getting them a tracfone/flip phone

[harleyyouth]

I have to say I disagree on a tracfone you can access the internet and everything, and they are complicated.

[trinityloneeagle]

The first phone my parents bought me was a tracfone that had a screen that was probably smaller than two inches and it was practically only keyboard but I was still very happy with it, now I'm here today with a Samsung Galaxy S8+ and I turn 15 in a few months

[jessicalt]

I wish I had never gotten my son an Apple iPhone (or = smartphone). My son is addicted to it, prefers it, is grumpy if he can’t be on it and he’s not even on it as much as his friends are on there’s. Put it off as long as you can and be sure to have him turn it off at least 1-2 hours before bedtime and outside of his bedroom. A regular alarm clock is better for waking up in the am. Smartphones cause kids to move away from you very quickly and into the Internet world, then it’s hard to turn back.

[nicholasnachos]

Depends who your giving to. A normal 10 year old: yes. Eight year old Nicholas: HELL NO. Nicholas broke his iPhone 6s and cheap prepaid phone.

[MariaH-tkfm]

El titulo en español y el contenido en ingles😢

[moronsafetybot]

It’s not like getting you’re kids a smartphone is like getting you’re kids a gun

[francis.mingora]

trackfone has 1000, 00 txt with new plans cant beet that for smart fones

[nathanm]

I stopped to comment positively about this video. With the very basic smartphone options Tracfone offers, the situation you describe is an opportunity to teach and test kids' ability to care for 'any' mobile phone before giving them high end devices on big carrier plans.

Before giving them a new iPhone or a flagship Android device like a Galaxy S-series, perhaps get your kids to earn them with good use of a low end Tracfone Android ($20-80 before buying service) that parents control purchasing the minutes and data for. The phones are fine for calls and 'getting by' with social media among friends. At the same time, they aren't so nice or expensive that if they screw up (get grounded, lose the phone, etc.) that you really need to punish them for it.

My cousin is constantly having to take away her sons' iPhones for whatever offense pops up, and I wish she'd have held off until they were older or could appreciate them better. Plus the bills--oh the added bills. Needless to say, I'm a big believer strategically making your kids work with 'less' before giving them 'more'.

[francis.mingora]

trackfone has new smartfone plans only good deals look on trackfone web cite