Dad Labs: Cell Phones for Kids

Transcript: [Brad] The psychological pressure never lets up. They’re on you day and night. Every man’s got his breaking point.
[Clay] So, now it’s time to buy your child a cell phone. Today in the lab we’re talking all about phones, features and parental controls that you should be looking for.
[Brad] Today’s episode of Dad Labs is brought to you in cooperation with Man of the House. Now Daddy Clay, you’re going to have to help me, because my kids are several years away from needing a phone.
[Clay] Well, maybe not as far away as you think. You know, the average age for a first phone in the UK is eight.
[Brad] Eight?! Dude, I couldn’t even turn the television on when I was eight.
[Clay] You know, there’s one thing you can do right now even if your kids are young. Stop recycling and trading in your phones because the best phone for your kid may be a hand-me-down.
[Brad] OK, but if I have to buy one, what am I looking for?
[Clay] The big choice is going to be between a kid phone, a cheap phone and a rugged phone.
[Brad] Dude, I would love a cheap, rugged kid phone for me.
[Clay] That would be good for you, a pink one. I like pink.
[Brad] I can see that.
[Clay] Anyway, we’re talking about kid phones. We’re talking about phones from Firefly or Kajeet, These are usually brightly colored, cool phones that the kids will like with very simple features and good parental controls. Some parents will also go for a no-plan phone like this Tracfone. These are best for kids that are maybe nine and younger for parents that are concerned mostly with security and family communication.
[Brad] OK, how about cost?
[Clay] Well, so, a Kajeet phone or a Firefly phone, $50 to buy the phone, about $10 a month. This Tracfone, less than $10 to buy the phone and you can spend as little as $7 a month on minutes so it’s a very cheap option for younger kids. Now, most families will end up buying another line. In that case, you may have an opportunity to get a cheap or no cost phone when you lock in your plan for a couple years. You have to keep in mind that it’s going to be 2 years before you have another opportunity to buy a discounted phone and do you think that phone is going to last 2 years in the hands of your youngster. One thing you should remember when you’re picking features for your phone that your kid is never going to talk on his phone.
[Brad] Never...? Oh! Because they like to text and stuff.
[Clay] They really do and if you want to encourage them in that you may want to get a full keyboard phone. If you want to discourage it, you might want to stick with the traditional number phone.
[Brad] Do they have a phone that has no keypad?
[Clay] They do, as a matter of fact. Firefly’s got a no key phone. Now, if you’re really thinking about a phone that’s going to last for a couple years, you may want to upgrade to a rugged phone.
[Brad] Rugged?
[Clay] There’s the Motorola phones. They’ve got titles like Brute and Barrage.
[Brad] Your 9-year-old daughter would love that.
[Clay] Hey, they’re tough on phones. There’s also a Casio line that I think is called G Zone. These are very tough phones but they’re a little bit pricey. Of course, there’s always my favorite: the Samsung Rubgy. Now, what I like about this phone: it’s military spec, water resistant, shock resistant, it’s got GPS-enabled, web browsing capability, good if you’ve got a rough and tumbled teen boy.
[Brad] And you do.
[Clay] I do. This is actually my son’s phone.
[Brad] Uh huh.
[Clay] I bought this phone for him when he was about 10 and almost immediately he started complaining because it was hard to text on and I said, “Well, if you keep that phone for 1 year with no damage, you don’t lose it, I will upgrade you to a phone that you can text on.
[Brad] Incentives!
[Clay] Sure enough, it worked. He kept the phone, no damage, so I upgraded him to my old iPhone. Put a protective package on it, it was all set to go. It lasted 2 weeks until he dribbled this off the concrete a couple times. It’s no longer functional. This is dead. So he goes back to the Samsung phone. That phone lasts another two weeks until it goes into the laundry: a washing cycle and it’s on the fritz, it’s out. Then, he got upgraded to the old clamshell phone. That lasted 48 hours until he completely shattered the screen on that, and that was totally dead. And then…
[Brad] Forty-eight hours to do that?
[Clay] Yeah, and then he got demoted to the old plank phone. The serious brick phone. You can imagine how happy he was when I put this on his desk.
[Brad] He’s never getting a date.
[Clay] But, in the meanwhile, I had left the Rugby on a windowsill with the battery out for 2 days, put it back in, and it booted right back up, it’s back in action. Again, this is my son’s phone.
[Brad] Parental controls, how does that work?
[Clay] Yes. Now, a lot of these phones will have on-board parental controls. The iPhone, particularly, has got good ones. But you may have to go to your carrier and your carrier will have some controls. We use the smart limits plan at AT&T. It’s another $10 a month but it allows us to shut the phone down certain hours of the day except if they have to call us. To create call lists of permitted callers. It also has some cool features to allow you to limit the number of text messages, even below the number that’s allowed by your plan.
[Brad] Hey, your kid’s getting a call. Should we see who it is?
[Clay] Oh no, that’s, oh … oh actually I do want to see that.
[Brad] Spy on him.
[Clay] Wilson’s phone! Who the hell are you and why are you calling him?
[Brad] Lots of good info, Daddy Clay. If you’ve got thoughts about getting your kid their first cell phone, drop a comment on this video or go join the conversation at Man of the House or go to DadLabs.com and leave us a comment there.
[Clay] We want to thank our friends at Man of the House for making this episode possible and we’ll see you next time here on Dad Labs.