Cell phone/texting rules at your house?Up

[emelsea]

My 15yo stepson has had a cell phone for over a year. First, it was a prepaid that his mom paid for, then she asked us to put him on our family plan b/c he was going over on minutes (and I guess the resulting charges went on her credit card).

We were happy to. We'd offered many times to add a line for him. I took him to get his phone, and I told him, "we have unlimited texting because Dad uses it for work, just don't abuse it, and keep the talk time to a minimum so that we don't go over on minutes."

Until recently, he stuck to those rules. Then. He got a girlfriend. Last month, he sent/rec'd 11,848 text messages (he's still being really good about not talking a lot, just texting). He knows that I check the bill each month, because our other rule was no texting after bedtime on school nights, and no texting during school.

He is texting during school, but it's always his mom .

What do you think is excessive? I told my husband that when I was 15, we didn't have text messaging, but I was certainly on the phone every evening for hours, and if we HAD had texting, I'd have been doing that all night, too.

Part of me feels like it's just typical teenage behavior - that drive to share, share, share with friends. But 11,000 seems a bit...crazy! I think I might need to add a clause to our deal and tell him that if he suffers any injuries to his thumbs that are a result of excessive texting, he's paying the doctor bills himself.

What rules do you have for your teenager regarding their cell phones? Do you think almost 12,000 TM's is nuts? Or is this just a drop in the bucket?

[Drummer's Wife]

wow, that's a lot of texts! I don't text very often (mainly just w/my DH), so I can't imagine! That said, I think a lot of teens text instead of talk and maybe they hit send after like a word or two?

If you have unlimited texting, I don't think I would worry about it. The school thing - do they have rules about it there? You'd think the teachers would confiscate the phones or whatever the consequence is. I remember having my pager () taken away and my mom had to pick it up.

[emelsea]

Originally Posted by Drummer's Wife

wow, that's a lot of texts! I don't text very often (mainly just w/my DH), so I can't imagine! That said, I think a lot of teens text instead of talk and maybe they hit send after like a word or two?

If you have unlimited texting, I don't think I would worry about it. The school thing - do they have rules about it there? You'd think the teachers would confiscate the phones or whatever the consequence is. I remember having my pager () taken away and my mom had to pick it up.

I guess all the kids have learned how to text w/out looking at the phone, so they can text in their pockets and don't get caught. That's the reason I told DSS I'd be checking the bill to see if he is texting at school.

If they do get caught, the teachers can take the phone away from them.

I am annoyed that his mom texts him during school. From the bill, I can see that she starts it, too (she sends him the first text, and then he replies to her). But I think that's a pot I'll let his father stir.

[Drummer's Wife]

Originally Posted by emelsea

I guess all the kids have learned how to text w/out looking at the phone, so they can text in their pockets and don't get caught.

wow! I have trouble texting when I'm looking at my phone.

[rhiOrion]

I'm totally crashing in on this forum, seeing as how I don't have any kids at all yet... but I just did the math!



That is an average of 16 texts per hour, every hour, for the whole month! And one would assume that he actually sleeps for at least a few hours per day!

Unless my math is really that bad.

[emelsea]

Originally Posted by Drummer's Wife

wow! I have trouble texting when I'm looking at my phone.

Oh, yeah. We'll be sitting on the couch, watching TV and he's staring straight ahead at the TV, but the phone is down by his side and he's texting away. He thinks he's being sneaky, but I'm like, "Dude! I can hear you texting!".

[enkmom]

Cell phones were not allowed at my kids' high school, and they were confiscated if you were caught, and you got detention. It curtailed some of the texting, but not all. I would have your dh talk with mom to help her stop texting him at school!

I couldn't believe how many texts my kids got or sent either, but when they showed me their "conversations" the bulk of them were exchanges like this:

coffee? ok. cool.
whassup? n2m
bored. lol

We have unlimited texting, so I didn't have too many rules about it. They absolutely were not allowed to text at the table (so rude), and it drove me crazy that they would sit in the same room and text each other! When they were tired, they went to bed and no text was going to wake them up. I told them not to text at school, but let the school confiscate their phones a time or two and that helped them learn that lesson.

[BedHead]

If it isn't costing you any money then I wouldn't worry about it. My kids all have cell phones, and we have unlimited texting, and they do text quite a bit. Like the pp said, much of it is things that are one or two characters long and take them all of ten milliseconds to send. And they don't have to see the phone either. It's actually quite bizarre.

I also never worried about them texting in school, because that has a built in consequence - they lose the phone.

Mine also have no restrictions on when they can text. Even when they were in school I didn't restrict the times - if they wanted to stay up all night texting and be half dead in school the next day that was their problem.

[pixiekisses]

I couldn't wrap my head around 11848 texts a month, so I had to do the math. If there's 30 days a month, that's 394 texts a day! If I assume he's sleeping some, let's say 8 hours, then that's 24 texts an hour! And that's 0.41 pr. minute! That's like weekends, if you take away 6 hours of school on week days, then that's 39 texts a hour! And that is 0.65 texts pr. minute!!

Yes, I do think that's a little crazy.

I would probably set some rules here. I'm not sure what, but there would be some boundaries. I would probably do a limit of money, like he can use his phone for 100$ a month or something. And that's quite a lot.

ETA, oh, is it not costing you anything?
Hmm, then I wouldn't worry either. Then I'd just have the rules about no texting after bed time, no texting in school, no texting during dinner. And in general be polite about it, like don't text while having a conversation with someone else. Stuff like that.

[*bejeweled*]

Originally Posted by pixiekisses

ETA, oh, is it not costing you anything?
Hmm, then I wouldn't worry either. Then I'd just have the rules about no texting after bed time, no texting in school, no texting during dinner. And in general be polite about it, like don't text while having a conversation with someone else. Stuff like that.

[dyehappy]

My 14yo DD is right there with him! She can text w/out looking too. I do not have limits on the number of texts but on the times. She texts using both her phone and a free iPod touch app.

No texting at school. She occasionally texts me (grrr!), but I refuse to respond; which is sometimes hard because she is texting because she is worried about a grade or is having a rough time and needs to vent and feels safest venting to me. I have made it VERY clear that if her phone is confiscated she WILL NOT get it back.

She cannot text at the dinner table or while I'm driving (the tick tick tick drives me up the wall).

No texting after 10p on school nights.

We have Verizon and I have recently added the control feature which allows you to limit phone usage during certain hours of the day (programming emergency numbers only) and completely block certain numbers. I am willing to pay for it because even though I trust her not to break my rules - I don't trust other kids. She has told me that she will get texts at 2a on school nights from kids just saying "hey whats up." She uses her phones alarm to wake her up, so her sleep is interrupted when she gets msgs in the middle of the night.

It baffles me how much they text, but really it has just replaced actually talking on the phone. She only uses about 100 mins a month, if that.

[emelsea]

Originally Posted by dyehappy

My 14yo DD is right there with him! She can text w/out looking too. I do not have limits on the number of texts but on the times. She texts using both her phone and a free iPod touch app.

No texting at school. She occasionally texts me (grrr!), but I refuse to respond; which is sometimes hard because she is texting because she is worried about a grade or is having a rough time and needs to vent and feels safest venting to me. I have made it VERY clear that if her phone is confiscated she WILL NOT get it back.

She cannot text at the dinner table or while I'm driving (the tick tick tick drives me up the wall).

No texting after 10p on school nights.

We have Verizon and I have recently added the control feature which allows you to limit phone usage during certain hours of the day (programming emergency numbers only) and completely block certain numbers. I am willing to pay for it because even though I trust her not to break my rules - I don't trust other kids. She has told me that she will get texts at 2a on school nights from kids just saying "hey whats up." She uses her phones alarm to wake her up, so her sleep is interrupted when she gets msgs in the middle of the night.

It baffles me how much they text, but really it has just replaced actually talking on the phone. She only uses about 100 mins a month, if that.

We have Verizon, too, and when I called to ask them about that control feature, they didn't tell me that you could program in emergency numbers. We wanted to disable texting during school, but I was told by the Verizon rep that I could only disable the phone entirely. DSS has colitis, and if he has a flare up during the day, I want him to be able to call me to come get him (yes, he could go to the nurse, but this is a teenage boy we are talking about. He's a little embarrassed to explain in detail to the nurse what the problem is, so he calls us, then goes to the nurse and we call the nurse to tell her we are coming to get him.)

Anyway...I think I'll call them again. If we can program in our numbers, maybe we'll consider it for during school and late night on school nights.

Last night I was going to print out the bill to show him, but there were 538 pages of text messages to print out (I think it might have been less than that, but if I wanted to view his bill online, that's how many pages I'd have had to look through). So I handed him a reem of paper and told him that's how many pages of text messages the bill would have been.

We also did the math and figured out how many texts per day/hour/minute that would be. I know that most of them are a word or two, but I still think it's crazy. Crazy!!!

[SeekingJoy]

It doesn't seem that off to me. My husband and I IM(me) / text(him from his iPhone) while he is at work, and we easily blow through 100 exchanges in a few min convo about dinner or weekend plans. We both type quickly. Texts are actually faster and less intrusive than a call.