Almost every kid over the age of 12 has a cell phone today and an increasing number of those phones are smart phones with easy access to the entire internet. So the question is how much do you monitor what you child does with their cell phone? Do you check their texts? Do you check to see what websites they have visited? Do you allow them to have access to their phone late at night? Have to checked the pictures they send or they have sent to them? I found a very interesting article about some the effects your son or daughters cell phone might have on their mental health.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue and how you handle cell phone use with your child.
Standale Reformed Parents 
I apologize that the link didn’t work correctly this morning, it has been fixed now.
I find it difficult to know how much is too much. For example, having their Twitter password, Facebook password and their phone password – is that too much? Do they deserve a bit of privacy? If their behavior warrants a reason to read their text, that’s a different story but at some point, I feel like they need a bit of privacy.
Vonda I feel like every kid is different. I think they need to earn that privacy and as they get older they should get more privacy as well. When I think off what a 13 year old boy could be looking up on their cell phone that is a scary thought. It is easy to block/monitor the home computer, not nearly as easy to monitor their phone. I think it should be treated on a case by case basis.
Wow Matt, what a post. I’m only a father of young boys but am already terrified of the day they ask for cell phones. It seems we are slipping away from being able to “raise” our children on what we think is right. The access our kids have to whatever they want to steer their brains towards is unfathomable. I agree with Vonda that our kids should have some privacy but for us as kids that was a closed door in our bedrooms with no tv’s, computers, and cell phones. We might of had a radio, but that was it. I think our current notion of privacy is way too far. A boy left with the tools to act on his carnal nature most definately will fall tempt to it. That scares me to death as a father. I have some years to wrestle with how I’ll handle all of this with my boys, but it’s already terrifying me.