Agreed!! It kind of freaks me out seeing teched-out kids like that. Besides, how can anyone expect them to take care of such expensive gadgets? Come on, most of hem can't even tie their shoe laces!

I actually yelled at a salesman in the Mall at a Kiosk one time because he was trying to get me to buy a phone for my then 7 year old. I went off about the fact that he should NEVER be alone, NEVER be without an adult who would have a phone or know how to use a pay phone. The tirade lasted about 5 minutes and we had on-lookers by the time I was done. This world is so messed up sometimes when all someone cares about is a sale, and not the fact that it's not appropriate to give a cell phone to children.

Crazy! Where are they ever going to be that they need a cell phone?? They even make ones that only have three speed-dial buttons (mom phone, dad phone, home phone theoretically), but WHY? Little kids don't need phones, and we definitely don't need to be marketing phones to them!

Good job, kiddylnd, I'm glad you told him off! Even besides the obvious, doing that in front of a kid could lead to other problems (like the kid then deciding he really does want a phone). My friend had that problem with his son and his ex-wife, she (psycho) told him that he could have a cell phone for his 10th birthday and he was so excited, then she told my friend that she couldn't afford it anymore, so now he's in this really terrible situation where his son has been expecting/wanting one for months, and now he has to break the news that he isn't getting one, which is compounded by the fact that my friend never wanted to give him one.

Parents get worried about their kids easily these days and the affordability of cell phone use such as pre-paid cell phone numbers and such are the reason why so many parents get cell phones for their children. Plus this makes it easy for parents to just check in on their kids and know where they are because they have their own cell phone number.

One of my little siblings have one of those phones with only 3 buttons, it can call me (I'm 21, so feasably if she was having an emergency I could do something), my step-mom and my dad. Thats it. there is no screen or anything. She takes it to school with her but it stays off and she is only allowed to turn it on in an emergency. In our town in the last few school years there have been bomb scares,shooters on campus,a fire, and a gas leak. All of which were at an elementry school, which I find highly depressing but that is another thing all together. She has only used it during those incidents and she was able to call us so that we could come and get her while some of the other kids were not able to be picked up for a few hours becuase the school and the school district could not call that many families at once. When you are that little ( she was 5- 7 so far when all of this happened) a few hours ( four to five) stuck in a gym that the entire school gets packed into is horrible. That bieng said I have seen kids about the same age as my sister with the same phone I have, which is both depressing and annoying.

Well my little brother is 10 and he has one. But it is a very strict plan. They're all prepaid minutes and I don't think he has text. And my parents got a divorce and he's always going back and forth. So that's why he got one. But he doesn't really use it. Forgets about it all the time. So he's not one of those stupid girly girls that try to act like they're 25 when they're 5.