I mentioned yesterday that The Boy is very interested in getting a cell phone. The Man is convinced he will lose it, but I’m just relieved that he doesn’t want an iPhone. In fact, he isn’t interested in a smart phone. I still have to sit down with him and figure out what exactly he wants it for. I believe it’s mostly for the alarm clock capabilities, believe it or not.
The Man and I have discussed this before, and the difficulty here is limiting the use. I’m sure that’s not news to anyone else with a kid between the ages of 8 and 21, but remember, I did the iPad all wrong. He doesn’t get that there isn’t unlimited storage. He doesn’t get “the cloud,” and how you have to move or remove images and video in order to make more. He doesn’t get it. Or maybe he does, but just doesn’t want to. He laments that Steve Jobs died too young, before he could figure out how to give people unlimited storage. I kid you not.
So I want to be careful here. Tread softly. Get all of my information from my service provider about the best way to go about this. Pre-paid or not? What limits can I put on the account? Insurance? Can we use this old cell phone I just found in a box from twelve years ago (please, please, please)?…
We shall see how this plays out. Anyone with autism in their lives knows there’s more to consider. “I want Sonic on the back,” is a very real concern. Do they make cases or covers for this model, and if they do, is there a Sonic the Hedgehog version available? If not, we may have to consider a different phone…
Help me.
Simple. I Just Do. 
I am probably quite late for this but we gave our boys Virgin Mobile phones for their first endeavors. I haven’t checked to see what they have now, but then they had cheap phones that weren’t the smartest available. They also had plans that put a limit on minutes, etc. and had icons on the phones that showed the guys just where they were. We could even limit the hours that they were working so we could eliminate school hours, late night, etc. It was a great way to introduce but control their first experience with phones.
That is a great option!