July 29, 2016
I Broke The Rule

I am a proud stay-at-home mom.  I've heard your stance on kids with cell phones, but somehow I thought MY kids were different and that they'd totally obey my rule of not using the chat option on their phones.  Boy, was I wrong.

My 13 year old son told me that he had been talking to someone involved in an online game and that he had a "date" with this person to play the next day.  That was it.  My husband and I sat down with both our kids to tell them of the many dangers of chatting online.  We then took away their phones.

To my delightful surprise, our boys didn't act like they cared one bit.  They originally thought they would get their phones back, but when I told them that I regretting getting them phones in the first place and they weren't going to get them back, they just rolled with it.

I now have two very happy and active boys who are phone-free.  They haven't asked about them in months.  I was shocked.  They're playing "pretend" outside, playing in the house, and have come up with ways to entertain themselves.  We take family trips and even Mom and Dad don't use our phones the whole time we're together.  We've bonded a lot more as a family too.  I wish I never had broken your rule, but now I have used my brain and everything is working out better than I had hoped.  I'll listen and follow your guidance from now on instead of thinking we're somehow "special!"

Jenni


Posted by Staff at 10:59 AM