I want to admit up front that I am not a parent, nor am I a teenager -- I'm just a twenty-something caught between the two age groups.<p>When I wanted something when I was young, my parents treated me somewhat like an adult -- if I wanted something, I had to either save up money for it, or ask for it on special occasions (birthday, Christmas, etc). If I owned it, they also respected my ownership/privacy over it. Because of this, I feel like I grew up with a good sense of judgement, and a feeling like I could be trusted.<p>When I look at this list of rules with my "younger" eyes, I see a leash -- this isn't so much a present for me as much as an additional way to keep tabs/hold authority over for the mother. Children need to feel like they have some privacy, and I'm sorry, but knowing your parents can log in and see everything your doing, along with a laundry list of things you can't do makes things the kid might find fun suddenly an experience in anxiety.<p>What I want to know is, if the kid said no, and used his personal savings/worked a job to get his own phone, would the mom still have this list of things he would need to do, even if he never asked for a dime of help? My guess is yes -- which is why I think this isn't so much the mom helping her son as much as it is her helping herself.
I think this is terrific.<p>I was 14 when I joined Facebook, in 2008. My dad, who is no dummy, laid out a series of rules for my Facebook use (he had been on the site for a year or so already).<p>One of those conditions was that he had my password and could look at my behavior on the site at any time. Occasionally I'd post something that he thought was inappropriate, and we'd talk about it, and I'd get embarrassed.<p>But in retrospect, I'm grateful. Everyone needs guidance as a teenager, and this is especially true for behavior online. Online behavior is at least as permanent as IRL behavior, and the consequences are often more public or serious.<p>I think it's really important to guide your kids online. Though your 13 year old may not appreciate it at the time, s/he will when s/he's 20 and has only half as much embarrassing teenage material floating around on their Facebook timeline (or Twitter account).
This seems a little harsh to me. Everyone takes their phones to school. Everyone sends texts at school. The ship has sailed. If you're the one without the phone, you're the weirdo that nobody will talk to.<p>This mom should have gotten her son a leash instead. Then at least the power play would have been obvious to everyone.
Maybe it's just me, but I've always found rules this explicit in anything but a formal setting distasteful, regardless of how reasonable the rules are. This is one of the main things that pushed me out of university housing after freshman year. Rules everywhere, for everything!<p>My favorite living and working conditions are those where there are no rules simply because they aren't necessary--a very productive sort of anarchy. Now, this only works on a small scale with the right sort of people. In my mind, a family certainly qualifies, so I would <i>really</i> dislike a contract like this!<p>I suppose I just feel that petty rules and regulations just strip away my dignity. They seem to imply a profound lack of respect. They're also simply annoying.<p>On a more startup-related note, this is also one of the reasons I've really enjoyed my time at tiny (< 10 people) startups. They can, and often do, operate in essentially this sort of "anarchy" and are all the more productive for it. No need for pages and pages of company policy simply because everybody cooperates as-is.
It's called parenting and I, for one, as a parent myself, applaud this mother for caring enough to be involved.<p>There are too many parents in the world today, who give their kids a new cell phone and keys to a car and turn them lose in the world without any sort of guidance.<p>Most of these rules just seem common sense (manners, self-respect, etc.), but they need to be observed and passed down. Some of these rules are good for adults as well as children (don't live life glued to a screen). A couple of them expand the responsibility and trust between a parent and child, and provide a system of checks and balances (trust but verify).<p>The only 2 that I would state differently are 4 & 5. If you trust your child with the phone, also trust that he or she will be responsible enough to respect time (or location) limits (not only that, but as holders of the account, you could see whether the device was used after certain times for certain activities).<p>I know I see things differently, because I am a parent. And I hate to use this phrase, but "my house, my rules". That doesn't give my wife or I the right to be dictators, and we aren't, but it is our right to have certain rules and expectations for our children. We impose rules based on values we think are important (manners, self-respect, respect for others, etc.), and when our kids move out then they can decide what values they think are important. Kids (esp our 5-yr-old) don't have to like the rules, but they do have to follow them.
I've always thought this approach to parenting results in children that are ill-equipped to make their own decisions. Teach kids critical thinking and good judgement not a long list of rules to memorize. The rules you do set should be for their safety not to control their lives.
I really liked the clause about no porn. If this mom wants to run her family with Victorian-era iron fist then by all means but trying to stop a 13 year old boy from getting access to porn in 2013 is laughable.
A few choice items from the contract, and how I would've read them as a 13 year old.<p>"1. It is my phone. I bought it. I pay for it. I am loaning it to you. Aren’t I the greatest?"<p>This phone is not yours. Don't use it for anything important and praise me for allowing you to even look at it.<p>"2. I will always know the password."<p>I don't trust you.<p>"4. Hand the phone to one of your parents promptly at 7:30pm every school night & every weekend night at 9:00pm. It will be shut off for the night and turned on again at 7:30am. If you would not make a call to someone’s land line, wherein their parents may answer first, then do not call or text. Listen to those instincts and respect other families like we would like to be respected."<p>I don't trust your friends or your opinions.<p>"5. It does not go to school with you. Have a conversation with the people you text in person. It’s a life skill. *Half days, field trips and after school activities will require special consideration."<p>Once again, I own you.<p>"18. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together."<p>You are the only one that can mess up, I am untouchably perfect and this contract is perfect.<p>---------------------------<p>This contract makes it seem like the kid is a worthless, non-thinking drone and it glorifies the parents as gods.<p>#3 taken with #11 creates a situation in which the kid has to decide when to turn the phone off, but at the same time answer every phone call.<p>#15 states that the kid's peers' music preferences suck.<p>#1 directly contradicts #6 in regards to who pays for the phone.<p>This is insane. I hope someone can show me that this is not as I think it is.
This poor kid will definitely have a brilliant career in cryptography. By 14 he'll also have OpenBSD running in VirtualBox running in iOS, out of frustration. Apple might not approve, but he'll hack iTunes Connect at 15 anyway.
Every child is different and family dynamics matter a lot, but for me (when I was a teenager) this would have seemed insane. An attentive parent is good regardless of their chosen method of parenting, but freedom and support is much better than over the top restrictions/policing. Trust is an important part of a parent <-> child relationship, if he doesn't have the chance to make mistakes it's going to be detrimental. I had a consequence free childhood and I don't think it was for the best.
As someone who is in twenties and may have family in near future, I worry that it'll be hard to deal with teens in this new 'tech' era.<p>But then I realized; most of people in my generation were teens in late nineties when Internet was exploding. Our parents didn't know how to use that thing in majority of cases. But we turned out fine. There was unfettered access to porn. Then things like FB/Twitter came where we were putting ourselves (and lot of intimate details) on digital shelves that would never be cleared. Yet, we all turned okay. Agreed, there were occasional mishaps with someone we know. But given the reach of Internet, we all turned quite well. I believe all of us had strong moralistic values that were imbued in us right from childhood. And those values turned out okay for Internet age too.<p>As someone who doesn't have kid, it will be stupid to pass judgement/opinion on her letter. May be I will be doing same thing since I will be older and worried about safety as well as well being of my child. However, when I was a kid, I remember whenever parents told us strict no for something, I itched to do it (unless it was something extreme). Just out of curiosity. And so did all my friends at that time.
Let's see what we have here...a gift that can be revoked at any time and an overbearing contract on how to live your life.<p>No calls after 7:30pm?
Mom reading my emails?
Don't say anything to a friend that you wouldn't say in front of their parents?
No porn? Seriously?<p>Adolescence is a period of growth and discovery. Let the kid grow up with his generation. Encourage responsible behavior--not inane rules you yourself wouldn't follow. The bit about the music taste was especially rich. Should I apologize for preferring Lady Gaga to Bach? My playlist is unabashedly top 100.<p>Late night AIM convos and talking to my friends until we fell asleep were some of my fondest high school memories. They kept me going and helped me process the world as it opened up to me. I forged friendships then that are sanctuaries to me today.<p>To the kid: Let loose. Explore. Engage in activities that interest you. Don't be afraid to fail. Don't fear the judgment of others. Don't be different for the sake of being different. Don't be overwhelmingly goal oriented. Don't focus your life on padding your resume for some college.<p>You're probably not the introspective, reserved gentleman that your mother wishes you were. Learn to be comfortable with who you are.
Over-inflated ego? There's no app for that.<p>With a list like this I would hope that the kid wises up soon and forgoes the device. It's not worth the pain that's going to come when an inside joke via text is seen by mom and all hell breaks loose. Greg is going to have to set some of his own boundaries as he goes into High School, they will be more valuable than an iPhone ever will.
A 13-year-old is not an adult. The fact that the mom is giving her 13-year-old a $600 piece of hardware at <i>all</i> obviously means that she trusts him with some degree of responsibility. An internet-connected pocket computer is a very powerful device, and it'd be ridiculously irresponsible of her to <i>not</i> set out some kind of guidelines that helps to ensure that he uses it responsibly and "inside the rules".<p>It's called parenting. A 13-year-old is not an adult, and does not have the maturity of an adult. Even if her rules aren't something that you or I would personally agree with, good on her for entrusting him with a large responsibility and setting out the guidelines for that responsibility. It is her duty as a parent to do exactly this - to trust her children with progressively more responsibility and freedom, but to also set hard-and-fast boundaries that shall not be crossed.<p>I like to say "I was such a good parent before I had kids". Parenting is all nice and neat and easy until you actually have to do it. It's really easy to armchair quarterback this one, but I'm pretty certain that anyone without kids is wholly unqualified to pass judgment on this one.
This is not the way to teach a kid responsibility, with a list of seemingly (to a 13 year old) arbitrary and draconian set of rules. Let the kid save up his own money, buy the phone in person, and be responsible for it. That's exactly how it works in the adult world and fits perfectly in this situation, seems like a fitting way to teach responsibility. This mom just seems like a self-aggrandizing control freak.
IANAL but isn't it explicitly <i>not</i> a contract; he doesn't have to sign or agree to anything. With the "Acceptance of this present", doesn't that make it more equivalent of a EULA stuck at the bottom of this page?<p>Or, since it sounds like he got given it first, it's the equivalent of putting an EULA inside the box of something that says "By opening this box you agreed to the following contract:".
As a parent (of now adult children) I like these rules, but can see pushback potential from today's kids. In retrospect, I wished I had, in particular, pushed for #3, having experienced calling the phone I was subsidizing and getting only voicemail.<p>And I like #6. and #7 is what parents should be doing.<p>The password thing (#2) was not something I would ask, nor the other privacy things, as I assumed they already had enough judgement by that time to have their own privacy. In fact, my Facebook rule for my kids and their peers that I know has always been that they invite me to be friends, not the other way around.<p>And #15, #16, and #17 are things that should be part of family life already.<p>#11 might be a good idea, but what adults even do that? As a parent, if you expect a behavior from your kid, the best way to get that behavior is by setting an example.
I'm not sure, what could be a good reply to a list of rules like this. I guess, accepting the phone, rolling your eyes and hoping that stupid rules will gradually dissipate.<p>Reductio ad absurdum also works well, for particulary stupid rules.