Top 4 Cell Phones Use Rules for Kids and Teenagers 2024
Every parent should set cell phone use rules for kids when they hand over cell phones to them. In short kid’s cell phones should come with some parent-child cell phone contract or plan or some list of rules which are applicable not only on the kid but also on the parent. That’s because monitoring your child’s media use can help to develop their mental and physical health.
Steps Parents Need to Follow before Creating Cell Phone Use Rules
When parents decide that the kids should have cell phones, then they must remain prepared to avoid the problems that will come with the use of the phone. So, essential pieces of advice need to be laid out before you set the rules like restricting cell phone’s usage during meal time or school for children. Here are a few sets of steps that parents should follow for framing rules:
- You should never forget that your child develops everything you do and say. And that is especially true when it comes to cell phone behavior. If you don’t want your teen to use a phone while driving, then you should follow it first then only your child develops it.
- Parents have to put the cell phone policy in place the very first day you allow your children to use a phone so that the rules become their habit from the very first day itself.
- The policy should come across to them as this is the only way to use this type of thing. If you wait till a problem arises when your cell phone rules come across as a punishment.
What Are Different Cell Phone Rules that Parents Should Follow?
Every parent wants to protect their kids from harmful effects of a cell phone. Sometimes to set up rules, you may end up making such rules which restrict the child too much. Whereas there is even possible that you set up so liberal standards that ultimately cell phones can harm your kid. You have to ensure that rules are for safe family cell phone use and are not for creating problems for the family. These are some examples of typical cell phone rules:
Restrict cell phones while in the bedroom at night
Kids need a lot of sleep if they are allowed to have a cell phone in their room at night; they will be texting friends for hours without sleeping much. You should frame a rule that everyone in the house will put their cell phone in one location to charge overnight.
Restrict cell phones to school
Although schools also restrict cell phone use in school, still some kids may use. To carry out this rule correctly, you have to frame such a system that the phones need to remain in a visible location at home when the kids go to school.
No cell phones during meals
Dinner time is the only family time, especially on weekdays. So, it is essential for you to create such a rule where no one uses their cell phones while having a meal. When you establish rules for teen cell phone use, then you have first to ensure that you follow the rules yourself.
No camera access at certain times
Kids take pictures of everything, even if it’s inappropriate. Even kids tend to take clear images of themselves voluntarily. You can carry out this rule by installing a parental monitoring app on their device and block the camera access at certain times when you feel they should not use the camera.
All the contacts in the cell phone should be a real friend or family member: It is quite common that when you give a cell phone to your child, they are eager to show it off. When your child is a teen, then often you have to trust them to use reasonable discretion while giving out their phone number. But when your child is young, then you should keep a check on their cell phone contacts.
How to Stick to Cell Phone Use Rules?
Just establishing the rules is not enough. You have to ensure that you as well as your child follows it strictly. The rules mentioned above are not only for the teen child, but these are also even applicable for young children. If you want the practices like no usage of cell phones during meal time to work for the long run, then tell the rules to the children from the first day, they begin using cell phones. Here are the ways by which you can stick to the rules:
- Think ahead of time about the possible points of contention and let this time of early cell phone usage be training for proper cell phone etiquette for your child when they become an adult.
- You can discuss basic safety rules for cell phones with your family and tell them why you are enforcing these rules. Then only they can stick to the rules.
- If you are enforcing the rules from the first day your child gets the cell phone then hopefully good habits will be well established.
How iKeyMonitor Helps Maintain Cell Phone Use Rules?
You establish the rules for safe family cell phone use. So, if you want to check whether your child is following the rules like not using phones in schools or sleep time religiously even in your absence, then using a monitoring app like iKeyMonitor is essential. These are a few more things that you can do using iKeyMonitor:
- You can block your child from certain dangerous or inappropriate apps/games.
- It lets you remotely monitor and control their online activities on their phone.
- You can even set screen time limits and tracking their phone calls.
Therefore, parents should take the time to talk to the child about why you are setting up these cell phone use rules and explain the importance of being safe while using cell phones. You may feel that you are missing out something while following the rules, but you have to stick to it if you want your children to stick to it. Apart from that, you can track the activities of your child by using a spy app like iKeyMonitor on their device.
Tags: basic safety rules for cell phones, cell phone use rules, establish rules for teen cell phone use
Category: Learning & How to, Parental Control Tips
