Daddy, would you be upset if I lost my phone?
No. In fact, you’d be more upset than me.” She thought about it for a second and then agreed. My daughter is actually on her third cell phone—but the first one with a SIM card and data plan. I gave to her her first phone when she was 6 years-old so she can shoot her videos. It was a repurposed phone. The second one was another hand-me down but a more powerful camera. But she accidentally dropped that and went without a device for months until it was repaired. She played with that for years. Now that she’s in Grade 5, she was old enough to make occasional trips to school and back home on her own and I gave her a third cell phone. She was beyond happy. She didn’t care that it was yet another hand-me down phone but it had a functioning SIM card and it allowed her to make calls, text friends, video conference dad and mom and watch TikTok videos without being tethered to WiFi! It was like an umbilical cord had been cut. She’s come a long way from her first cell phone and now, because she occasionally travels alone from school, she’s was only a handful of students in her class with phone and data plan.
We also reviewed a plan in case her phone was stolen or missing. First, I’d call the telco to reissue a SIM card. Second, I’d source another used phone. Third, we’d have a long talk about how to better protect her property.
Contrary to me needing to teach her a lesson, her requirements of having a phone far outweigh any parental reasons to be additionally punitive if she lost it.
From a material point of view, the value of my daughter’s third phone is of little concern. Compared to all the new phones in the market, her 2 year old phone is not the shiniest and would-be thieves would get a higher resale value if they took someone else’s. From a security point of view, only her fingerprint or password would gain entry to the data and after 10 failed attempts, the phone will auto wipe anyway. From a data backup perspective, the data is connected to the cloud so every moment she captured and every text she exchanged is available to be reviewed and restored. But from a convenience perspective, it is much more devastating; she already knows what it was like to go without so she is extra careful in safeguarding things she holds value.
She’s demonstrated responsibility for taking care of things and I see a phone as an essential communication device. Replacing it is not a question of if, but of when. Contrary to me needing to teach her a lesson, her requirements of having a phone far outweigh any parental reasons to be additionally punitive. Contrast this to one of her classmates who sported a brand new iPhone which he touted as the best in the school. Within a week of showing it off, it was stolen. His mom was out over a thousand bucks and was beyond pissed. The poor kid went without a phone as punishment. It’s been months since, and he still doesn’t have a replacement. Parents teach differently and every child learns differently also. I am sympathetic to the parents; the kid has to have some skin in the game. I know in my own household, the Bank of Dad is a low-risk, penny-pinching creditor who expects a return on value.
Not a week after my daughter asked if I would be upset if she lost her phone, I discovered an old box in the basement holding some even older flip phones I once used. There was an assortment of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Blackberry. I even pulled out the extremely futuristic Motorola StarTAC! I called her over and said, “If you did lose your phone, you can replace it with one of these.” She peek into the box and took out a clamshell. She flipped it open and tried to touch the screen. “It doesn’t have a touch screen,” I said. She picked up a Nokia with an LCD big enough for 3 lines of text. I commented, “Texting on this requires you to press the number several times to get the alphabet. See? There’s also no app store on these phones. But there is a game called Snake. Wanna play?” She turned her nose up at me and walked away. Good, I thought to myself. I’m thankful that you appreciate what you have, Little Miss.
