With the onslaught of telecommunications technology today, people wonder if there is an area in our lives that telecoms do not dominate. Even mobile phone companies have tapped into parents’ primary concern which is their children’s safety and well being.

All of a sudden, children all across America are pleading for their very own units, much to the uncertainty of many parents. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages does help parents decide whether to buy their children their very own Cellphone.

Security

Listing down all pros of kids having Cellphone, the one the tops the list, and may be the only valid excuse in the opinion of many parents, is the fact that it does offer a degree of safety for children and an added sense of security for parents.  A Cellphone comes in handy during emergencies.  And for parents, an emergency qualifies as any situation that may pose or actually poses a threat to their children, whether real or perceived.

Keeping in Constant Touch

Mobile phones also help parents to keep tab of their children wherever they may go. With the advent of GPRS, parents may trick children into believing that they have some degree of autonomy, letting them go wherever they want to, as long as they are kept track.

Teaching Responsibility

A less significant item in the list of pros of kids having cell phones is that it trains children to be responsible for taking good care of their devices and keeping within their spending limits.  However, considering that the average age of neophyte Cellphone users across the US is dropping every year, it does pose a question on whether it makes for good training ground for building responsibility.

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If you’re a parent seriously considering buying a mobile phone for your 11- to 15-year old for your own sanity, then kids cellphones Disney might just be the thing for you.  Disney Mobile markets two handsets under its name, LG and Pantech, the first being the more popular, and is driven by telecommunications carrier Sprint.  The features are packaged under a family-oriented cellphone service that appeals to parents as much as to kids.

The Lure for Kids

Kids find the LG handset particularly fancy, unlike other kids’ cellphones that seem amateurish.  They are happy to find that the phones do not have.  It is a camera phone with a colored screen similar to mom’s or dad’s. It also allows for customization of wallpapers and ring tones which are downloadable from the Vault Disney as well as games.

You’re In Control

Signing up for the service allows families to take home a parent phone and a child phone.  The parent phone acts as a server that lets you controls the spending limits on a child phone using the Family Center menu.  Kids cellphones Disney allows you to set the amount of voice minutes, text messages, and downloads that your child can spend in a month.

The service alerts both you and your child when spending limits are reached, letting you adjust allowances in an instant. One catch though is that you cannot set your child’s text messaging to zero.

You also have the power to control your child’s incoming calls from and outgoing calls to specific numbers.  By default, Disney lists 900 prohibited numbers but you can customize the list by adding 20 more numbers at the Disney website.

Moreover, you set the hours of the day and the days of the week that your child can use the phone.

Tracking Your Kid is Easy

If you’re one of the many parents whose primary interest is locating your kid, you’re just in luck with the kids cellphones Disney.  Its GSM feature accurately locates your kid’s whereabouts as closely as within 50 yards.  And all this happens under your kid’s nose.

Keeping Constant Communication

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For parents who are thinking about ending their agony and giving in to their children’s demands, here’s a list of popular cellphones for kids for your reference.

Cingular Firefly

Cingular now offers two product lines, the glowPhone and the flyPhone. The glowPhone caters to very young kids with colored screens, games and customizable display screens and ring tones to keep their interest. The phonebook can store up to 50 entries.  Meanwhile, the flyPhone is a multi-media camera phone designed for tweens and teens.  It allows kids to make calls, send and receive text messages, listen to music and play games, among others.  Both lines are controlled by a parent phone that sets usage and spending limits.

Cingular offers both prepaid and postpaid plans for their services.

TicTalk

Enfora’s TicTalk is aptly named based on its handset design alone which looks like a stopwatch.  It is intended for very young kids which is why the engineers opted to put in a rocker switch instead of a keypad.  This allows young users to scroll through phonebook entries and make a call with a push of the switch.  Like most cellphones for kids, parents have full control of the phonebook entries through online access as well as calls that are allowed on the kids’ cellphones.

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The moment cellphone magnates started tapping into parents’ homing instincts on their children; sales have been up on the fly.  Back in 2005, Firefly by Cingular led the way and, soon after, others jumped on the bandwagon. Today families have a whole range of kids cellphones to choose from.

Growth of the Technology and the Market

When mobile carriers first thought of the idea, they realized that they had to make parents believe that cellphones for kids are necessity. The selling point was to enable them to keep in constant touch.  Parents are so busy and so are kids and the only way to bridge the distance is through mobile phones.

Most kids cellphones had the basic features such as voice calls and text alerts which were all that parents ever needed to keep in touch.  In response to parents’ never-ending safety concerns for their kids, mobile phone companies had to make parents feel assured that they’re still in control.  Parent phones allowed for remote management of kids’ handsets by setting limits to usage, controlling phonebook contents and screening of incoming and outgoing calls, among others.

The rapid pace of telecommunications technology fueled further the evolution of mobile phone services for kids. All of a sudden, parents also sought the power of GPS to monitor their children’s comings and goings. Children’s handsets have likewise progressed into more sophisticated models, carrying such features as customizable ring tones and wallpapers, internet connection, music, camera and the works.

More and more kids clamored for their very own handsets. More and more parents became convinced of the “felt need”.

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