Making teens stay off their cell phone is like asking fish stay out of water, either you accept it or not teens of the day are badly addicted to their cell phones, though totally separating your teenage kids from their cell phone is not feasible yet keeping the addiction away is quite possible and is pretty necessary as well.
According to a latest research most of the teens spend their entire day texting to their friends, even when they are sitting in the same room; they prefer texting instead of talking face to face. This is indeed a serious damage to the interactive and communicative skills of the children which can even lead to serious behavioural disorder when they step into the adult world.
But can you not stop this from happening? Yes, you can, all you’ll need to do is put a check on your child. And here are the tips to help you out.
Introduce a Disciplined Cell Phone Usage
Tell your child that every time is not the SMS time; every time is not meant for chatting or fiddling around with the cell phone. Make a special schedule and introduce a rule which will be same for the kids as well as the adults in the family. So, at lunch or dinner or tea, it is not a texting time, it is the time for family interaction; you too will have to follow the rule to ensure that your child does the same. Set some rewards for those who follow the rules well, this will prove motivating in inculcating the discipline in your child.
Explain the Possible Threats of Chatting with Strangers
Internet chatting is quite addictive and teenagers are the most affected by it but chatting with strangers can be dangerous of which teenagers are hardly aware. Kids with troubled times with their peers and school and class mates are the most vulnerable ones and sexual predators are just waiting for emotionally weak kids chatting online. But if your child knows the possible threat and is well aware of what may be the consequences, the possibilities are less likely.
Restrict the Mobile Usage, especially the Texting & Chatting part
If the available internet usage with your child is restricted and the number of SMS that your child will be able to send is also restricted to a certain number, your child will be more involved in other important things. One great way of doing this is putting a limit on cell phone bills; this will make your child use it less. But what if your child is smart enough in arranging another SIM with more discounts and cool schemes for users? Got to think, huh? Best is to install child cell phone monitoring software on your child’s mobile giving you every possible detail of the cell phone usage, and you’ll know if SIM is being changed.
Restrict Application Usage
If you desire the total safety of your child restrict application usage on their cell phone. Recently, Skout, a dating application was in news as some adults tricked teenagers into dating and meeting them leading to rape of the minors. The app was forced to ban minors from using it but still there are hundreds of such unsafe mobile applications available online that aren’t age appropriate for your teenage child. With proper parental control you can block all such application usage and ensure the safety of your child.
