Mr 17 has 250 text messages a month. We gave him this plan as a birthday gift and pay the fee for it. He does however pay for his phone to be on our plan and had to buy his phone. He goes over on text messages every month! I t drives me nuts. He has asked for unlimited messaging, but never offered to pay for it. We have decided not to pay for it. So when he goes over his texts in a month, he has to pay the difference. It would be cheaper for him to just pay the extra to up his plan to unlimited texts instead of the extra. He's just unwilling to do so.

I don't have teen kids, but I don't know what it would hurt to agree to the deal.

If she can't do it, respectfully explain to her that she's not holding up her end of the deal and the cell company is cancelling her texting because she hasn't paid it.

Both my kids (11 y/o boy and 14 y/o girl) have cell phones. We have a family plan where you can add a line for $10 each. We share minutes and rarely go over. Text? Another story all together. My son and I rarely text, but my daughter? Queen of texting. So after an especially high phone bill one month, I added texting on her phone only, 1000 messages for $10 a month. She pays the extra $10, plus any overages if she uses more than her allotted texts. Now, you would think with 1000 texts, she would never go over, right? Wrong!! 14 year old, girl, please! It doesn't happen often, but when it does? Well, she either hits her wallet, or starts lining up extra chores around the house to pay for it.

I don't even think I could type 1000 text messages in a month. It takes me half an hour to type one m easly line of text

Olivier's 16 now and all he does when he runs out is borrow my phone

My son, age 9, wants an I-phone.

I laugh every time he says that.

He also wants a Ferrari.

My 15 year old daughter has had a cell phone for a year, and we broke down a few months ago and got unlimited text messaging. I agree with you that at her age I spent HOURS on the phone, and this is the same social aspect. I think it is a great sign that she agreed to pay for 1/2. We also have a rule of no texting during homework time (so she will stay focused). Works for us.

We have unlimited texting. No, they don't pay for it. Largely cause their mom uses the texts as much as they do and in the long run its a lot cheaper than when they go over their minutes.

I wish I could say we carefully formulated this plan and calculated the consequences and this will happen if you don't comply like your other readers but we are just extremely....wimpy and loose around here.

Enter the Tmobile pay as you go plan -
we give Gameboy $25 of phone time every 3 months anything more than that & he is on his own. The only flaw in the plan comes when he is out of time & I want to call him.

New Orleans Teen:
16 years old
upwards of 2000 texts a month
makes my bill $100 more than normal

New Orleans Teen:
Handed over her first ever paycheck for cost of texts.

New Orleans Teen:
Learned a lesson.

I hope

I blocked texting from my 15 yr old boy and 13 yr old girl phones. They seem to be surviving. What I dislike about this IM world is that the kids are missing out on developing social skills. My 15 yr old is articulate and witty with girls on line, but I don't think he could talk to a girl in the hall.

Oh, how timely! We bought our 12 YO daughter a cellphone two days ago and I too signed her up for that 200 message plan. We paid for the phone and the $10 family plan monthly fee; she will pay for the messaging (including any overage). Her only regular income is her allowance, and it will come out of that. Unlimited messaging would pretty much eat up all of the allowance she has left after one week's worth is split between church and her savings account. The messaging is already crazy already. Send one text to a friend, and it immediately turns into 10. Our 22 YO son has had a cell phone for 6 years, and has probably had a total of 25 text messages in that entire time. I suspect she will either have to spring for the unlimited or let us block texting altogether on her phone. I may offer her a way to "earn" some of the money for the texting. I hate cleaning bathroooms, anyway.

No regular income here either. We do have unlimited texting on 17 year old's phone. She doesn't go over, but when kids do, it's expensive. Any problems with the phone at home or school? It gets taken away for a while.

Embarrassing, but I cannot type text messages or figure out how to read the few that are on my phone. I'm hoping they're all from Verizon.

Yet another skill this Generation W woman must learn.

It's astonishing how quickly things are changing, I wonder what you'll be asking the internets when TNYK(FKATPAFKABB) turns 13.
Yikes!

My 20 year old (who recently moved out and got her own cell plan... Hallelujah!!) never had texting included that we paid for. We charged her for each time she did it (and anytime she went over her allotted minutes), and when she didn't have a job, she had to repay us in free babysitting (we got a lot of that). When she wanted to upgrade to 200 messages per month, she had to pay the $5 charge for it each month. There were a couple of times when her overage was so extreme that we took the phone away for anywhere from a week to a month.She learned very fast to keep track of her usage.

seeing as most unlimited plans are only 10 bucks a month...I say Amen and sign them up. Because at a quarter apeice over the limit it gets mighty costly. Mulitply that by 3 teens and we wouldn't be able to eat, while I was waiting for them to make enough dough to pay the bill

We are on the 700-minutes a month plan. I get 35 and she gets the rest. But going over (which we havent yet) would be a disaster, something like 45 cents a minute.

Oh, wait a minute, you asked about kids. Well, if I were you, I wouldn't have any. Does that help?

I swear I have unlimited texting for five bucks a month... maybe I need to check this as I must be wrong!

Yes to the unlimited plan. This after over 100 dollars worth of overages with *only* 1000 minutes per month (yes, he paid me back - I was docking his allowance a certain amount per week plus took it in chunks out of other income he got, including birthday cash.)

Now, he pays me back for unlimited messages by giving me unlimited babysitting for his little sister in return (we used to have a system - devised by the kid, no less - where I'd get the first two hours free each week, and then pay him a dollar an hour after that, added to his allowance.) Since the unlimited message package is 15 bucks and I'd be paying more to an 'outside' sitter? I'm getting a bargain...

Oh - my son is 14.

Both my kids(son 13 and daughter 11) have cell phones. We have the family plan too that has the $10 each line per month. We don't have the text messaging though, because we have found that it can be disruptive. The schools in our area do not allow cell phones anyway. I don't know what to tell you.Ours aren't old enough to work, except do their weekly chores, for which we compensate them with an allowance and the cell phone use.
Good luck..
Love your site too..

My daughter's texting is I think the only thing she uses the cell phone for. She went way over when she first got the phone but after my screaming fit she did well with her 200 texts. Emphasis on did, now she has a new boyfriend and they text constantly (could be worse I guess) so I changed her to the unlimited mobile to mobile text with 200 regular texts. Thankfully he has Cingular too or we'd have a problem. On the upside since she's been texting I now have 2300 extra rollover minutes.

Oh dear....I live in fear of the time when the majority of communications from my children look like "omg - bff tly lkd u mr ltr ttfn". I'm hoping there's some kind of remedial guide book.

Oh dear....I live in fear of the time when the majority of communications from my children look like "omg - bff tly lkd u mr ltr ttfn". I'm hoping there's some kind of remedial guide book.

Oh dear....I live in fear of the time when the majority of communications from my children look like "omg - bff tly lkd u mr ltr ttfn". I'm hoping there's some kind of remedial guide book.

I think my point has been made all the clearer by the fact that I've accidently posted this comment three times. My apolgies....perhaps a string telephone might be more my speed!

" I'm hoping there's some kind of remedial guide book. Posted by Betamom"
There is a program called teen chat decoder. I downloaded it a while back and my daughter found it extremely amusing that I would do that actually 'need' to do that. I never felt so old that day. So much for being "cool mom who knows what the heck her daughter is saying."

Please read this post of mine, in regards to my 14 year old and her cell phone!

Please check out my post about my 14 yr. old and her cell !

http://trenting.blogspot.com/2007/08/open-letter-to-rocket-scientistthe.html

My 14 yr old son uses my husbands cell phone to text (we won't get him his own because of poor grades in 8th grade). We just went away for a week and if it weren't for the texting and the instant messaging on the PC, he would have been miserable. My husband's cell had unlimited "in" text and 50 "out". Well, my son's girlfriend has a different cell carrier and I realized this while walking around Kennebunkport late one night. Called Verizon while shopping and found out we were over already by 287 texts! I upped the text plan to their new unlimited in and out plan for both of our phones on the spot and they made it retroactive so I wasn't charged the per text fee. It is SO worth the peace of mind now that I don't have to worry about him going over anymore. I just checked our new bill and saw 1800 texts for last month. Maybe 100 of them would be mine and my husbands.

Yep! We're on the same plan! :)

Michael hasn't had a phone that he can text message on since he entered the ocean with his phone in his pocket in June while we were on vacation. He was supposed to wait for me before he jumped in. Tee-hee! When we got back, I had my old phone reactivated for him. It is 4 years old and bulky. Now you know what to do if she ruins it in a poolor the ocean. Can't help you with funding or overages. His plan is for unlimited texting, and although he is supposed to pay a portion each month, he is on his dad's plan, so of course is never required to pay.

Mechelle-
Did you know you can send a phone thru the washer and the dryer and it eventually will work? Been there. She also dropped it into the toilet (damn low cut jeans with no pockets) tho that one I wasn't willing to try and revive.

I have dropped a Treo in dirty dishwater [5 days later it was dry and worked fine] and had a different Treo get milk dripped into it from a sippy cup....who says they don't spill??? The phone didn't even miss a beat, and despite my worst fears, also didn't smell bad.

I have to say, I am glad you are all working this out for me. My 8yo is sprinting toward the days of cell phones, I can tell. I am glad to hear that I will eventually get some babysitting out of this. :)

My 15 y.o. is on a plan through T-Mobile. Its $52.99 a month, with unlimited texting and 500 anytime minutes. She pays half of it through her allowance. I think it's a fair deal since she is frequently out of town to ball games during the school year, with the band, and needs to be picked up at my-eyes-should-be-sleeping-by-now o'clock and needs to call us to come and get her. She can text, and it alerts my phone so loudly that it wakes the neighbors cat.

Oldest son had texting and then did about 1500 one months and cost us and him about $300 extra. Mom freaked out. It was her plan (we each have a different carrier plan and a kid attached to it). We said don't let it happen again and it did. Good bye messaging. He said he was fine with that. Now, 18 months later, he has to have it again. Has a job and is offering to pay. We are still pondering. Control, we think, might still be an issue. I mean, he is 17. What 17 yr old boy has control?

I'm a grown woman (29) with a 3 yr old. I have unlimited texting for $10/month. When 3 grows up and into his own cell phone, I'd be happy to get him unlimited texting. What is forgotten when doing the "text" math, is that it counts when one is SENT as well as RECEIVED. So if you get 1000 texts, you really only can send 500. That adds up VERY quickly. I've been known to do 80 in one day. And it's soo convenient to ask my sitters to babysit while their at school!!! Muuuwaahhhh!! ;)

My teens 16 and 18 have unlimited but this year my 16yo's phone will be staying home with me while he's at school. You see, dumb daddy bought him a phone that goes on the internet etc. Doofus(Dad not kid, kid knew I'd never say yes)well, kid got D's cuz he paid more attention to phone than class. I could see that coming but Daddy(ARGH!) I will not even get into it. From kid's bedtome until he arrives home from school that sidekick phone will not leave my side.

I have two cell phones to my self, and last month i used 560 messages on my Cingular Phone and 6400 on my Sprint phone (i text more on this one cause it has a full sized keyboard) Unlimited is always worth it as long as its under 20 bucks a month.