6 year old has cell phone

[sad stepmother]

Hi all!

My six year old stepson has recently began bringing a cell phone over on his weekend's with us, a supposed "gift" from his mother so that the child can call her whenever he wants to. The child's mother has been accusing us of not allowing the child to talk to her when he is at our home.  We certainly allow the child to talk to her if he asks to call her problem is that the child is so busy playing with his toys and dad that he often decides not to call her even when we encourage him to do so.

I didn't mind the cell phone at first because the child would call his mom on his own phone and leave our land line clear (being that mom will keep him on the phone for awhile) but lately the child does not want to call his mom when he is at our house and we are being accused of taking the cell phone away.  Another problem that we are having is that when the child does call his mother on the cell phone it's usually to "taddle" on us if the child gets in trouble or is told "no" to a request.

This is not appropriate and We have requested that the cell phone not come with him to our house.  We do our exchanges through the CASA monitored exchange program so a CASA volunteer brings the child to the waiting room where we wait to pick him up and there is no contact with the mother.  But despite our insistance that the cell phone stay home it continues to come with him.  We can't exactly send it back being that the mother leaves the exchange center as soon as she drops him off. (that's how CASA works so the parents don't run into eachother)And we continue to be accused of "hiding" (mom's exact words) the phone from him.  When for the most part he simply doesn't desire to call her.

I think that a 6 year old is too young to have an expensive cell phone, he is very careless with his own toys and I am concerned that we will get balmed if something happens to the cell phone.

What are your thoughts??

[Stepmom0418]

I agree that a 6 year old is too young to have a cell phone.

A couple of questions for you....

1)Would CASA keep the phone untill the next excange??

2)Could you send a certified letter to BM?

In the letter request that the phone not be sent as SS is too young to be responsiable for the phone AND you have a land line that he can use if he chooses to call her. Also if the phone is sent to your home you will put it up until the end of the visit and if ss asks to call then he may use the land line phone to call her. I would also add that you and your DH will not be responsiable for the phone if BM insists on sending it with ss for the visit.

Good luck!!

[onedaddy]

I would certainly send thay letter to clear you of any future accusation.

You might also want to make up a time to call the BM when the child is with you.  We have an order stating BM can speak with the children between 7-7:15PM.  BM calls us or we call her and hand the children the phone.

[ttfn]

Having It written in the order a specific time doesn't guarentee the call will be made, I have that written  in my current order and father only knows that  it is a one way street , father is permitted to call any night during week  during his non parenting time, but also states he must initiate call on saturdays and vacation time while child is with him. To date that is NOT being done but father has no problem  calling  any other time.
 Child IS being told cannot call mom while there and has made it so uncomfortable for her to even think about it that she shy away from it.
 By giving the cell phone to a six year old  is what child and parent are comfortable  with then don't interfere unless you plan on making that call happen each and every time child is away from CP.  AS for being to young the child might be more responsible then you are giving credit for.
 Taking phone away because you don't want to be bothered or responsible you are displaying   more fricition between both parents.

[ocean]

She stated that the child has begun to call mom when he gets in trouble at Dad's to "complain" to BM. This has to stop now before it gets out of hand. I like the idea of sending that letter with the time the child will call the mother from the land line. The phone stays in child's bag in the off position. One phone call per night and let the rest go to voicemail or machine. The BM is trying to be controlling here. They are not stopping the phone call...different senerio than your own.

[kitten]

When SO has the kids, he asks them every day if they want to call
BM and they say "no".  The kids want uninterupted time with Dad.  She can bring that up in court if she wants too, but no sense forcing them to call her and upsetting them.  When he calls and they don't want to talk to him, neither force them to.

[sad stepmother]

Thank you! It's obvious that you understand the situation.  We do not oppose to SS calling to talk to mom, in fact we encourage it.  Problem is that SS doesn't want to call her and this weekend BM decided to start text messaging his cell phone because he didn't call her.  I forced SS to call her to put BM "at ease" (since BM has it in her head that SS is just so miserable when he is with us and misses her so much that he can't possibly have an enjoyable weekend away from her. Which simply isn't the case) since I have to read SS the messages because he can't read more than a few words.  Well, when SS called his mom, she asked him to put me on the phone(my husband was a work through all this) there is a court order stating that there is to be no telephone contact between the parties and that all communication needs to go through BM's attorney. (BM wanted it that way!) Unless an emergency occurs then BM is allowed to contact my husband through me (I don't like being caught up in the middle here).  With my SS looking up at me holding his cell phone I didn't want to hurt his feelings by refusing to talk to BM and hanging up on her.(which is what I'm supposed to do if she calls me and it's not an emergency) I took the phone and BM, though polite, starts going on about some of SS lost toys and how SS is just miserable because he can't find them, though SS never mentioned this to us. I told her that I would help him search for the toys but could make no guarantee's.  We have 3 kid's in the house SS missing toys could be anywhere.  The cell phone has to go.  Should we set a timeframe for SS to call BM every weekend whether he wants to or not?? Or should I give SS the cell phone have him put it in his nightstand and let her "text message" him all she wants to, and he can call her on his phone when he wants to??      

[Stepmom0418]

I peosonally would get rid of the cell phone!! BM is only using the cell phone as a way to control your home and myself I would not stand for it! Your house, your rules!!!


Send Bm the letter I mentioned above and ask her not to send the cell to your home and let her know that you are not going to be responsiable for the phone any longer if she sends it with SS. Then if she sends the cell phone put it up untill the visit is over and allow SS to use the land line phone if he chooses to call his BM!

My SS does not want to talk to his BM while at our home either so I know what you are saying when you say he dont want to talk to her! BM here also says SS is miserable with out her! (but yet he gets upset everytime we have to take him back to her)

[Stepmomnow]

I think you should turn the thing off when SS gets to your house and he can turn in back on when he leaves -

But reading the posts, I am very interested to find out that others have the same impression of phone calls that we have: THE KIDS DON'T LIKE THEM.  We were always told that the phone calls from the other parent were supposed to reassure the kids that the other parent was still connected to them.  But we find that SS does not like talking to either parent on the phone and can be quite rude to either of them when he decides to be.  He often gets them off the phone as quickly as possible (no matter where he is or whose house he is at).  It makes me question whether the phone calls are for the kids or the parents.

[Stepmom0418]

In our case the phone calls are for BM! There has only been 2 times that SS has asked to call Bm.... Once to ask if he could stay here longer and he was broken hearted when she told him no. The second time was when he wanted DH to shave his head and he said he had to ask his BM first, which by law was not the case but DH allowed him to call anyways.


In fact DH doesnt even have a phone number to call SS during the 2 weeks when he does not see him. So IMO the calls here are for BM.


One good thing about it is that the past 2 weekends that we had SS BM has not even attempted to call. (before this BM would call here at least 10 times from friday at 8pm to sunday at 8pm) I think that she finally got the hint that SS does not enjoy talking to her on the phone.

In fact he doesnt like to speak to anyone on the phone not even his brother or sisters. SS does not like the telephone at all.