6 year old has cell phone

[ttfn]

One question to all who disagree, do you call the other parents house daily to speak with child while they are not with you?
 My childs father does that even though he is aware we are not there because  of an activity  either she or I are involved, someone brought up the comment about controlling  I agree with that in as much as father is  trying to  keep me under thumb every day to be at beckon call for a phone  call. My daughter  speaks to father for a few minutes and politely says she wants to get off now and she hangs phone up (child is 5). She controls the amount of time on phone not me I have worked with her  so she has some ettiquette while on the phone.  Does this also mean I needn't feel obligated to be tied to a house for  a call that might come in?
 Text messaging is a bit to advanced since reading  is not a     strong point      with someone at this age. The evalutator that is currently doing the evalution has leaning towards regular contact with parent  that child is not with  on the EOW or week schedule. depending on where children are at.  Encourages computer and phone use, mind you father and are are not even agreeable about any thing.  Just a thought/question.

[sad stepmother]

My husband wishes that he could call his son every day.  We don't even have the SS cell number to call him and my husband is forbidden to call his ex's home. (court ordered actually!!) though he did nothing to deserve it.  and when my husband could call, BM often would rather pick an arguement than allow him to talk to his son.

[ocean]

We called every night just to say hi when she was young. If she was at a school activity (that we could not attend because we went to games and stuff like that) then we left a message just to say goodnight. We did not have a good relationship with BM but SD would call BM when she was here each night too. Once in a while it was every other night. If the father wants to stay involved and wants to call , have your child call to say goodnight before going to bed. (after you came home from the activity). Sometimes it was 2 minutes and other times she would talk a lot longer. :)

[hagatha]

You my friend, are about to be set up.

As she is using text messages to contact a child that cannot yet read, she is setting the stage. If the child is not coming to you with the phone and asking you to read it to him, Ignore all messages. If he comes to you with a message, tell him he must wait for daddy to come home to read the message. make whatever excuse you need. What I can see happening is she speaks briefly to the child and has him give you the phone, then she gets the chance to get to you and claim Anything.

I would suggest you tell him, if absolutely necessary, that mommy wants him to call and excuse yourself to the bathroom. If she gave him the phone, she should have instructed him on its use. He can dial himself. You cannot be around when he talks to mommy dearest. And you can NOT, EVER get on the phone yourself.

The Witch

Remember . . . KARMA is a Wonderful Thing!!!!!

[kitten]

send her a certified letter stating that we do not feel a cell phone is appropriate in our home, we will put the phone in a safe place while ss is at our house.  Once a day, before bed we will have child call BM.  If BM needs to contact child, she may call home phone #.  

A cell phone is not appropriate for such a young child, period!  If she tries to bring this up in court or whatnot, the letter clearly states that you are not denying phone contact, just that you feel the cell is inappropriate at your home.

I agree that this is about control, she is using her own child.

[cathy]

Can you explain the situation to the CASA volunteer and ask them to verify that the child does not have the cell phone because you do not agree with the child having the phone and do not want the responibility for the phone?

This is ridiculous - the kid is 6 years old!  They live in the moment. As one poster pointed out, kids just don't like these phone calls.  Sometimes they are just uncomfortable - sometimes they are just busy and excited in the change of environment.

If it did come over, I would definitely turn it off and put it away.  If I said anything to the kid, it would just be something along the lines of "Oh that is a rather expensive thing and I would hate for it to get messed up or misplaced.  I'm just going to put it for safe keeping until you leave>.

[sad stepmother]

I have explained the situation to CASA, but they have no control over the situation and cannot force BM to take cell phone back home.  We will be keeping the cell phone turned off and if SS wants to call mom we will turn the phone on and allow him to do so. When he is done talking to mom the cell phone is turned off and placed back in a safe place and if SS doesn't want to talk to his mom then I will not force him to do it. Mom will just have to be upset.  Her house, Her rules, Our house,Our rules.  At our house the cell phone stays off unless SS requests to call.

[wendl]

IMO 6 is toooo young for a cell phone. My son is 12 and I still won't allow him to have a cell phone, no reason for one  as we have a phone, we live in a small town so he can use any of the merchants phone in the town if need be.

Does it SPECIFY in your court order that mom has phone contact with chidl during Dads visitation?? If not continue to have your fun weekends. If it does SPECIFY it set up a time for child to call home limit call to a short amount of time ( I don't know any 6yr that really talks on the phone longer than 5 minutes)

Once child calls mom TURN OFF the cell phone and put in a safe spot.

**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[sad stepmother]

We decided to neither encourage nor discourage the telephone contact, SS will continue to be allowed to bring his cell phone unless BM pulls another stunt and hurts SS feelings again.  Then the phone goes bye bye.  We had it written into a court order that we will help SS keep his phone charged if it is brought to our home and that we hold absolutely no liability if the phone gets damaged.  It's SS's business if he chooses to call his mother, but BM had been informed that her constant calls to the cell phone are disruptive and only upsets SS and causes his desire to want to call her to diminish. We'll see how things go.