When I was growing up, we only had a landline because my parents needed to keep in touch with us whenever they traveled. The day my cousins made a mistake and gave their classmate our landline number, it wasn't funny at all.
It happens that whenever my parents travel, my cousin will use our landline to call their classmates who happen to have a landline too in their house. On this fateful day, my father was listening to the news when the landline started ringing and normally my father will call one of us to pick the call, but he went and picked it himself.
That's how all of us were punished for one person's crime. My father told us that the reason he refused to buy us a phone is because we would get carried away, according to him the ordinary PlayStation he bought for us. We almost burnt the house down playing games.He told us right there and then that none of us would own a smartphone until we finish secondary school.
He makes sure to keep his word, but the problem is that we finished secondary school at a young age, before fifteen or sixteen years old. My father still refuses to buy us phones, but after much pressure, he bought us a button phone. Then midnight calls started. That's why we couldn't sleep; we would talk on the phone until morning. Whenever we came out for morning devotion, all of us would be sleeping.Unknown to us, my father decided to find out why we always sleep during morning devotion.
So he caught us making a midnight call and ceased all of our phones. That's how we were grounded for 2 weeks. At eighteen, I didn't have any phone. Later, my father returned our phones but with a strict warning that if he catches us again, he will sell our phones.My cousin's father finally bought him a smartphone; you can see the happiness on all of our faces.
Then our happiness was short-lived when my father, always him, picked up my cousin's phone to check something, and saw a blue film inside. As Usually, all of us were punished. Then my father told us that he doesn't want us to have a smartphone. After six months, my father bought me a smartphone.I never dare to download rubbish on my phone even as an adult.
As for the right age to give a child a phone or allow them to own a social media page, anytime you as a parent deem it fit. Because I see parents in this modern day buying a tablet for a child of 2 years and not even bothering to control the screen time; as soon as the child cries, they give him the phone immediately.
If you know as a parent that you can't control your child's screen time, just allow them to own a phone at eighteen because by then they are already adults and know their left from their right.
Don't shy away from teaching them the positive and negative effects of owning a social media account, what to post and what not to. Try to follow them on their pages to check out their activities. The majority of teenagers have joined crime through social media, and some have made their parents proud too. In all, monitor their activity with or without their knowledge.
Image is AI generated
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