Determining when the right time to buy your child a cellphone can be a tough exercise. If your life is anything like mine, I feel like kids are exposed to things at earlier and earlier ages. Just recently my wife wanted to take our 5 year old to the Hannah Montana concert. Forget the fact that two tickets were around $300, I thought it was crazy to take a 5 year old to a concert. It wasn't easy to say no considering a handful of her classmates were going with their parents.
Fortunately, I haven't heard of anyone in her class carrying a cellphone yet but the question does come up occasionally in our house considering I spend a lot of time talking and reading about cellphones.
My guess is that our family won't be the first in our circle to outfit our kids with a cellphone but we won't be the last either. Like most things, deciding when to give children cell phones is an individual family choice, and it depends on lots of variables.
Some parents give in to kids' requests for cell phones as cool accessories. Others opt for a family plan because everyone in the family is off in different directions. Other parents want the peace of mind of knowing their children can reach them in a moment's notice if needed, and they can call them, too.
If you have decided that the time is right for buying your teen or tween their first cellphone, I'd encourage you to check out kajeet.
My guess is that most people haven't heard of the company because they are new to the cellphone space and they just started selling service this year.
Based in Bethesda, Maryland, kajeet was started by three dads who were trying to figure out how technology, kids and parents work best ("kajeet" is an anagram of the first letters of the names of the company's founders' children). Thinking of their own kids, they designed a service to provide them with everything they need to safely explore the exciting new world of mobile technology.
Through their efforts, they have created the only pay-as-you-go cell phone service that puts kids first. Kajeet provides fully capable phones to its customers, trusting that the parents will provide service limitations while the child will learn how to use a real cell phone. And because it's a pay-as-you-go carrier, there are no long term contracts.
Their pricing plan seems to be very competitive and straight forward: you pay 35 cents a day for daily access, 10 cents per minute of talk, 5 cents per text message, and $6.99 a month for unlimited mobile instant messaging.
And their lineup of phones, led by the Katana II, is great too. This holiday season, you can find kajeet at more than 3000 select retail locations nationwide including: Best Buy, Target, Toys “R” Us, Longs Drugs and Limited Too, as well as online at kajeet.com.
I certainly know that choosing the right cellphone provider and plan is a difficult task, but everything I've read about kajeet sounds really promising. I love the flexibility of not signing a long term contract especially when you're dealing with a first time user. For those of you that do go with kajeet, we'd love to hear how the service is working out.
