We have just gotten a mobile phone for our 11 (almost 12) year old daughter. It is second hand, we bought a new cover for it off Ebay and bought her a  new sim card that has $30 credit on it. We made sure that the sim would last for

I was not happy about getting her a phone at her age at first but her biological father promised her a brand new one and then after she had told all her friends she would have a mobile for high school he told her he wasnt getting her one. If you could have seen the look on her beautiful little face it was devastating. It makes me so angry that he does that to the girls all the time but getting back to the subject.

My brother had a spare mobile phone and said we could have it to give her if we wanted. We didn't refuse. It was really hard not to give it to her before christmas because she wanted it so much. It was worth it but to see her face on christmas day when she opened her present up.

We have set some rules for the phone though

1) She saves her money for credit. We have to stick by this so hopefully this is a learning experience for her about money.

2) She does not use it in class. If she is caught with it in class she will lose it for 1 month for the first offence. 2 months 2nd offense and so on.

3) She is not allowed to let any one else use her phone unless it is a life threatening emergency. This will hopefully prevent content being put on her phone by someone else.

4) If she dosn't put credit on the phone before the sim card runs out we are not going to fix it

and last but not least

5) She is never allowed to send nasty, abusive or explicit content from her phone. The penalty for this is we take the phone away completely.

So if you are considering getting your tween a phone make sure you set rules before it is handed over and make sure the tween agrees to the rules. I really hope that this helps someone with their decision to get a mobile phone. I actually feel a little better knowing that if she needs to now she can call me any time she might need me.