October 18, 2019
Kids and mobile phones are ever so fond of one another, but giving a youngster a phone is fraught with concern. 
So Your Kid Wants A Phone – Now What?
Grooming, cyberbullying, sexting, access to extreme materials, running up huge bills, refusing to engage with anything other than that glowing rectangle in their hand... there are a whole load of reasons to avoid getting your child one. 
Perhaps it’s because of this, then, that there’s an increasing market for ‘dumbphones’ – devices designed for calls and text messages, but not much else. American entrepreneur, Stephen Dalby, founded Gabb in the US, a company selling mobiles with severely limited features (no browser, no games, no social media).
But if you can’t find an equivalent in the UK – or you’d prefer to just get your child a normal phone – how do you know when they’re ready?Related... The Notes App Is The Perfect Hideout For My Darkest Secrets Knowing what age to give your child a phone is tricky – it’s hard to point to one age and say, yes, that’s when they’ll be ready – but experts we spoke to suggest there’s no need for a child to have one before secondary school.
According to research in 2018, the average age for children to get a phone is 10. But in some communities, mobile phones are so ubiquitous that not giving your child one until they approach their teens is a Big Deal.
Others prefer to wait a bit longer. Bill Gates, for example, previously spoke about not letting his kids have phones until they were 14. “We don’t have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal, we didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier,” the father-of-three told the Mirror. In short, every family is different. We are giving our kids way more than ‘just a phone’ when we give them a smartphone.Dr Kristy Goodwin, digital wellbeing speakerConcerns raised about giving kids their first phone is more about what else they will then have access to. “We are giving our kids way more than ‘just a phone’ when we give them a smartphone,” says Dr Kristy Goodwin, a digital wellbeing speaker. “They have a camera, the internet, apps and a plethora of other potential dangers when they access a phone.”
And Professor Peter Fonagy, CEO of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, agrees. “It’s the function of a phone that really matters, far more than the physical reality of having one,” he says. “It’s what a kid uses it for.”
We can’t ignore the advantages of children having them. It’s great to be able to keep in touch with family and friends, says Fonagy, who stresses that phones aren’t inherently a bad thing. “After age nine or ten your main social network is other children, and using a phone to maintain that network seems, to me, good,” he says. He gives the example of when his daughter was bullied at school and was able, while sitting on her own and deeply upset, to reach out to her parents to share her distress. 
However, while it’s one thing to use a phone to keep in touch with people, it’s another to use it instead of doing those things – and phones offer plenty of opportunities to shut ‘real life’ out. It’s also not so great to disrupt sleep by sitting tapping away at it under the duvet all night.
“Using the phone as a device simply for social media or games and not to engage with people is less helpful,” says Fonagy. “There’s little doubt that for some children, particularly those that are more vulnerable in terms of emotional resilience, it can be a source of distress and hurt.”Ensuring your child has a healthy relationship with their phone is important. If you’re thinking about getting them one, follow these three suggested rules. Trust your judgementMany parents worry their child will be socially ostracised if they don’t have a smartphone – and their kids will tell them that too, says Dr Goodwin.
“I understand that is a legitimate concern, but I suggest that parents fact check that because the reality is that that is not always the case,” she says. “Parents know their kids best and if they have any doubt or reservation about dunking their child or teen in the digital stream just yet, trust that judgement.”
Goodwin adds that kids are “curating their digital DNA” as soon as they get a smartphone, so if they lack the self-control and responsibility to use one, it can have an impact on them in the short and long-term. Your judgement is crucial here. Establish boundariesAs parents you’re the “pilot of the digital plane”, says Goodwin, so you need to establish and enforce boundaries around how, where, what and when technology is used.
She suggests the idea of a restricted model: “I strongly suggest that parents install internet-filtering tools on smartphones when they’re first introduced to kids to help minimise – they certainly won’t prevent – online risks.”
It’s worth noting the Monqi handset and Morotola’s Moto range have been praised for its parental controls – plus there are a range of parental control software apps available. Do your research before buying a phone. Monitor their usage (and yours)Whatever age you decide your child can have a phone, it’s not a one-and-done decision. Phone use needs to be monitored and discussed, rather than just allowed to become as large a part of your child’s life as they want.
Professor Fonagy says a lot of parents lecture their children on the dangers of smartphones, while rarely putting their own down. “It’s difficult for adolescents to see their parent using phones to excess while they are told they can’t, which doesn’t seem fair,” he says. He suggests families monitor their child’s usage, perhaps by coming up with consistent rules for the whole family – everyone’s phone going in a drawer at 7 o’clock, for instance.
“Parents need to regulate, through negotiation, the use of phones, but at the same time, moderate their own behaviour,” he says. “They should be family rules, not just rules for the younger members of the household.”Related... What It's Really Like Having – And Traveling With – An Emotional Support Animal Fortnite Is Sucked Into A Black Hole And Gamers Wonder If It's The End Of Their World 'This Disease Won’t Define Me': 16 People Bare Their Cancer Scars In Candid Portraits
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How much would former President Donald Trump's proposed 10 percent tariff plan actually cost the average American household?The wave of tariffs Trump enacted when he was last president caused chaos, but there are many complexities that muddy this somewhat. However, MSNBC's Chris Hayes took an educated and simple guess at just how badly the country would be hit in the pocketbook under Trump's second-term plans."We don't know exactly how much everything would cost," said Hayes, but "just add 10 percent on the back of the napkin. Here's the cost of living under the Trump Tax."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills"Start with groceries," he said. "A dozen eggs cost about $3. Once you apply the Trump Tax, that is up to $3.30, with the U.S. importing over 4 million eggs a year, but cost consumers over $1.2 million. If you like oranges, they currently go for about $1.53 per pound. With the Trump Tax, that would be $1.68 per pound, which would cost American consumers almost $71 million for the nearly half a billion pounds of the import. Bananas. We don't really grow them in the U.S., do we? They average about $.63 per pound and going up to $.69 per pound with the Trump Tax, thanks to the U.S. importing more than 10 million pounds per year, that could cost Americans at $609 million and that's a $609 million tax on American consumers. Then there's tomatoes. They go for about $2.13 per pound. Apply the 10 percent Trump Tax. They would be $2.34 per pound, potentially costing Americans $3.5 million thanks to the 6.8 million pounds we import per year. If you are spending $1,200 on groceries, add another $120 to the bill. That's more than the peak of inflation in 2022, which topped off at 9 percent. This is 10 percent."Groceries are just the start, he continued."How about the refrigerator?" said Hayes. "You need to keep the groceries fresh. The average cost of a new fridge is about $1,300. With the Trump Tax, that could go up to $1,430, costing Americans $1.95 billion for the 15 million refrigerators that we import. Again, $1.95 billion of new taxes. What about the car that you need to drive to the grocery store? On average, a new car costs about $48,808 today. With Trump Tax, it costs $53,684, with Americans potentially taking a $66.3 billion hit across the board on the 13 million cars we import. That's not including the 50 percent tariff which would make it another $25,000. Even the smartphone in your pocket cost on average about $940 right now. With Trump Tax, it can go up to $1,034, with Americans potentially paying an extra $13.2 billion for the nearly 141 million smartphones that we import per year.""Everyone hates when you have to pay more for things," he added. "Inflation is one of the biggest liabilities for a sitting president. Yet here is Donald Trump, in the Year of our Lord 2024, running against President Biden, promising to make things more expensive for every American."Watch the video below or click here. Chris Hayes breaks down "Trump Tax" www.youtube.com
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