Buy Your Kids an Alarm, and Take Away the Cell!

digital clock by iprole at freeimages.com

You can purchase a simple digital alarm clock for $9.33 at Amazon.  This may be the best money you can spend for your kids, if you are allowing them to keep their cell phones at night because it is their alarm!

4 in 5 teens say they sleep with, on, or beside their cell phone every night.¹  The actual statistic is 84% of teens keep it with them through the night.²  70% of teens admit to hiding their online behavior from their parents.³  Teens receive hundreds of texts through the day and often receive them into the night.

Here are some reasons why you should consider taking the phone and buying an alarm.

1. Sleep deprivation.  Teens need sleep.  They have busy schedules with school and sports.  How much sleep is lost because of checking social media and texting?  Many teens admit to texting during the night.
2. Constant social pressure.  If a child has their phone all through the night they have constant access to bullying, social pressure, and influence from peers.  Peer influence and pressure is so prominent during awake and present hours at school, why should parents want to allow it to persist during the night hours?
3. Give your kids a “boundary” and an “out.”  Surveys reveal that kids actually like having cell phone rules and boundaries.  It helps create discipline for them, when they know they need it.  Studies have shown that sleeping with the phone and having it’s constant presence increases psychological problems and anxiety.  It hinders family time, self-awareness, and personal development.  It often keeps kids from getting their school work accomplished on time.  Also, when parents set the boundary, it gives the teen an “out.”  They can tell others, don’t call me or text me after 9:00 p.m., as I don’t have my phone.
4. The dangers of privacy with the phone during the night.  Would you allow your unsupervised teen to go out in New York City at 11:00. Yet when we consider the dangers of the internet from bullying, pornography, gambling, music, sinful influences, and predators it is not tremendously different letting them keep their phone all night.  Their room provides some privacy.  The parents and others are asleep.  With the opportunities and dangers of the internet, YouTube, Netflix, FaceTime, Snapchat, and other apps it is simply too much temptation for a Christian teen to face.  Parents should be sure they have their wifi filtered, but even then, teens can access the internet through their cellar data.
5. The incredible threat and temptation of pornography.  The internet is saturated with porn.  The numbers are staggering.  For example, in 2013 a study was done that said porn sites get more traffic per month than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined!   We all know the hormones are raging as children experience puberty and begin to be curious about sex.  Don’t let their phone be their primary instructor!
6. So you can monitor the phone. A final reason is so that the parents have access to the phones nightly.  The teen knows that his parents will have his phone each night.  This will affect how they use it and allows the parents to regularly check out what the phone is being used for during the day.

What are your thoughts?  Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts?  What other reasons would you add?

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Note – I owe the idea of this post to Adam Faughn’s podcast on the topic “Smartphones and Kids” with Chad Landman.  It can be accessed at this link and is well worth your time.

¹  http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/teens-sleeping-cell-phones-clear-and-present-danger

²  http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/opinion/robbins-cell-phone-teens/

³   http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2012/q2/20120625-01.aspx