My husband and I recently decided to buy our 11 and 13-year-olds new cell phones that had better text messaging capabilities. While their old phones worked great for making quick calls to have me pick them up, they weren’t text friendly and sometimes cut off in mid-sentence.

With a new, unlimited monthly text plan in place and a cool new cell for each kid, I thought we were set. But I was shocked at the first bill that arrived: my son had sent 7,000 text messages and also incurred expensive downloading charges for Internet searches and ring tones.

We negotiated with the provider to reduce the charges and put blocks on how the phones were used, but now I’m wondering what rules and guidelines I need to put in place.

What are your rules? Do kids like to text each other more than they talk to each other?

photo credit: kiwanja

Many schools are allowing cell phone towers to be built on school grounds. Schools and supporters say that this is a source of revenue in a tough economic climate. There are large financial gains for the school from leasing the space and from contracts with cellphone companies.

Parents worry about the harmful emissions. Federal regulations state that “when cellular and PCS antennas are mounted at rooftop locations it is possible that a person could encounter RF levels greater than those typically encountered on the ground.

However, once again, exposures approaching or exceeding the safety guidelines are only likely to be encountered very close to and directly in front of the antennas.”

I think that as there is no long term evidence of the safety of these structures, I would rather err on the side of caution and not allow these towers to be built in proximity of schoolchildren.

What do you think?

photo credit: The Pug Father