"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."
--Erma Bombeck, The Ties that Bind…and Gag!
One week ago, Emma got her first cell phone.
I had hoped we could wait until she was a freshman, but we have had a number of occasions over the last year or so where her having a cell phone would have been really helpful.
I am cautious about technology use, particularly cell phones, with teenagers. We wrote up a Family Cell Phone Agreement, which Emma had to sign and I then filed away. I don't anticipate any immediate problems, but in a few years when she's older and we don't know as much :), we want to have had those ground rules laid down long ago.
Already, we've had to figure out a few things. For instance, is it ok for her to use the scriptures on her phone at church? (We said no; she has to bring the "regular" ones until she's done with seminary.)
I bet that by the time the twins get cell phones, the rules listed below will have been modified and relaxed 100 times, but for now, I am glad we have a foundation in place.
Here is a list of the rules in our agreement:
