With the bad reviews, lack of information online, and being made by a company (SPV?) I have never heard of, this phone is one I would buy with caution. Yes, it does have the 4 programmable keys which parents of young kids like but there seems to be a lot of risk (per the user reviews) of whether you can get it to work.

To get a better selection of phones for young children and teens, please go to my best cell phones for kids page.

A new BMJ study from Denmark was just released a few days ago where they studied all of the people in that country that have cell phone contracts. What did they find? So far there is no evidence that cell phone usage is tied to increased brain tumors or cancer risks.

But even though that study is the largest ever conducted, you can find varying opinions everywhere all over the Internet. For instance, the World Health Organization is unlikely going to change their view that the electromagnetic fields created by cell phones might be a disaster just waiting to happen. Likewise, this reporter is not convinced cell phones are safe for anyone and especially not children. She is especially concerned about the varying absorption rates of these mobile phones signals and notes that there is just too much that we don’t know at this time to be calling them safe. And MobileWise just plain believes that cell phones are not safe for kids because they are more vulnerable.

Of great concern to parents is the belief that children’s brains are developing and can be harmed more than an adult brain that is fully formed. This is one of the main reasons many parents don’t want to buy phones for kids when their children come begging for them. At least parents can delay the inevitable for awhile by not allowing their kids to have them at real young ages and someday, after more time has gone by for research purposes, we might have an answer that is more believable.

I think the bottom line is that no matter how many studies there are out there at the moment in 2011, the real truth about the cell phone – cancer debate may not be known for another 20 or more years. It is great that many studies look good so far but cell phones have really permeated our everyday life so much now that they are always in our hands or in a pocket and it is just too early to tell if they can cause damage.

The government has a website called OnGuard Online that is there to help you understand the pitfalls that are out there. They have all sorts of topics including sections on kid’s privacy, phishing scams, spyware, social networking sites, malware, and many others. It’s a great site that will help parents learn about all the things their children will soon want to get involved with, technology wise. It will help you help them avoid all the scams and dangers.

I thought this link to mobile apps could be beneficial to parents who want to learn more about what apps are as that is all everyone is talking about now. As your kids get older (and that happens fast!) they will start asking about and wanting to sign up for social networking sites as well as wanting to start downloading apps.

More and more of the phones for kids that go on the market are having all these Internet related features built in. Pretty soon it is going to be hard to find phones that don’t have these features and of course your kids are always going to want them. So, the more you learn about this technology, the better prepared you will be when dealing with your own children when they come begging for smart phones.

Whether you are looking for a good phone for a child under 10 who has never had one or whether you need one for a teenager, they have a good variety of phones that all ages will like. You get a variety of plans to choose from and all of them include the parental controls that Kajeet is known for.

Right now there are a handful of phones on sale for back to school so now is a great time to buy. Please watch the short video below from Fox 4 Missouri where Kajeet is mentioned as the place to get great phones for kids. (see first 1:30 of the video)

I rode the bus home from work the other day and two teenage girls got in and sat in the seats in front of me. I’d say they were about 15 or 16 years old, somewhere in that range anyway. They started talking and then had to stop as one of their cell phones made that noise that phones make when a text comes in. The one girl quickly read the text and then you could tell her fingers were really going at it as she responded. She then pushed the final button, collapsed the phone, and stuck it back in her pocket.

The two girls started talking again and about a minute later you could hear that text chime that told her another message was just received. Pulling the phone out of her pocket, she proceeded to read it and respond just like the first time. Putting the phone back, they then started talking again.

This went on for about 5 more times and during about the fourth one, the other girl’s cell phone went off! Just like the first girl, the second girl started doing the same thing: reading messages, responding, putting away her phone, pulling it out again, and responding over and over.

The two girls didn’t have any time to talk to each other any more!

This very clearly showed me that this is the way teens communicate with each other in 2011 and beyond. Especially once you get to high school, if you want to have lots of friends and be part of most any group, you have to be social and to be social you need a cell phone that is easy to text with. You also need a phone plan that allows unlimited texts!

Kids have always had to deal with peer pressure in one form or another but today’s youth has it very different than kids did when I was growing up. We wanted the trendy clothes, the latest hair styles, and other simple things that we thought we needed to fit in and make friends. Teenagers today need all that AND they have to be part of the technological social revolution that is happening all around us.

In order to hang with the cool kids in 2011, you need a cell phone that can keep you in the loop. And for many of those teens, that means convincing their parents that they absolutely “need” them.

Having travelled to Japan where cell phone etiquette is a priority, I am wondering how many parents in America are teaching their young children when and how they they should be using their phones? It seems many adults over here have no idea themselves about any sort of phone etiquette as you hear people all the time yakking away in public. Being polite and courteous to others seems to be something that you see less and less of these days.

Young children who get cell phones for kids need to be taught early when it is appropriate to use them and that there are certain places that their phone should be put on vibrate or turned off. Is this something you as a parent will take the time to teach them or will you assume they will learn it on their own?

The real reason parents get their young children cell phones is for their safety and for the parent’s peace of mind. In order for that all to happen, your children must be taught the importance of never leaving the house without a fully charged phone. While that sounds obvious and simple to adults, it might not be for a young child.

Kids that are that young aren’t necessarily thrilled to get a cell phone and they might not even know what it is. They will think it is a toy and must be shown how to use it, when to use it, and how to maintain it. They must also be instructed how to keep it charged and made to understand that it is useless without power. Getting them into a routine every night like charging their phone before they go to bed is a good way to do it.

Cell phones for kids can be a great safety device if they are used properly. However, for younger children, there will be a learning curve and a lot of things need to be carefully explained to them. Parents must take the time to make sure their young children learn what their cell phones should be used for and that they are NOT toys.

On my list of phones, the ONLY phone that has GPS features are the Kajeet phones. It’s too bad that there are so few options when it comes to GPS for kids cell phones but luckily Kajeet has it covered pretty well. The information below is take taken from their site:

To my knowledge, no other cell phone maker has this kind of child GPS locator / GPS feature on their phone. Again, all phones that you buy though the Kajeet website will have this feature and it costs an extra $7.99 per month to use it (the two most expensive plans include GPS in the price).

You will be able to get alerts sent to your mobile phone at predetermined times and be able to go online at any time as often as you want to track your child with the $7.99 service. If you want a more complete review of Kajeet and what they have to offer please go here – Kajeet review.

______________________________________________
Another alternative is to buy a child locater such as the one from BrickHouse Security. With this you are getting something that functions as a watch but is really a GPS child locator. It attaches to your kid’s wrist and will alert you if it is taken off. You can get information about where your child is at any time via your cell phone or your computer and the Internet.

This wrist child locater is designed so that young children should not be able to remove it and that gives parents a more secure feeling than having the GPS in their phone that can be lost, misplaced, or turned off.

The Dad, Brett Harrington got there quickly and then he and his daughter drove around looking for the guy. They did find him and restrained him until the police arrived.

Safety is one of the big reasons many parents are okay with their kids having cell phones and especially with teens, a story like this can hit home. Say what you may about all the pros and cons of cell phones for kids, it is a dangerous world we live in today and parents who have teenagers often feel better knowing that they have a cell phone with them. Never mind that they spend most of their time texting and fooling around with their phones, the fact that it is there when they REALLY need it is the important thing.

Right now in 2011, people who are old enough to be parents didn’t have a cell phone when they were young because there weren’t any back then. But as each year goes by, parents are getting closer to the age were they will have grown up with cell phones themselves. This means as the years go on, parents are probably going to be more and more receptive to allowing their children to have cell phones at very young ages. After all, they had them so why wouldn’t their kids as well?

Parents also have to deal with the fact that not every child matures at the same rate. It is well known that girls mature quicker than boys but does that mean your girl should get a phone before her brother? What does a parent do when they feel their child just isn’t ready for a cell phone but most of their classmates have one? It is a very difficult decision because those kids that don’t have cell phones definitely feel left out when most of the other kids in their class have one. It is a new kind of peer pressure that we never had to deal with when we were kids.