Confessions of a parenting failure

Got the e-mail from Verizon late last night letting my know it was time to pay my bill.

The amount was higher than I've ever seen it and wondered if the store I just picked up my new Droid 2 double charged me or something like that.

Nope. It was the teenager.

While we have unlimited texts (any parent of a teen who doesn't is a fool) I was still alarmed to see she sent/received 3,723 text messages last month. No damage done there, at least not to the wallet. The problem was her 710 minutes of overage charges racked up calling her 'boyfriend' and numerous other people not in the friends and family network. She also had about 1100 minutes of free 'off-peak' calls during the month including one 310 minute call that lasted from 12:05 a.m. to 5:15 a.m.

Guess who no longer has a cell phone.

 

Maybe she was talking to Tony Parker / Cross thread.

 

Idaho,

You took the phone away cold turkey? I think your daughter is going to have some serious withdrawal symptoms.

 

bravo. perfect way to get the message through and give her what i'm sure is a painful lesson in accountability...

for how long will you withhold cell-phone privileges? a month? any longer might seem harsh, as long as you're convinced the lesson has been learned. it will take only one bill to find out, right?

she abuses the privilege again, she must be stripped of the cell until she can pay her part of the bill herself. worked for us and the three little shockeys, anyway, after a humongous bill a couple of years back...

for this first offense i'd say a month is harsh enough. you must be careful of the modern reality that to keep a cell phone out of our kids' hands punishes the parents almost as much as the child, but the lesson must be made and learned...

 

A five hour call in the middle of the night--I had to laugh at that. Which having teenagers myself, I think I'm allowed to do.

 

This happened with my uncle/cousin once. IIRC, this was before cell phones, so my cousin had racked up a big long distance phone bill. Uncle disconnected the long distance at home as a result. Cousin stole his credit card and bought several thousand dollars worth of those pre-paid phone cards.

 

It's not love until you've fallen asleep on a late night phone call when no one wants to be the one to hang up.

 

I wonder if they have phones where you can only text.

 

If this is your worst parenting failure, you've done alright.

 

When does she have time to eat?

 

"you hang up first."

"no, you hang up first."

"nooo! you hang up first!"

"i hung up first last time."

"okay, let's hang up together on three."

"um, okay. one... two... three!"

"i'm still here."

"so am i! you're soooo funny..."

ah, those were the days...

 

Great that you took the phone away, but what will she do during class?