Seeking Advice on Phone for Kids

You should also try disney mobile. They have a great parental set up. They let u cut off all out going and incoming calls at whatever time u would like and they have excellent plans and they also have a tracking system so u know where your child is at all times.

I agree with many of the other posters....the Firefly (unfortunately) is a waste of money. I say unfortunately because it is good in concept but not all that useful. We have a family plan (me, my husband, our now 12-year old daughter, and my mom). We got our daughter a Firefly when she was 10 and while I was able to easily program it, it is not a great phone -- a bit hard to hear when it rings and when talking on it, and too "babyish" for even a 10 year old. She got a new cell phone for her 12th birthday in November and she LOVES it. If I had it to do over again, and what I'll do next year when our son turns 10, is purchase a simple pay as you go cell phone. It will be a "real" phone and can grow a bit with the child.

I have no idea about the Firefly and my kids aren't old enough for cell phones yet, but I do have a pay as you go plan, which would probably work well for what you are looking for. I don't use mine much, so it doesn't cost very much- there's no contract and you can get a phone for about $30. The minutes you buy do usually expire after 90 days, but then you would just add another $25. We have the T Mobile one right now and after you've added $100 to your phone (I think it took us a year to reach that), the minutes don't expire anymore, so it gets even less expensive. Hope that helps!

Hi V.-
My personal experience is that the Firefly is an absolute waste of money. We did this 2 years ago for our son and it was an absolute waste. You couldn't hear on the phone and it was expensive to maintain. Now granted they may have updated them in the last couple years and they are better, but I still think there are better choices. I was just in line at Target the other day and the woman ahead of me was buying a T-mobile phone that Target had on promotion and you got a 25 dollar target gift card with purchase. I know it was one of those pay as you go things but don't know much else (I just heard her talking to the sales clerk about it being pay as you go). What we ended up doing for our son, was go to our carrier, have them add a line for free, got him the free phone they were offering, and the minimum minutes (as his is just to carry for emergencies), but you can share a minutes package with your phone depending on how much she os going to us it!! Good Luck!!

V., You didn't say how young your young daughter is but here is what we did.

My son is 9 (an only child). We disconnected our home phone due to lack of use. Then we realized that our son had no way to call his friends or have his friends call him. I own my own business so I can't have his friends calling my cell which is my work phone. So...

We had the Easter bunny bring him a pay as you go phone. It cost us $20 with no plan. Being a boy he doesn't talk a lot on the phone so it seemed silly to add him to our plan. We pay about $25 every 90 days or so and usually he has a balance left anyway. The rules are:

*it is a house phone---not his. Although being an only child it is virtually his.

*it never leaves the house unless we tell him it can. This gives us the safety of a phone for him while out being a kid but the control of how the phone is used.

He knows if he breaks the rules we will not renew the phone so it has never been a problem.

While this system won't work for everyone it works for us.

Good luck

We bought our kids pay as you go phones to teach them the responsibility of managing their accounts. It limits the time they can spend on the phone, keeps you from paying hundreds of dollars per month, and makes them aware of how much things cost. Make sure you insure the phone-she's sure to drop it sometime. Good luck