<p>Sorry for a petty concern during admissions season but I could really use some parental perspective.</p>
<p>College student has lost cell phone three times in the last year. We keep downgrading to reconditioned phones but this last loss feels like the straw that broke the camel's back. Husband & I are ready to take kid off the family plan and let her take full responsibility for her phone.</p>
<p>Problem? 1) isn't this the only way we can keep in touch with our kids?
2) the grades are good, the extracurriculars are good, etc. She's not screwing up in a million different ways. But it's a kind of carelessness we don't want to endorse by continuing to bail her out (let alone the cost - even with reconditioned phones, it adds up.)</p>
<p>Advice/parental perspectives/your own story would be helpful.</p>
<p>So long as your D is paying for all the replacement phones, I'd keep her on the family plan.</p>
<p>If she's not paying for the replacement phones, she should be. If my kid breaks something by accident or loses something, I give him one makeup, but the next time it happens, he pays for it or goes without.</p>
<p>I agree that she should pay for the replacement phone. But you don't want her to be without a phone - it really is a safety issue in todays world...</p>
<p>I would keep her on the family plan. Also, try to figure out why she is losing the phones. Does she not carry a purse that the phone is in? Can she clip it to her clothes? She needs to solve the problem of keeping track of the phone. They have "leashes" that you can put on your phone.</p>
<p>When I went to Verizon Wireless a couple of weeks ago to get a phone for my son, I was offered insurance (I think it was $50.00) which would replace the phone in the event of loss, etc. It might be worth it for you. I don't know if other carriers have similar offerings. Also, as a protective measure, the phone can be "locked" so if someone finds it, they won't be able to use it without knowing the password. My oldest daughter (21 now) was always and forever losing everything. I would have purchased insurance for her phone if it had been available at the time (it wasn't.) Good news is she is much improved in this area!</p>
<p>I appreciate all the replies. Clearly, we're not the only family going through this.</p>
<p>We did have insurance on the first phone but now that we're spending less than thirty dollars a phone, paying five dollars a month in insurance seems ridiculous.</p>
<p>Having her pay for the phone would be great but she's at an expensive university and has used all her summer earnings to off-set books, etc. There's not much extra money on her side of the budget.</p>
<p>And it's not so much the cost as trying to get her to take responsibility.
I completely concur that using some kind of holder would solve the problem but evidently that's not "cool" and she's unwilling to do so. I think it keeps slipping out of her pockets - no purses involved most of the time.</p>
<p>The Mom in me would want to send her another phone for safety. Plus I like to be able to reach her. But since she doesn't seem to be learning from her mistakes I would let her go without a phone till she can pay for a replacement. I have recently become a convert of the school of they have to suffer the consequences for their actions. She has lost several phones, so she therefore no longer has a cellphone. She can still reach you via computer. You might send her a prepaid phone card. With my son his solution was he asked around and found someone with an old phone that worked with his SIM card. The phone is old and doesn't do anything fancy but it works.
Also I found with my son that he is skilled with finding money for certain things he needs. For example his budget allows him about 20 bucks a week spending money. He wanted his gf to visit him over springbreak. He somehow managed to save some of that money and was able to split the airfare with the gf's Mom.</p>
<p>When S announced he had lost 2nd phone, our responce was "oh." He had to figure out the costs of replacement ($18 for the SIM card), is using a 4 year old phone now (no camera or any other bells and whisles) and hasn't lost the phone since.</p>
<p>I also notice that S discusses being unable to "afford" some things, but he can always swing things that really matter to him.</p>
<p>IMO a lost phone provides no safety. So, to be safe, S has to keep up with the phone. Paying for and having a no-tech phone for a while seems to have made him safer.</p>
<p>After reading all the posts I think I agree with mom60. My D ruined one cell phone by accident (got it wet). She was desperate for a replacement phone as she could not call us nor could she receive messages or calls from friends. </p>
<p>I bought a similar phone at a reasonable price. Then a month or so later she misplaced the new phone. I told my D she needed to find it otherwise she could find and buy a replacement herself. I sent her links to Ebay as well as the store from which I had bought her replacement phone. </p>
<p>She had last seen it in her room and eventually found it after about two weeks or so. She had to do a major clean up to find it!</p>
<p>What I am curious about the most is how your D keeps in contact with her friends when she loses her phone. All the kids text message almost every hour of the day. They arrange to meet for lunch, dinner, etc. And I am also curious as to whether or not any of the "lost" phones have reappeared.</p>
<p>Loss of the phone itself may not be that big of a deal compared with the charges someone can run up! Our carrier, T-Mobile, specifically states that they are not responsible for any call charges made on a lost phone until we report the loss to them. What they do in that case is they "park" the number for up to a month at no additional cost. If the phone is found, the sim card gets re-activated. If not, then we have to get a new phone with a new sim card, but the information stored on the old sim card will be transfered to the new phone. Make sure your kids know the number to call their carrier to report a lost phone.</p>
<p>Buy her one of the "kiddie" phones that you can program with about 6 or 7 phone numbers, one of them being yours, and from which you can't make other calls. Firefly</a> Mobile: The Mobile Phone for Mobile Kids</p>
<p>Tell her it's for safety, which is the only reason she is getting another one, and she doesn't need to be able to call her friends. Then tell her that she can pay for a new one out of her summer earnings. But if she loses that new one, out comes the kiddie phone again.</p>
<p>I guarantee that a phone holder will look a lot more "cool" than the alternative!</p>
<p>I love Chedva's solution. The kiddie phone...instills a little discipline if you have to keep your circle to 20 contacts, including parents and siblings. Sometimes, dealing with limitation with going completely without is a good half-step. Thanks for all the voices out there.</p>
<p>I agree its time for her to pay for a replacement. There is always money somewhere that can be earned by a university student. Heck, she can babysit for staff/faculty.</p>
<p>With our carrier, replacing the SIM card is free. I suspect that if you indicate that she will need to pay for a refurbished replacement or come up with another altermative, (or be stuck carrying around a firefly) she may find a free phone to use. There are a fair number of students whose families have replaced their phones with some new fangled one for Christmas or birthday, and they have a totally good phone sitting in a box somewhere. Once they here her sad plight, they might give her a phone to use. If they are on the same carrier, you just pop in a new sim card you get from your carrier with her number on it (explaining the lost phone) and its ready to go. Or she will get creative and buy an inexpensive replacement on Ebay. </p>
<p>I'd initially stand firm, and see how creative she can be. I'll bet she comes up with a solution AND hold onto this one for quite a while.</p>
<p>I replace the phone and send a "happy early birthday" email or IM. Recently my son broke down in the middle of the night in an isolated area. I would not have wanted him walking anywhere or waiting for a stranger to stop and provide help. It is totally a safety issue for me and gives me peace of mind.</p>
<p>I like 'chedva's' kiddie phone idea and also 'mom60's' ideas. Another is to get a large, clunky phone and spray paint it day-glo orange. That should be incentive enough for her to find the money to buy her own phones. Remind her about the charges she might be liable for if someone else finds the phone before its loss is reported.</p>
<p>This is what spending money is for and spending money is what an on-campus job is for.</p>
<p>There are 5 of us with cell phones at our house, and we get the new "free" ones every two years (verizon plan). I keep the old ones in a drawer. When someone (Ok, always D2) loses/destroys her phone she has a choice of the lovely old model phones in the drawer. Some of them are looking really retro (size of a banana, rather than a match book) and have a certain cache. I've also seen students advertise on Facebook, Craigslist, etc., for certain phone brands that they can buy cheaply and assign their number to. </p>
<p>OP, your daughter probably knows someone with an old phone they'd be willing to sell/give her. But make it HER problem to solve.</p>