As a San Diego divorce lawyer who has clients dealing with co-parenting issues, a situation that comes up a lot has to do with a child wanting to purchase a smart phone. This is especially relevant given the recent release of the new IPhone.
Let’s face it, most teenagers have smart phones and they bring them to school. In fact, many schools allow smart phones to be on in classrooms so that they can be used for learning. Nowadays, children under the age of 10 are learning how to maneuver around a smart phone by using their parent’s phone to play games, check the weather, or in many cases check their own email.
As much as this may bother many people who grew up without the aid of a smart phone until they were adults, smart phones have become part of our culture and a part of everyday life. This doesn’t mean, however, that we have to accept that every child should have a smart phone or that there shouldn’t be rules to regulate their use especially when parents reside in different homes with different rules.
What I see a lot in my practice as a San Diego divorce lawyer is where parents live in separate houses and one parent has few or no rules regarding the use of smart phones while another parent is much stricter about the use of these devices. What makes matters worse is when one parent buys the child a smart phone without the other parent’s knowledge or permission. Sometimes this act can be innocuous or it might be done in spite do the issues the parents have with one another. Regardless of the reason, when this occurs it can cause conflict not just between the parents, but between the child and their parents.
The use of a smart phone brings up many issues such as who will pay for it, how much use is too much, and many other issues that is much more detailed than can fit in this blog. If there is disagreement among the parents regarding the need of a smart phone for their child then the issue of who will pay for it becomes top priority. As we know buying a phone isn’t the costly part of a smart phone. The monthly service fee is what is so expensive. It would be important that the parents arrange with each other or with the child to share the cost of the phone before purchasing it. Otherwise this can become an issue for a judge to decide, which can cause other conflicts that can negatively affect the child.
Additionally, how much a child is allowed to use the phone and during what situations they are allowed to use it can be another area of conflict. Like most co-parenting issues, reaching a compromise or a happy medium works best in these situations.
As a San Diego divorce lawyer, I explain to my clients that the best alternative is for each parent to cooperate with each other and agree on the decision whether to allow their child to use a smart phone.
