Well my son is 16 and he is on the phone most nights, I always say, "time for sleep"..he moans...then gets off. He is on the phone for about half an hour.

A 10 year old - I would restrict. Who is in control of the phone situation, you or the child ? You should be !

I think it is reasonable to restrict the time on the phone, if you want to use it, you have priority, as the parent.

A 10 year old should respect her parent's wishes.

"If you had to use the phone and asked your 10 year old child to stop talking to her aunt and she argued and then walked into another room and locked the door while still on the phone how would you handle it?" -- Really disrespectful, in my book. I would instruct her to finish the call, and would make rules about further use of the phone.

That's my tuppence !

Popi

"I was wondering how many of you let your children use the phone for as long as they wish?"
Well, I didn't.

"Would you get a cell phone just because a 10 year old child wanted endless time on the phone?"
Surely you jest. Spending extra money because a kid wants to live on the phone?
Who is the parent here? The 10 year old would be OFF the phone.

"If you had to use the phone and asked your 10 year old child to stop talking to her aunt and she argued and then walked into another room and locked the door while still on the phone how would you handle it?"
You need to get a handle on the phone use and the anger as it will probably escalate as she gets older.
She would lose the use of the phone and have to earn it back. For a 10 year old, 15 minutes of social calling, especially on school night, should do. Calls about a homework assignment, field trip details, etc... I would be lenient with those.

We had a 20 minute rule. 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off. If the call waiting beeped, you'd better answer and hand over the phone or you lost your phone priviledges. My kids knew I would easily take away phone privldeges so they followed the rules. No cell phones then, so not an issue. If they would have walked into another room and locked the door...well they wouldn't have a door for a couple of weeks, seriously. They knew they were to follow the rules. And it came down to I would respect them as much as they were to respect me. They are now 21-27 and very nice adults. I do get compliments on them all the time. Were they angels growing up...trust me NO!! But DH and I gave them a good foundation, and it worked. I wondered for a while if they would see that and follow, but kept faithful it would work. It did

Vickey-MN

My perspective on the situation was the same as all of you. However when I posted this on the stepfamily forum because it related to my sd I was slammed by a few people. I was told that since it was a relative of my stepdaughters mother there should be no time limit. I was told that I should have told my sd that I needed the phone but she could use it again as soon as I was done. I was also told that I should get a cell phone because by not getting a cell phone I was just trying to show my authority and causing problems.

When my sd did not get off the phone and left the room I told her again to get off the phone. She was then snotty and rude but got off the phone. I did not let her use the phone the rest of the night. I felt that I probably handled it well but then I get bashed because I am a stepmom giving a one hour limit to a phone call between my sd and her bm's sister. A call that I told sd to make because her aunt sent her a gift in the mail. FYI my sd lives with us full-time and rarely sees her mother. ANd really the only reason I put the time limit on the call anyways was because I do not have a cell and I needed to make a call and waited as long as I could.

Feel free to go to the stepfamily forum and read the post with the same name as this and comment.

helpwiththis,

Just reading your posts I have to admit to thinking of them differently because of the extra info you gave. I don't think it's as much of a step parent thing as much as I get a different impression about what is going on. In your first post, I sort of concluded that the girl must be talking to her aunt weekly if not more, and that they were very close and talked a lot. In this last post, I got the impression that the girl only talked to her aunt maybe once or twice a year, which if the case, would gather a little more sympathy for the girl. If she does only talk to her aunt once a year, then an hour phone call to catch up and talk seems fine, and even your interuption, unless a real emergency, does seem a little rude. I can't think of a time I would tell my kids to get off the phone with a relative they don't talk to often.

Now, like I said, if it was a aunt she talked to every other day, then she should only be talking to her an average of 20 minutes or so, and you should have every right to tell her to get off whenever you want. It's not as much a step parent thing as much as a special occasion thing, IMHO.

I don't remember having a problem with the telephone and my kids. I do know what I would have told them, "the phone is for all of us, you can't monopolize the phone", 10 minute limit.

Growing up, my parents rule was no longer than 10 minute phone calls for us. Of course, our home phone was also my dad's business phone, so if we monopolized it, and clients couldn't get through, we wouldn't have been eating--LOL.

Still, when I was raising my dd, I couldn't see any reason for her to spend hours on the phone. Rule was, call--say what you need to say, and get off the phone.

If she needed longer than that, I felt, she and the other kid could take the time to walk a couple of minutes to visit at one or the other house.

Would I get a cell phone or second line so a 10 year old could sit on her fanny, chatting on the phone? No way. Children have too many other things they need to be doing. Letting the chit chat on the phone is just teaching them very bad habits at a very young age. My dd was expected to be out and about, active in sports, community groups, volunteering, etc. She didn't have time to be a phone slug, thank goodness.