I have never seen a reason to not give kids cell phones. A phone is a great way for parents to keep up with an active kid without the kid having to come home or ask a friends mom or dad to call home for them. I gave my son a cell phone when he turned six and several kids in the neighborhood younger than that have cell phones.

The only downside to giving a kid a mobile phone is that they don’t understand about airtime or download charges. If you are on Verizon Wireless, the company has a full range of parental controls available that will come in handy for the summer with kids having more time on their hands to call friends.

Using the parental controls, you can limit how many minutes the kid can use and receive text messages when a user is nearing their minute limits. Limits can be set for text, picture, and video messaging as well. One of the cooler features is the ability to set what time of the day the device can be used to keep kids from talking at all hours of the night after you are asleep. The parental controls are available for $4.99 per month for each line using the service. That is certainly better than a $100 bill because your kid downloaded 15 ring tones.

[via Verizon]