“Rabbosai, Cell phones and children is a large part of why Kids go off the derech and the teens at risk issue.
You are playing with fire. If you give your kids phones now, don’t cry later when they C’V become ”at risk” and R’L go off the derech. “
With all due respect, in my opinion that is just plain not true. I have known kids who went off the derech who NEVER had a cell phone. They went off the derech because people were extremely judgmental of their not fitting into a typical frum mold. Not every kid is made for sitting for hours at a time learning Gemarah, but that is not a reason to throw him away. Not every girl wants to be a Bais Yaakov girl. She can still be a perfectly wonderful and observant, NON-Bais Yaakov girl. MY friend’s daughter has had a phone all through her high school years. She could not be more ON the derech than she is. Her sister is the same. So are all the wonderful young women I know in my neighborhood. The cell phones did not put them at risk, but they did keep them safe when the carpool failed to show up and they were waiting outside and needed a ride home. It kept them safe when their car broke down on an isolated part of the highway (should they not drive, also?).
Anytime one generalizes, one risks being shown that he is mistaken. SOME kids who are at risk for any number of reasons, use their phones for less than noble utilitarian reasons. But those same kids would find a way to accomplish the same goals, with or without a cell phone of their own. Don’t advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you want to really know what pushes kids off the derech, my son, who B”H is sufficiently grounded in his religious upbringing to have not been adversely affected, went on his lunchbreak to chaap a mincha at a Yeshivah near us, as his workday would otherwise result in his missing a minyan anywhere else. He was dressed very casually, coming from a job working with children, which involved wearing non-Shabbosdig clothing. He was wearing chino pants and an izod-type shirt. The minyan is open to the public. The menahel actually came over to him and embarrassingly told him to leave. He was not messy or unkempt, just dressed in something other than a yeshivish white shirt and black pants. Instead of considering the fact that it was so choshuv to my son to daven Mincha in a minyan that he made sure to not miss it, they threw him out. If it were anyone else, or someone who is on the fence, they could have lost a yiddishe neshama. Instead of castigating kids for all the reasons why they go off the deredch and attributing those reasons to the evils of the internet and the cell phone, let’s look inside ourselves and see why many of our frum neshamas are deciding it isn’t worth it, because they will NEVER be good enough, in the opinion of some frum Jews, no matter what frumkeit they observe.