He Uses His Minutes Wisely

I have to say one thing: my son is being much more careful with his cell phone minutes than my daughter seems to be. He is 15 and she is 13--wonder if that makes a difference? I also wonder if the girl-boy thing comes into play. There used to be a cell phone commercial that I thought was cute--a teenage girl talking and talking really fast all day long. We laughed and told my daughter that it reminded us of her. That was before she had a cell phone--I guess we were asking for trouble! :) SO when she gets her minutes, she talks and talks--but mostly she uses text messaging back and forth for days. I have explained to her about text messaging and how it uses minutes--she really doesn't keep up with it--she just communicates with her friends as much as possible until she runs out of minutes. Then she has to tell her friends when she runs out of minutes that she can't text anymore for a while. It's kind of an all of nothing thing with her. My son, on the other hand, seems to be very frugal with his minutes. He prefers to IM on the computer whenever possible--it's free and doesn't use his cell phone minutes. He does use his phone, but he seems to be more aware of how fast his minutes disappear. I think his minutes will last a lot longer because he seems to "get it"--with him, it is not an all or nothing thing--he seems to think of using his cell phone as a last resort whenever a free way of communicating isn't possible. Maybe it is age and maturity that makes the difference--I HOPE that my daughter will become a bit more responsible with her minutes as she matures. If not, she is going to be without a phone for a lot of her teen years! Oh, well--live and learn!