wife and I finally got our 7th grader a flip phone last Christmas. With the understanding that it's our phone and she can use it, but we can scan her texts any time. We don't scan her messages more than a couple times a month, maybe it's not enough, but she's always been a good girl, makes good choices for the most part, etc. She's one of two kids that doesn't have a smart phone her grade, and 95% of kids in the ward, school, area, all have a phone and most of them smart phones, even down to the 5th and 6th graders.

now she's in 8th grade. she's our oldest. we've been slow on purpose, getting her a smart phone but we may pull the trigger this Christmas. Does anyone here have a really great way of going about this that has worked well? a contract? an all-seeing platform to know what's going on all the time on her phone? It seems like if kids want to hide stuff from parents than they can do that pretty easily on a smartphone. while teaching seminary a while ago one of the best students (female) said how easy it is to find work-arounds to parental monitoring on smart phones. scares me to no end. especially when my sons are in this conversation.

seems like most parents just sort of give their kids a smart phone these days and don't worry too much about what kinds of things kids can be exposed to or decide to look for online or apps, etc.

looking for input from those with experience.