If your 10yo put an iPhone on their Christmas wish list...

My son got his first iPhone at age 10. I have seen much younger kids with iPhones.

I'm considering an iPod touch for ds10 for Christmas. I might consider a phone at age 13 if the was a need for it.

Personally I think that is too young to pay for a data plan, but maybe I am old fashioned, or cheap.

The iPod Touch is great. We got them for our kids about 4 years ago for Christmas and they use(d) them all of the time. They *just* got iPhones (their first with data plans) about 3 weeks ago, and they are 17 and 18.

Edited to add that they had "dumb phones" prior to that, since they were in middle school.

Id get her an iPod touch if it was in my Christmas budget.

Well, for my household, that wouldn't be an appropriate gift for a ten year old. But all families are different, and it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be the right gift for another family.

I personally would wait on the phone until middle school. That is just what we did. DS got his phone in 6th but it was only a slideout. I really wasn't ready to do the iphone. Then this year dd turned 11, going into middle school and was going to get a phone. I ended up getting them both iphones because she needed a new ipod and it was cheaper this way.

iPod touch is the route we took at that age and I'm glad we did. It's easier to increase freedom if/when they're ready than it is to take it away when they aren't. Just my two cents.

One of my daughter's friends was not allowed a phone and was gifted an ipod. The parent's feared her getting into texting and such and felt an ipod was a baby step into getting phone. There are apps for the ipod that can do just about anything an iphone can do. They were clueless to how much she was messaging her friends etc.. I feel, since you can do just about anything on an Ipod that you can do on an Iphone, you might be better off skipping the expense of the ipod and going straight to a phone.

However, the old lady in me thinks 10 years old is way too young for either. hahahahahaa

They can iMessage with iPod touch. So it doesn't have to be a phone plus data plan.

I have an almost 8 year old who would dearly love to have her own phone. I've told her she needs to be 13 AND have an actual need for a phone AND demonstrate that she's ready for the responsibility. (To me, what constitutes a need for a phone is a regular circumstance in which she needs to be able to communicate with someone else in a way that is not accessible to her otherwise - exactly the reason I have a cell phone.)

I have a handset I could give her, my old 5c, but in all reality - the truth is that I don't actually want her to have a texting life on her own phone yet, even just with Grandma. **For me** that is a little too soon, and I'm not ready to give up that piece of control. She's in second grade. She can facetime with Grandma on my phone if she needs to, but Grandma lives five minutes away and she's there four days a week as it is, so we get the benefit of physical proximity over digital communication. 

If her other grandma was interested in communicating with her regularly, I'd consider facilitating that with a device of some kind.

She has plenty of access to technology at home and at school, and in my opinion having her own phone is not going to benefit her in any measurable way. When it will, she'll have one. As it is, she's either at school, at gymnastics, or at home; two of those three places a phone is inappropriate, and at one of those three places she has access to two iPhones, two tablets, two laptops - it's plenty. She also has an iPod with her music on it.

I think a large part of our decision is just how our lives are structured right now. In our case, it doesn't benefit us much for our younger child to have her own phone, and we are the ones who would be paying for it, too. So in our case, it doesn't make sense for her to have a phone and probably won't for some time. But every family's life is different.

My mama has been the one to get the phones for my boys as they came along. She knew that was something they would love that was easy for her to provide them. They also made a big production out of going with MeMe to the phone store to pick them out.

The appropriate age is a call that any two families will probably make differently. But I would get one for a ten-year old for the same reasons akathy would.

My kids are a bit older now, youngest being 16. So "everyone" didn't actually have phones and i'm not sure iphones existed when my older ones wanted phones so take my advice with a grain of salt

My kids got phones around 7th grade when they started being places like the baseball field or out with friend alone so they could contact me if they needed me. They all had regular phones, no data plans.

We all just stepped into the world of iphones about 2 years ago. Older ones were adults w/own plans. Youngest two I bought under my plan, they were in high school though and had a track record of taking care of their other phones prior. And of course my then 16 yo dropped his new iphone about a week and a half in and cracked the screen.

My decision would really weigh on his responsibility and whether or not this is something you'd want him to have. At that age, I wouldn't have wanted my kid to have an iphone for a few different reasons, but my reasons may not be your reasons.

All of my kids have gotten phones the summer before 7th grade because there was a need. By the time the youngest came along we just went straight for an iPhone. We are an apple family and it just makes sense for us to all be the same.

I think a 10 year old would do just fine with an itouch for now. There are lots of texting apps so they can text friends and you.