The Community for Catholic Moms

Cell Phone & Text Monitoring Services

I am looking for a text monitoring system. I'm thinking about getting my 13 year old a cell phone so I can give him more freedom to bike around the neighborhood and such. I'm concerned about him in getting inappropriate text messages. I also want to monitor his text conversations to make sure everything is on the up and up. I found a software called MyMobileWatchDog.com which emails parents the text messages so you can read them. It would be easier than scrolling through their texts which they can delete. It's $10 per month, which is on top of about $10 per month from AT&T, $5 for text, and then you have to get internet service on the phone which is anywhere between $15 to $30 depending on how fancy your cell phone is. So, I'm looking at about $40 per month at the cheapest. I'm not sure I up for that. Anyone out there have any ideas? I think you can disable picture messages. Do cell phones have an option so you can't delete messages? Any perspective on this situation would be helpful.

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Permalink Reply by SAHMinIL on August 20, 2009 at 4:35pm

What's the primary reason for him to have the phone? Is it to be able to contact you in an EM?

Have you consider using Firefly?flyPhone™ also includes PIN protected parental controls. Parents can chose to limit incoming and outgoing calls to numbers stored in the phone book while preventing additional numbers to be added. Parents can also restrict texting. Pay as you go plans help parents control costs. more info @ FireFly Mobile

There is also TicTalk Parental Control Phones. Once your phone is activated, use MyTicTalk.com to set up parental controls. Enter phone numbers that can be called anytime and phone numbers that can only be called during permission-based times. Choose what times the phone can ring. Send your child a reminder message. And, you can enable or disable features on the phone whenever you like.

Pre-paid Plan Rates for TicTalk
$25 - 100 airtime minutes
$50 - 200 airtime minutes
$75 - 300 airtime minutes
$100 - 400 airtime minutes

see TicTalk for more info.

The phones may cost you more money up front, but the monthly could be cheaper for you and give you the control that you are looking for :)

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Permalink Reply by Mary Hennessey on August 31, 2009 at 9:11am

Is it possible to disable text messages from the provider so that the phone can only be used as a phone?

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Permalink Reply by SAHMinIL on August 31, 2009 at 9:22am

To my knowledge that answer to that question is NO. I know that I can't do that with US Cellular (that's our provider). I called and asked them one time to do that because I was getting text messages from a number I did NOT know. They told me NO they couldn't block it; and said besides it's FREE FOR YOU. (Incoming calls, text, and pictures are FREE with US Cellular).

So I asked them to BLOCK the number that kept sending me the text. I did want them because 1) I did not know the person (based on the number it was an unknown number to me) and 2) the messages were nasty in content. Anyway I asked them to BLOCK that number, and got told they could NOT do that either. They told me the only thing they could do for me that day was to change my number.

I'm assuming that seeing I can't do it with US Cellular that it's pretty much the same thing with all of them. Especially, Sprint, ATT, Virizon....I could be wrong, but I'm assuming they are just like US Cellular in that regard.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Donahue on November 10, 2009 at 2:50pm

We got our daughter a cell phone last summer, just before her 14th birthday. We purchased it for her to use to contact us when she was going on a trip with a Catholic choir. We also knew she would need a phone later on that summer when she started high school. We did not get texting on her phone and have texting blocked.