Comic Relief: Kathy Buckworth creates her own teen cell phone contract

Kathy Buckworth counters the earnest teen phone contracts floating around the Internet with her version for managing appropriate smartphone usage:

The Smartphone Commandments

Thou Shalt Not:

• Furiously text friends seconds after disagreeing with your parents. We know you’re trashing us. With a phone we paid for. Come on.
• Ignore calls/texts/emails from Mom or Dad, while simultaneously posting on Instagram. It’s embarrassing to us that you think we don’t know.
• Laugh at our choice of phone. We can swap it for yours anytime, my friend.
• Force us to watch YouTube videos that are SO AWESOME. We don’t have time for that.
• Download YouTube videos while we’re on vacation in Mexico. Are you paying for that data?
• Be naïve enough to think we assume your lap is more interesting than dinner conversation. Stop. Texting.
• Complain about your phone. Don’t make me say, “When I was your age we didn’t even have Palm Pilots!”

Kathy Buckworth is the author of I Am So The Boss Of You: An 8 Step Guide To Giving Your Family The Business, available at bookstores and as an ebook everywhere.

Originally published in ParentsCanada magazine, July/August 2015.