With eight children, you would think we would have figured out the phone thing before now. 

We tried so many things–not getting our kids’ smartphones until they started driving, getting “pay as you go” flip phones that wouldn’t connect to the internet, waiting until they could pay their own phone bill (so they would be responsible for their possessions)…

Long story short, we have done the entire gambit.

A few months ago, our youngest Caroline needed a phone, and we were stumped. She is the youngest we have ever considered getting a phone for, but she recently was accepted as a cellist for a youth orchestra and started rowing–both of which tend to run practices long or short or suddenly change meeting places (ever been to a rowing melee…I mean, “regatta”?) and these organizations TEXT to notify of these changes , so it was time that we figured out how to provide her reliable communication with US and with her coaches, etc..

Then, (after seven kids!) we stumbled upon the perfect solution: a Gabb phone.

Have you ever heard of the Gabb phone?

We were shocked that we had never heard of it before one of our older daughters sent a link (very helpful when they become parents themselves and can help send tips).

Very quickly we realized that this was the answer to all our phone concerns when it comes to preteens (and even teens)!

Here’s the deal: the Gabb Phone keeps kids connected through text and call. BUT, it does not have access to the Internet, social media or games.

Gabb’s mission is to provide an age-appropriate device as a first phone to teach kids how to develop healthy tech habits.

Sounds like a great plan to us!

But there was one hangup–what would Caroline think?

While as a parent, the idea of having a “dumb phone” that looks like a smartphone seemed like a great idea, I wasn’t sure how she would respond to the idea.

After parenting a range of kids (there is a 14-year gap between our oldest and youngest child), we have noticed that our younger kids have faced a huge amount of pressure to have phones, be online, and create accounts on social media. This pressure was not as intense (nor did it start as young) with our older kids. When I ask a few of my (now adult) kids what they remember about phones, most of them recall wanting the latest phone but none recall a huge amount of pressure or encouragement from peers in regards to having the latest tech.

Not so with the younger half of our kids. Instead, their friends started getting smartphones before middle school and most don’t even know how to use a flip phone. We realized around the time that Anna was in high school (about 4 years ago) that flip phones are no longer supported by most major cell phone carriers and that comments from other teens about your technology can be…unkind.

There are very valid reasons for wanting to make sure that your child has a means of contacting you, but we also saw the equally valid concerns of waiting until our kids are old enough to manage an often highly addictive and distracting form of technology.

The Gabb phone seemed like a perfect middle ground. So, we wrapped it up for Christmas and waited to see what Caroline would think.

When Caroline opened the gift on Christmas morning, she had the best reaction! She really was so excited and happy.

And one thing she said really warmed everyone’s hearts (as we also felt a little chagrin that we never thought about this before):

“Now I can be on the family group texts and get the pictures and niece videos and other things I never knew about unless I borrowed Mom’s phone.”

So she hadn’t said anything about being left out by her friends, but she also felt left out of the family as the only one who wasn’t “connected” across the time zones and the colleges and different homes as the rest of us with smart phones shared our lives in little snippets via text.

As I am writing this, I TEXTED her to ask if she could share what she loves about her Gabb phone.

This is what she said:

“My favorite part of the Gabb phone is that I can have all the perks of a flip phone without having to deal with how difficult it is to text with a flip phone. But the flip phone it is in some ways better than a regular smartphone because I can see that it’s less addictive. A lot of my friends get a year or two older, get a smartphone–and then they get very addicted to their smartphones and feel like they have to be on them all the time. They just drift away from talking to people and spend every free moment checking their phones! I think because my Gabb phone doesn’t have internet, I don’t really feel like I need to check it all the time. I just use it to answer messages or call my friends. I only get on it to use it, not to waste my time. I’d rather talk to people face-to-face when I can, anyway. And I like that I get the videos of the babies and Anna’s silly pictures–and if Trey should ever respond to a text, I am a witness to that miracle!”

So the big sisters set up a new “family group text” which includes Caroline’s new phone number and now when someone is happy about a test score or has shares a quote or a grandchild is reacting with a full-body shudder to some new food–Caroline hears about it when the rest of the family does, complete with the photos and videos! And she often has the best comments, too. (I’m not home with her all day, so I miss her quips–now I get the texts.)

[NOTE: I just discovered today that there is now even a SISTERS’ text group that excludes everyone who isn’t a sister now. Fine by me!]

After our success, we reached out to Gabb Wireless and asked if we could share this phone with our Holy Heroes families!

And they gave us a personalized discount code!

Using code HOLYHEROES at checkout, you will get 25% off the Gabb Z2 phone (or the Gabb Watch if you are more tech-savvy than our family)! Kerri has a smrt phone watch linked to her phone so she can see who is calling or texting without looking for her phone, if that’s helpful (it’s not a Gabb watch–but we didn’t know they had a Gabb watch!). You can find the entire line of Gabb products here.

We cannot say enough about the great experience we have had with the Gabb phone.

Our only regret?

That we didn’t find this phone until our LAST kid!

Don’t make our mistake–check out the entire Gabb website here and use code HOLYHEROES at check out to get 25% off now!

PS What if your kids already have a smartphone, tablet, or computer? There is another way that you can protect them online! One they all hit college, they need smartphones for everything from attendance to taking online quizzes in class and linking to assignment–no getting around it, we discovered. SO: we had to find a way to protect them no matter WHERE the devices were (you can’t just filter a home network if they are not on that network all the time, right?).

Read our recommendation for how to protect kids online–> HERE (and we also use it on every computer and laptop in our Holy Heroes office, too.)

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Ken

Ken Davison created Glory Stories, which became a weekly radio series heard globally on the Ave Maria Satellite Radio Network and EWTN's radio network, WEWN. In 2007, he and his wife, Kerri, founded Holy Heroes--and their children stepped in to help shortly thereafter to create the online "Adventures" for Advent, Lent, Spiritual Adoption, and Marian Consecration.

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