Recently, we took our family to a very fun staycation in Nashville. With three teenagers in our household (17, 15, and 13), we often put all of the children together in a room of their own on vacations. The favorite social media application today for teenagers is Instagram bar none. As we all know, teenagers in every family love to squabble and jab at each other. While my youngest two children began to argue over an Instagram picture, my middle daughter decided it would be a good idea to launch my son's phone across the room and against the wall with Tom Brady accuracy. Ultimately, when they picked up the phone the entire screen was cracked and the device was completely non-functional.
In my opinion, many teenagers today simply don't understand the value of a dollar. They most certainly don't understand the cost of technology. To them, it all seems free as long as their mobile devices are working. Even though I believe it is a good value to put insurance on your children's mobile phone plans, I really wanted my daughter to learn a lesson about why it is important to treat your belongings extremely well, and that we don't live in a throwaway society.
I told my daughter that whatever it cost to replace the phone that she would be responsible to pay half. She really didn't have a very good idea on what 'half' would actually mean until we went to the mobile phone store. The cost of replacement was $250, and I made her go into her little safe at home, and bring me down $125. As she shed a small tear handing over the money, I could see the impact it had on her actually having to relinquish the cold hard cash that she was given for birthdays and holidays. I don't know what will happen for sure the next time they argue over a picture on their mobile phone, but hopefully from learning this valuable lesson she will think twice. She was sternly warned the next time it happened, she will pay full price in the future.
Written by: Ted Jenkin
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