Here’s a riddle for you: What can sometimes be more a hindrance than help, yet everyone has one attached to his or her hip?

A cell phone.

Admittedly, it’s not that difficult a riddle - yours will undoubtedly go off at least once as you read this article.

We all feel a pressing need to reach out and touch someone every second of the day, to feel connected. Whether you own your own business or you work for someone, people want to know they can reach you when they need you.

The same general rule applies to parents and children.

With the advent of the cell phone, parents finally felt a great weight lifted off their shoulders - giving your child a cell phone is like having them on an invisible leash.

But kids catch on to fads faster than adults do - if you think you can’t go on without the latest technology available in the form of the newest Blackberry, think about how your son or daughter is faring in the cruel world of childhood, where popularity is based on material possessions.

It’s keeping up with the Jones’s on a completely different, almost frightening level.

Whereas the argument stands that your child should have a phone because you want to keep track of them, the functionality of a cell phone is being overshadowed by the bells and whistles that savvy companies include to attract their demographic. And teachers are feeling the brunt of this, as students abuse their privileges by talking and texting when they should be studying.

In order to understand what schools are doing to combat this nuisance, The Royal Gazette recently spoke with Maggie McCorkell, head of pastoral care and head of the sixth form at Warwick Academy.

“The school’s official policy is that we don’t allow students to bring cell phones to the school, or we don’t encourage students to bring cell phones to school,” she says.

However, students in the two final years studying the International Baccalaureate are encouraged to bring their cell phones because it’s a business environment: “But just like a business environment, they don’t use those cell phones whenever they’re in class, a meeting or in a formal situation. We don’t expect them to be receiving messages and the phone should be turned off.”

Realistically, Ms McCorkell knows that if she were to search each and every one of the students in the lower and high school she’d be more than likely to find a cell phone, so she works on the basis that “I don’t want them here, but I’m not going to go looking for them”: “But if those phones goes off or the students use them during the day then they’re taken to the office and the parent has to come in to collect it, or make a phone call to me to explain the situation.”

She adds: “If a child has a cell phone, that’s the parents’ choice and I have to respect that, but in a school situation they’re just a nuisance.”

Consider this - according to Ms McCorkell, the new “language” of text messaging and chat rooms has started to creep into students’ schoolwork.

Now here’s something you may not have thought of. In addition to being a nuisance in the classroom, Ms McCorkell also considers cell phones to be a danger.

“Whenever you have an 11 year old girl giving her number to someone she talks to on the street, who is maybe 25 years of age, that poses a threat as far as I’m concerned,” she says. “I can understand where a parent wants to be in contact with their son or daughter, but it also means they’re son or daughter can contact anybody else.”

Scared yet? Don’t think this is just fear mongering, either. Ms McCorkell says it’s a matter she’s already had to address.

“We talk to the students, we let them know the dangers,” she explains of their efforts to make students more responsible. “We have people come in to talk to them - we’ve even had the police service in to talk to them about bullying through text messages and cyber bullying. It’s a massive, massive situation and I inform parents immediately. They need to know.”

In her opinion, the two of the biggest problems facing teens today are cell phones and the different chat lines available on the Internet: “It’s a peer pressure thing. If you don’t have a phone, you’re not ‘in’, and you have to have a flashy phone - the flashier the phone the more you are in. The same goes for MSN. If you aren’t chatting at night you aren’t a part of the group.”

To parents who insist that your child having a cell phone means you know where they are every second of the day, think again.

“You don’t know where the child is. You only know they’re at the end of the phone,” she says. “Where they might actually be can be different.”

Never fear parents, everything is not lost - yet. There are still actions you can take to safeguard your children from those seemingly hidden yet all too real threats.

First things first: “They don’t need a phone.”

She continues: “But if you insist they have one, monitor and block the phone numbers that you don’t know - the same with MSN. Just as you can scrutinise what your child is looking at on the Internet, so you can do the same with phones.

“I always ask, ‘Who pays the bill for the phone?’, ‘Is it your phone, or the child’s phone?’, ‘Is it a tool, or is it a possession?’”

So maybe your child won’t like you a whole lot for a few years, but it’s a small price to pay to ensure they’re relative safety. One day, they’ll realise why you did what you did - they may even thank you for it.

Photo By Akil Simmons

Not on my watch: Although many parents don’t know it, cell phones can be as dangerous as Internet chat lines to young students who may be giving their phone numbers out to older men or women. Head of the Warwick Academy Sixth Form Maggie McCorkell looks on as student Stephanie Wilkinson uses her cell phone.