Dear Chelle,

My parents are making me so angry! I got a couple of D’s on my last report card and my parents took away my cell phone! How can they do this to me? Is it even right? It’s my phone! It has all of my stuff in it - my private texts, my friends numbers, everything! How can I get it back?

Sincerely,
Lost Without My Phone

Dear Lost,

You left out some vital information in your question. That information is - who pays for your cell phone? If you actually pay for it every single month without fail, then technically, your parents can’t take it away because you are the one with the legally binding contract for that phone.

However, most likely your parents are footing the bill for your phone, right? That means the phone is theirs to take away at any time - bad grades or not. Unfortunately, that means you have no phone and that stinks! Luckily in this day and age there are so many ways to keep in touch, you can get by without it. You just might have to pick up that good old land line and call your friends. Or maybe you’ll have to resort to using Instant Message of some sort.

Of course, that doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Your parents are concerned about bad grades. That means you normally get good grades. So maybe, just maybe, if you are honest with yourself you will have to admit that you spend a little too much time sending texts to your friends and not enough time studying biology. Prove to your parents that you can get better grades and you’ll have your phone back in no time!

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