My son is 15 now and has done quite well with his own phone over the last five years. (He started asking for an iPhone at age 4!) He turned 10 in January 2014, and there were a few people who thought he was too young for a phone of his own. My primary reason for giving him a phone at that point was that it was actually cheaper to add a line to my cell phone plan than it was to have a landline installed in my home. To add a line to my plan was only $10, and at the time, a VoIP phone with my local cable company was $30.