There is no appropriate age for a child to have a cell phone. The reasons why children are bought phones are personal and vary from one parent to another. According to Consumer Reports, about six out of ten US parents with children between the ages of eight and twelve have bought a phone for their kids. The reasoning varies among parents with 84-percent of the correspondent citing safety, 73-percent citing tracking a child’s after-school activities, and 16-percent claiming that the child asked for one.