Is it a phone or another toy?

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone as much as everybody else does, but sometimes I wonder whose phone it is. It seems like I am constantly telling my son "It's a phone - Not a toy"

Yes, I play games on my phone, who doesn't? And if you say you don't then you are probably in denial. However, the majority of the time I am making an actual phone call or checking my emails from my phone. OK, I might be texting, tweeting, instagraming, or checking in ... but it's my phone. I paid for it. I'm the adult.

The other day I was looking for a picture that I took for a blog post and stumbled across something that caught my attention.

An alligator on ice skates pushing another alligator in a shopping cart? What is this?

Did I take a picture of something and not remember?

Oh wait, this looks like a game my son was playing the other day. So I ask him if he took a picture on the phone? Nope. I said, "really - because there is a picture of an alligator on ice skates" ... Oh, yeah that's from my game Where's My Water?

This is just a brief account of the conversation because in reality this went on for about 5 minutes before he admitted taking a picture. Although he didn't really take a picture - he just saved the reward he got in the game. I don't care that he plays games, nor do I care that he saved a picture of the game. What I do care about is that he realizes it's a phone!

You know that thing we use to call people? If he keeps playing games and draining the battery, then what happens when we actually need to use the phone to call someone?

Do your kids take over your iPhone? What age is the appropriate age to get a kid their own iPhone?