Back in the day, the only phone we had access to was a land-line attached to the wall. Yeah, we might be dating ourselves, but the cell phone free days we grew up in also meant that we didn’t have the drama of social media or the need to be connected to our devices at all times.

We’ve adapted quickly to the technology that has changed and advanced throughout our lives, and we admit to having our cell phone handy at pretty much all times. As parents, we use it frequently to take pictures (many of our children) and we often share these pictures with our friends on social media.

Although our children are not yet teenagers and do not yet have their own phones, we often think about what the right age is to give children phones and how we’re going to teach our children to use social media wisely.

Many parents who give their children phones have rules that they want the children to follow. While social media becomes a huge part of the social lives of teenagers, it is important for parents to know what their children are doing on social media in order to keep them safe.

Some teenagers think their parents are too strict when it comes to their rules about cell phone usage, and one common consequence for not following the rules is that the parents will take the teen’s phone away.

For a teenager who is so used to connecting with his or her friends through social media, the loss of a cell phone can feel devastating. That’s when many teens turn to burner phones.

You might be asking, “What’s a burner phone?” It’s basically a phone that can’t be traced back to the owner, and while it does not have a phone number attached to it, it can be used to connect to wifi.

Say you’re a teenager and your parents take your phone away. If you have a burner phone, you’d still be able to access wifi and all of your favorite social media platforms. Obviously, teens don’t want their parents to know they have these phones.

While you teen would probably try to find his or her burner phone (or phones) from you, there are some clues you can look for to find out if there are burner phones lurking in your home. Watch the video below to learn why one teen turned to burner phones and what her parents could have done to find out she had access to other phones even when they took her phone away.

Did you know what a burner phone was before today? If you’re a parent, what kind of rules do you set when it comes to your kids and cell phone usage?