Replacing a Kid's Lost or Cracked iPhone — In the Right Order

First — open Find My. Before you call the carrier. Before you yell.

The first call I got on this was a parent from Kent. Their seventh-grader had lost an iPhone on the school bus. She thought the phone was gone. We opened Find My on her phone, located the iPhone at the bus depot, called the school, and the phone was back in the kid's backpack by dinner. Total time: thirty minutes. The reason it worked: Find My had been set up on day one.

Most lost iPhones turn up. Most cracked ones can be repaired. The expensive mistake is buying a replacement at full price the same day the phone goes missing — before you've checked Find My, before you've called the school, before you've checked whether AppleCare+ covers it. The 25-page PDF walks the whole sequence, in the right order, with prices in 2026 dollars.

Step one — Find My, every time

On the parent's iPhone: open Find My → Devices → tap the kid's iPhone → Mark As Lost. That puts a message on the lock screen, disables Apple Pay, and locks the phone. Note the last-known location. Don't erase it yet — once it's erased, you can't track it anymore. Most lost phones turn up within 24 hours.

AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss — the math

• Around $10–$14/month depending on the model. Unlimited incidents of accidental damage. Two of theft or loss per year.
• $29 service fee for screen repair with AppleCare+. Compare to $129–$379 walk-in at the Apple Store without it.
• $149 service fee for theft or loss replacement. Compare to full retail (often $700–$1,000) for a same-model replacement.
• The trap: AppleCare+ only counts if Find My was on at the time of loss. Turn it on first; everything downstream depends on it.

Used, refurbished, new — three different worlds

Apple Refurbished (refurb.apple.com) is the best value — about 15% off, full 1-year warranty, indistinguishable from new. Back Market and Swappa offer graded used phones at lower prices with shorter warranties (read the grade carefully — "Fair" usually means scuffed). Facebook Marketplace? Only if you can verify in person that activation lock is off and the IMEI is clean.

Carrier financing — the 24-month trap

"Free phone with trade-in!" usually means a $1,000 phone billed at $40/month for 36 months with a credit applied — but the credit stops if you ever switch carriers. The phone isn't really free; it's a 3-year leash. If you can pay outright, do. If not, do the carrier deal with eyes open and read every line.

The "second time this year" conversation

A 13-year-old who's lost two phones in a month doesn't need a third phone — they need a reset. Sometimes that's a week on a dumbphone. Sometimes it's a hand-me-down with no social apps. Sometimes it's the same phone with the AppleCare claim paid out of chore money. The PDF has Bill's actual conversation script — gentle but firm, and it doesn't end the relationship.

What's in the 27-page PDF

• The exact Find My sequence — what to do in the first hour, the first 24 hours, the first week.
• AppleCare+ vs walk-in repair vs replacement — side-by-side cost math.
• uBreakiFix vs Apple Store vs local shops — when each is right.
• The repair-or-replace decision tree by phone age, damage type, and warranty status.
• Used vs refurbished vs new — what each really means, with brand recommendations.
• How to check a used iPhone before buying — IMEI, activation lock, battery health, Face ID.
• Carrier financing pitfalls — AT&T Next, Verizon Device Payment, T-Mobile EIP.
• The right iPhone for a kid — the iPhone 16e and recent hand-me-downs as the workhorses.
• Restoring from iCloud Backup — preconditions and the exact steps.
• What doesn't restore from iCloud — and what to do about it.
• Setting up parental controls before handing the new phone back — 20 minutes.
• Bill's "this is the second time this year" conversation script.
• Avoiding repeat losses — the four checks that cut losses in half.
• Printable lost-iPhone checklist for the day-of.

Why I wrote this

I get this call about every other week now. Half the time the phone is in the kid's backpack the whole time. The other half it's a real loss — and the family that has Find My on, AppleCare+ paid up, and iCloud Backup running gets back to normal in an hour. The family that doesn't loses days and hundreds of dollars. The 25-page PDF is the version of the call I wish I could give every customer before the phone goes missing. — Bill