As our children venture into the world, there's a fine line between wanting them to be more independent while also being able to reach or find them when you need to. One option is to give them an old smartphone, but as a parent, I don't necessarily want to give them access to everything a smartphone can do, from apps to the internet as a whole.

Fortunately, multiple companies are developing and selling kid-friendly mobile phones. These are different from the popular landline Wi-Fi phones like Tin Can, which are restricted to your home.

Rather, through parental controls or design, these cellular phones restrict what your kid has to access while giving them a device that they can use to call you, friends or other family members.

With that in mind, I looked at five manufacturers of kid-friendly mobile phones. For this comparison, I checked out offerings from Bark, Gabb, Pinwheel, Yello!, and Waffle.

Read on to find out what each maker offers, subscription prices, and more.

Every phone maker sells both the device and a separate plan that you can subscribe to through the company. The network plans are hosted on an MVNO network, meaning that they piggyback on a larger company's service.

For example, Bark is an MVNO for T-Mobile, while Gabb runs on Verizon's network.

This does mean that you have pay for the device separately (or as part of a plan) as well as signing up for a cellphone plan. Here's what that will cost you.

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