DR. WALLACE: I'm one of three siblings who are teenagers in high school. Our grandmother lives about five miles away from us, so we see her regularly, which is great. However, the last time we saw her, she shared news that someone had stolen money out of her bank account.

Apparently, she gets a lot of spam and fraudulent telephone calls, some of which she unfortunately answers. Last week, someone called her and requested a donation for a charity. She "authorized" this individual to take a direct debit of only $20 from her checking account.

The bad news is this person cleaned her checking account out entirely, but the silver lining was that she had only about $100 total in that specific account. We've told her many times not to answer telephone calls unless she knows who it is before she picks up, but sometimes she tells us she gets confused and thinks she recognizes the numbers.

My parents think we should take the cell phone away from her because she only got it as a birthday gift less than a year ago and it's caused her nothing but trouble. But my siblings and I think we should let her keep the phone but find a better way to keep her from experiencing bad outcomes. Who do you agree with? — Thieves Continue to Target Grandma, via email

THIEVES CONTINUE TO TARGET GRANDMA: The first thing you should do is to go see your grandmother and program her cell phone to create a unique, custom ringtone for all of the legitimate friends and family members that are in her contact list. Have all of these contacts create the custom ringtone to keep it simple for her. That way, when her phone rings with the standard "default" ringtone, she will know NOT to answer it.

Also tell her that she's not to answer any call unless the specific custom ringtone sounds out, as she'll know in advance that she does not know the number and it's likely a scam. Unfortunately, once these con artists successfully attack a target, they will continue trying to dip into that well as often as they can. You may also want to see about changing Grandma's telephone number entirely at this point and then couple the new phone number with this new strategy.

Finally, hopefully she knew enough to keep small amounts of money in that particular account that she disclosed the information on. But going forward, you need to tell her that she's never, ever to allow anyone to access any of her accounts for any reason. If she wants to donate to charities, tell her that you'll come by her home once or twice a month and sit with her to organize some checks she can write out to her favorite local charities.

GRANDPARENTS FEEL HIS HOBBY IS UNSUITABLE FOR HIS AGE

DR. WALLACE: As one of two teenagers in our family, we see a lot of interesting things happening these days regarding our younger brother who is seven. Recently, he has become beyond fascinated with dinosaurs. He constantly wants to collect pictures of them, plus small figurines, books and anything that has a dinosaur theme.

Nobody in our household thought much of it, including our parents, but when our grandparents came to visit recently, they thought it was a terrible idea that we allowed our little brother to have so much dinosaur memorabilia.

They literally lectured us on how he was going to suffer nightmares soon because of all the subconscious absorption of dinosaurs that are permeating his young brain. My parents were gracious to our grandparents and didn't argue, but once they left, they felt that our grandparents were overreacting. Do you agree with our parents?- - He's Mad for Dinosaurs, via email

HE'S MAD FOR DINOSAURS: At seven years of age, I do agree with your parents. It's not like he's three or four. At seven, he's becoming more and more independent. Every day, he can discern between fantasy and reality at this point. Not only that, but seven is a key age when creativity can start. He might come up with interesting scenarios to play with his dinosaur figurines and then maybe even start to seriously study their diets, habitats and so forth. All in all, this is a safe and good thing for him to spend some time and imagination on.

However, for the time being, I do recommend you keep him away from the Jurassic Park movie series, at least for a while, because if he sees them and word gets back to your grandparents, there will be a much bigger discussion soon to follow.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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