I have three kids, 12.5, 8, and 4. My oldest, who's in the 7th grade, has a flip phone. He won't get a smart phone until he's 16 when he drives. I know that is at the extreme end of the spectrum, but I have a couple friends/my sister who is going to try to follow this. I just don't see strong enough evidence that a smart phone is necessary for someone so young. Their brains! Their mental health! I know he needs to be among his peers so I try to give him chances to do that in real life, or with video games a bit (Minecraft).
He and I have a lot of conversations about smart phones. He's basically cool with the rule. One girl at school thinks it's cool he has a flip phone, and I am pretty sure that's his crush, so....
I give him independence in other ways--since the 4th grade he's gone after school to hang with his friends alone--at the library near school and the surrounding neighborhood--and now that he's older I drop him with friends in other areas near us to just walk around, hang out, go for lunch etc. Last year he had a blast eating candy and drinking from a 1-liter soda in an abandoned shopping cart he and his doofus friends found; he got in and they pushed him down the street...and let go. LOL.
I am more worried my daughter (who is 8) will be isolated without a smartphone. But she is also very anxious and has some OCD, and I think it'll add a whole other layer to her mental health issues. So I am going to try to hold strong. We have the conversations now.
I keep telling them not being on social media is a true FLEX.
We got a flip phone for my 8th grader last year when he started babysitting, and he loves it! He definitely flexes (I am not using that correctly) not being online. I'm a teen librarian, and work with 6-12th graders, and definitely see this attitude is getting more common - but that in general, there's not a lot of middle ground between offline and extremely online. TBD, I guess!
ugh. my kid is 5 and I hate that any thinking I do about this will be long out of date before we get to a decision point. Run this again in 3-5 years, please?
What incredible insight and advice! I love it! Claire, did you share the responses with your 6th grader? I want to print this out and give to my 6th grader (who also doesn’t have a phone)
I absolutely am!! I told him about this piece and of course he couldn't care less what I have to say. I need to find a way to include all this as subliminal messaging in Roblox or something.
My 7yo once told me she didn’t want a phone until she was 21 and, terrible news for her, that was a binding contract!
But seriously, no smart phones until she is in high school. Maybe a flip phone in middle school. And I need to be better about getting her real life face to face time with friends after school and on weekends.
I just read The Chaos Machine and if you want to be horrified about the scale of destruction social media can wreak, you can’t miss this book. Also I think anyone who uses social media or you tube or has kids who will use them should read it. But also it vindicated my draconian internet measures that are in place--she doesn’t play online connected video games and you tube must MUST be supervised by an adult at all times.
Okay but https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/23/wait-as-long-as-possible-to-give-kids-a-phone-yale-psychology-expert.html. Okay but most of my kid's friends have phones and he feels left out. Okay but close friends with older kids with phones are telling us to wait as long as possible. Okay but kid says his classmates are on snapchat instead of working during group projects. Okay but it turns out there are no good answers, and those young adults are 100% more qualified than I to give advice, because I got a phone after I gave birth and it was too hard to use Messenger on a laptop at 2 a.m.
I have been thinking about how family device use is weirdly a hot button family topic socially, despite it being a personal choice. Everyone is low-key worried someone else knows something you don’t or have a more responsible/cooler kid than you do or magically have more time to look over your kids’ shoulder or whatever.
I love this. My 7 YO wants to play Roblox and we have said absolutely not. We told her there are bad people on the Internet and we are going to be very careful about it. Might look into letting her play Minecraft on a locked down server with her cousin.
I grew up in an age of chat rooms and A/S/L and whew I kind of wish I didn’t. It’s so much worse today. It scares me.
I have a HS freshman (boy) and 6th grade girl. My son got a Pinwheel phone before 7th grade. It's a smart phone but no social media apps or internet browser, so he can get on google maps, spotify, games, etc. It seems like a good compromise for us. He still complains that "nobody" texts anymore because they are "all" on snapchat. He still has a social life with work, school, and sports. My daughter will be getting her phone (still a Pinwheel) in the summer.
Our oldest got a flip phone in 6th grade and a smartphone when they entered high school. Youngest got a smartphone in 4th grade (hand-me-down from her grandmother.) Keeping tabs on screen time has been hard in our family thanks to our children's gamer/hacker DNA, so we decided to embrace it. This doesn't mean that our kids have free reign, but there are boundaries that they have to adhere to, and they are pretty good about it. The internet is a tool, and so with all tools, they have to learn to use it wisely. For as much as I feel guilty about screen time, there have been benefits . For example, Kpop social media provided a common interest between our oldest and youngest, who are five years apart in age and in totally different stages of life. Those same Kpop videos helped in establishing a close friendship between our youngest and her friend who was in the US for a year from Korea. Those dance videos also keep my very non-sporty children dancing and stretching for at least an hour a day. Also, while I am not 100% happy about the whole tween girls invading Sephora phenomena, it has been a great lesson for my youngest about money management and product quality (do you really want to spend $40 on designer eyeliner from Ulta, when you can get that same eyeliner, with a different name , from CVS for $5 with a 25% off coupon?) I read somewhere that the content pushed to young people TIkTok and other social media in China and other countries are centered on STEAM, "high" culture, and history. Would we be complaining if that was the content our children were consuming? As much as I side eye the whole concept of keeping up with the latest and coolest in teen/tween popular culture, I cannot say that having a smartphone is purely evil. I mean, weren't "they" saying that our generation was doomed thanks to the hours spent watching MTV? I can't count how many hours I spent watching soap operas with my aunts and grandmothers growing up (yes, that stuff was SOOO appropriate for young children.) We were addicted to media too, and we turned out fine...right?
Ok these people are wiser than me. I need to implement these rules for MYSELF.
Yes!!!
I enjoyed reading these!
I have three kids, 12.5, 8, and 4. My oldest, who's in the 7th grade, has a flip phone. He won't get a smart phone until he's 16 when he drives. I know that is at the extreme end of the spectrum, but I have a couple friends/my sister who is going to try to follow this. I just don't see strong enough evidence that a smart phone is necessary for someone so young. Their brains! Their mental health! I know he needs to be among his peers so I try to give him chances to do that in real life, or with video games a bit (Minecraft).
He and I have a lot of conversations about smart phones. He's basically cool with the rule. One girl at school thinks it's cool he has a flip phone, and I am pretty sure that's his crush, so....
I give him independence in other ways--since the 4th grade he's gone after school to hang with his friends alone--at the library near school and the surrounding neighborhood--and now that he's older I drop him with friends in other areas near us to just walk around, hang out, go for lunch etc. Last year he had a blast eating candy and drinking from a 1-liter soda in an abandoned shopping cart he and his doofus friends found; he got in and they pushed him down the street...and let go. LOL.
I am more worried my daughter (who is 8) will be isolated without a smartphone. But she is also very anxious and has some OCD, and I think it'll add a whole other layer to her mental health issues. So I am going to try to hold strong. We have the conversations now.
I keep telling them not being on social media is a true FLEX.
We got a flip phone for my 8th grader last year when he started babysitting, and he loves it! He definitely flexes (I am not using that correctly) not being online. I'm a teen librarian, and work with 6-12th graders, and definitely see this attitude is getting more common - but that in general, there's not a lot of middle ground between offline and extremely online. TBD, I guess!
ugh. my kid is 5 and I hate that any thinking I do about this will be long out of date before we get to a decision point. Run this again in 3-5 years, please?
What incredible insight and advice! I love it! Claire, did you share the responses with your 6th grader? I want to print this out and give to my 6th grader (who also doesn’t have a phone)
I absolutely am!! I told him about this piece and of course he couldn't care less what I have to say. I need to find a way to include all this as subliminal messaging in Roblox or something.
My 7yo once told me she didn’t want a phone until she was 21 and, terrible news for her, that was a binding contract!
But seriously, no smart phones until she is in high school. Maybe a flip phone in middle school. And I need to be better about getting her real life face to face time with friends after school and on weekends.
I just read The Chaos Machine and if you want to be horrified about the scale of destruction social media can wreak, you can’t miss this book. Also I think anyone who uses social media or you tube or has kids who will use them should read it. But also it vindicated my draconian internet measures that are in place--she doesn’t play online connected video games and you tube must MUST be supervised by an adult at all times.
Okay but https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/23/wait-as-long-as-possible-to-give-kids-a-phone-yale-psychology-expert.html. Okay but most of my kid's friends have phones and he feels left out. Okay but close friends with older kids with phones are telling us to wait as long as possible. Okay but kid says his classmates are on snapchat instead of working during group projects. Okay but it turns out there are no good answers, and those young adults are 100% more qualified than I to give advice, because I got a phone after I gave birth and it was too hard to use Messenger on a laptop at 2 a.m.
I have been thinking about how family device use is weirdly a hot button family topic socially, despite it being a personal choice. Everyone is low-key worried someone else knows something you don’t or have a more responsible/cooler kid than you do or magically have more time to look over your kids’ shoulder or whatever.
OMG, this is so so helpful. I'm definitely going to have my 10-year-old read it the next time the "I need a phone!" rant starts up.
I love this. My 7 YO wants to play Roblox and we have said absolutely not. We told her there are bad people on the Internet and we are going to be very careful about it. Might look into letting her play Minecraft on a locked down server with her cousin.
I grew up in an age of chat rooms and A/S/L and whew I kind of wish I didn’t. It’s so much worse today. It scares me.
I have a HS freshman (boy) and 6th grade girl. My son got a Pinwheel phone before 7th grade. It's a smart phone but no social media apps or internet browser, so he can get on google maps, spotify, games, etc. It seems like a good compromise for us. He still complains that "nobody" texts anymore because they are "all" on snapchat. He still has a social life with work, school, and sports. My daughter will be getting her phone (still a Pinwheel) in the summer.
I just searched and these are not available in Canada. Gosh darn it
"Tucker Carlson is trying to sell our 6th graders chewing tobacco packets via TikTok" every single word of this sentence is horrific. WHAT.
I just googled and I see that Snapchat is now 12 years old. What is time.
I know I am getting to be a certain kind of old lady when I am really worried about my kids becoming GAMBLERS??
I was trying to explain Instant Messenger to my 11 year old the other day. It's like sending a text but you have to be at your computer to get it lol
Our oldest got a flip phone in 6th grade and a smartphone when they entered high school. Youngest got a smartphone in 4th grade (hand-me-down from her grandmother.) Keeping tabs on screen time has been hard in our family thanks to our children's gamer/hacker DNA, so we decided to embrace it. This doesn't mean that our kids have free reign, but there are boundaries that they have to adhere to, and they are pretty good about it. The internet is a tool, and so with all tools, they have to learn to use it wisely. For as much as I feel guilty about screen time, there have been benefits . For example, Kpop social media provided a common interest between our oldest and youngest, who are five years apart in age and in totally different stages of life. Those same Kpop videos helped in establishing a close friendship between our youngest and her friend who was in the US for a year from Korea. Those dance videos also keep my very non-sporty children dancing and stretching for at least an hour a day. Also, while I am not 100% happy about the whole tween girls invading Sephora phenomena, it has been a great lesson for my youngest about money management and product quality (do you really want to spend $40 on designer eyeliner from Ulta, when you can get that same eyeliner, with a different name , from CVS for $5 with a 25% off coupon?) I read somewhere that the content pushed to young people TIkTok and other social media in China and other countries are centered on STEAM, "high" culture, and history. Would we be complaining if that was the content our children were consuming? As much as I side eye the whole concept of keeping up with the latest and coolest in teen/tween popular culture, I cannot say that having a smartphone is purely evil. I mean, weren't "they" saying that our generation was doomed thanks to the hours spent watching MTV? I can't count how many hours I spent watching soap operas with my aunts and grandmothers growing up (yes, that stuff was SOOO appropriate for young children.) We were addicted to media too, and we turned out fine...right?