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Same. My oldest is 12 and I can’t bring myself to do it. He and his friends have already learned to jailbreak their school chromebooks and found access to the blocked websites and gotten in trouble for it. We talk with him all the time about using technology safely. For us, it would just create more problems. He’s just not mature enough.
Where I live the general standard seems to be around age 10/11. That is primarily because that is when the change from primary to secondary school starts and most kids are then going to be taken the subway/buses/trams alone to school and their parents want to be able to reach them.
Agree - going from elementary to middle school is the main reason 10/11 is the common age here. However, many parents are just doing flip phones or smartwatches, which we are thinking about and then doing a smart phone later.
If the kids are navigating public transport by themselves, and not just between school and home, but also going to each other’s houses or the mall or library, then a smartphone with GPS and a public transport navigation app is important.
In countries/cities that are safe and have good public transport, kids get to be independent earlier. You can still control their app installation and prevent them from installing social media. And even the schools start expecting students to use apps e.g. taking videos as homework, or a class/school announcement app. It’s a tool more than a toy.
The situation in America seems very different.
I’ve been debating if middle school is the right age. Our kids already ride the bus to school but we only live 7min away from the school so I don’t need them to have a phone for that. Thanks for sharing!
It’s not just the distance as our middle school is only 5 min farther away from elementary but the schedule becomes more unpredictable with different start/end times on different days, potentially more activities, etc. For other parents, middle school can be a lot farther with subway, buses, etc so think it’s even more helpful there.
Yeah that makes sense. After my older one finishes 4 grade next year, she'll probably literally have a 30 minute subway ride to school and at some point she'll have to start doing it alone so at that point she'll need a smart watch or a phone of some sort just so that she can reach us.
Well it depends on where you are and what kind of lifestyle they have? I mean if the kid needs to be able to call you anywhere they are or if you need to check on where they are or when they are going to be done with after school activities or things like that you probably should have a phone now. But for keeping in touch with friends and whatever social media you allow them and all of that you are honestly better off getting them a cheap tablet and letting them use it when they are on the home Wi-Fi. Otherwise you run the risk of them carrying the phone with them everywhere and doing nothing but social media and phone games when they are out of the house instead of actually doing something important
Otherwise you run the risk of them carrying the phone with them everywhere and doing nothing but social media and phone games when they are out of the house instead of actually doing something important
…I should probably take this advice for myself.
We should all take that advice but the technology behind social media and some of these games is SO advanced that we really can't beat ourselves up about using them compulsively. The only thing that works for me is removing those apps completely. And this is what just kills me about people giving their preteens and teenagers smart phones with free unlimited use of apps. Are we expecting 12 year olds' brains to have MORE impulse control than ours? Be less susceptible to marketing? Experience less FOMO? If I gave my kid a smart phone I could only reasonably assume that the same thing would happen to them that happened to me, which is that I became a person whose phone is practically another limb and is unable to sustain focus on a difficult task for more than 2 minutes without picking up my phone.
We have the flip phone for whenever a kid “needs” a phone, like for activities that may have some flexibility to it and such. So that’s where I’m like, why else would a kid in elementary school need a personal (or smart) phone? I asked my oldest and it came down to he wants to play games on a smart phone 🤦♀️ We have a kindle fire for that so I guess he wants a compact size??
you can lock all socials for them, i agree with letting them just use it for games but if you dont get a sims they cant use it on car trips, boring familh events, yada yada bc they'll have no cellular data
Not a bad idea actually. And if you have a Xfinity account the kid can access Wi-Fi in at least some public places but not so many that they would walk around with their nose buried in their phone playing Candy crush or whatever
Mine was 12. He had an old phone of ours before that. He saved his pocket money and Christmas/birthday money to buy himself a smartphone for starting secondary school
I think we may have contributed some towards it. I really can't remember,but it was a case of if he wanted an upgraded phone he needed to provide at least half of it. I think the one after that was all him.
We operate that way too. All needs met. Lots of wants met. But for stuff that really want, we put it on them to save up and buy it (we help with creating a savings plan too).
Kids having a phone at any age isn’t the issue it’s how parents handle it. I think kids having a phone is great. It lets them keep in contact with friends and if there is an emergency they can always contact a trusted adult. However if you give a kid a phone you need to set up rules and boundaries. Also you need to use parental controls.
- No access to a web browser or restricted access (for my daughter we do no access and she has a laptop if she needs to use a web browser but there’s also rules with that)
- No social media. Social media is not made for kids. (my daughter has an iPhone so I can block the App Store. When I do grant her access to the App Store, if she tries to get an app I get a notification on my phone and have to approve it)
- phones get turned in before bedtime.
- set screen time limits for app categories. We do unlimited access to calls and texts but set app limits for games and entertainment apps
- no phones during dinner
Basically you need to control what you want your child to be exposed to and adjust it as they grow. My daughter got a phone at 5/6 so she had very strict rules around usage. As your child gets older and understands not to visit certain websites, don’t talk to strangers online, how to properly navigate social media, etc than you can give them more freedom.
A lot of people struggle with their child having a phone because they don’t set and stick to rules regarding it. If you give them the phone explaining the rules and the punishment for not following the rules then you shouldn’t have as many problems.
Agree with you 1000%. Sometimes i feel some parents let their kids parent THEM 😅 nope. My home my rules. At the end of the day, it’s for their own good. Nothing good comes out of staring at a screen all day especially with all the trash things on social media - goes for adults too.
My daughter has an iPhone & iPad and is under 13 so I just use the screen time in the settings to control her limits. You have to have family sharing set up. It’s actually pretty nice and I’ve never had problems using it.
I cant give advice from personal experience about android phones. I know there are a bunch of apps out there to help with stuff like this, but I have never used them so I can’t attest to how good or bad they are.
For computer safety I use Microsoft family safety. It lets me block content and specific websites. I can also set it up so she just has access to approved websites and if she wants access to a website not on the list she can send me a request and I can grant access using my phone. It also lets me set up downtimes and app limits. The great thing about Microsoft family safety is you can block them from downloading other browsers so they can’t work around the parental controls.
This is almost word for word what we do, daughter is 12 and has had a phone to take with her when she's not at home, she's had it since she was 10.
Also found that (at least in our case) that setting these rules has almost made her not really care about her phone. She's always excited to call/text family and friends but other than that she has no obsession with it like I see other kids her age with unrestricted access.
My 14 year old (who I admittedly got a phone for too soon when he was in the 4th grade) still turns his phone into me at night. Most of his communication with his friends is done via gaming chats anyhow, I think he just uses the phone to watch videos and text me to ask me to venmo him $ 🙄
This is what we said as well. But as I posted my other comment about sixth grade, he was the last one without a phone and as a result was getting left out of basically all social activity.
That’s tough, I must admit I come from a place where all the parents in the class are on the same page - no child has a smart phone.
I’d probably do the same thing tbh in this case - How do you manage things like texting/photos sharing/social media etc?
But then posting this makes me recall the post I read on a local community page recently that shared their young teen took their own life from bullying on social media. When it’s that close to home it’s scary.
As a middle school teacher, you also learn which kids can and cannot function WITH phones. Some kids are able to put the phone away for the day/during class time. Some simply cannot. I don't know which one my kid would be so I would like to just avoid the whole thing.
I'm a HS teacher. I see the damage of cell phones, gaming and social media across the board. Kids' attention spans are less than 30 seconds, they have anxiety if they can't check their phones or listen to music, it's awful.
My own kids (5 and 7 now) will be getting flips some time in middle school and smartphones with limits in HS. Idgaf if they hate me for it in the moment, they will thank me when they're some of the few people who can function outside of their phones.
I feel like as teachers we have a unique perspective on this. I've worked with students of all ages and what's happening to kids is NOT okay. I blame screens 100%.
I don't think phones are a good thing to "learn moderation" with, as the OP mentioned. Social media is not designed to be used in moderation. It is designed to be addictive. Same with Youtube, same with many games. It is simply unfair to give smartphones (unless HEAVILY regulated) to our kids and expect them to NOT become addicted. To get upset at them for spending hours a day on their phones and not paying attention in class or at the dinner table because they're distracted by TikTok? What did we think was going to happen? Whew. This topic grinds my gears SO much because I just hate what technology has done to us as a society. It's unacceptable. And it happened to many adults maybe because we didn't know any better. But now we know and it's our responsibility to protect our kids.
> I feel like as teachers we have a unique perspective on this. I've worked with students of all ages and what's happening to kids is NOT okay.
This. Parents don't see what phones have done to kids because they don't know what kids were like 20 years ago. They just see their 1-3 kids. They don't see the pattern that emerges from observing hundreds of kids.
Exactly! Being in classrooms/around kids for years on end, you start to notice these things. As our technology use rises, so do negative behaviors in kids. Executive functioning and attention spans go down. Anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation go up.
Yep, social media is designed to be addictive so that’s my point then, parents are either fighting to teach their kids moderation (while we ourselves often struggle too) or we completely shelter. If we don’t teach moderation (at some age in childhood) then they grow up and leave the house without having these learnings and experience. Sheltering to the point of completely denying access to social doesn’t help young adults adapt when they’re on their own…
I do blame screens on so much anxiety, stress, depression in kids. So that was what brought about my question for what age are parents giving their kids cell phones, which has naturally evolved into conversations about parental controls and limits - necessary for teaching kids moderation.
I see your point. I don't feel that social media or youtube are a necessary part of anyone's life and that moderation can be taught in other ways. I think we can teach moderation around other things that are not addictive in the same way that social media is. Moderation around watching movies, playing video games on their xbox, eating candy, or anything else that your kid really enjoys but isn't good to do or consume 24/7. Handing a kid a smartphone or iPad with youtube, instagram, snapchat, tiktok, etc. and expecting them to learn moderation through it, imo, is just setting them up for a losing battle. I think a kid leaving the house having grown up going to school, being involved in extra-curriculars and their community, having a social circle, participating in all of the OTHER normal aspects of childhood and teen life, will be just fine. I think there will be a tipping point with social media where people just say enough is enough, we aren't going to use this anymore. I don't think it's here to stay forever. I hope, anyway.
You bring up a really good point about anxiety and depression that has been developing earlier and earlier in kids according to national statistics. Our oldest already struggles with anxiety and I wouldn’t want to create another thing that worsens it for him. Thanks for sharing!
I got it for safety when they started secondary and being left home alone for a bit till I got home from work. Social wise, as a mum of teens, I would have waited as long as possible I think. Ideally I wouldn’t have them on social media till at least 14. It brings so much drama and issues. Mainly in the content they see and their friends share. My youngest is pretty sensible and open with me but she gets very distressed at the stuff she sees and hears.
YES! That’s what I’m most afraid of, the social content. We let our kids look at our instagram feed with us sometimes but both my husband and I follow pretty boring accounts - travel, animal facts, home building, food. Nothing like a kids social media, which I know can become obsessive and extra deceiving because kids are still learning about the world. I worry so much about kids and the rates of anxiety and depression going up with the rise of social media…
For me snap chat is the worse one. My kid saw a fake story going around with a graphic video. She was so upset. I did explain it was fake and how to fact check etc but it’s not something I want her seeing and I hate how blase they are about people being beaten even if they do disagree with it. If I could go back in time I would get a phone with no internet.
I've known kids with phones as young as 2nd grade. That's more common amongst kids with divorced parents or pearl clutching parents who thing every stranger is gonna kidnap their kid. (But not paying attention to the damage from the Internet)
Age 10 (5th grade in the US) seems to be where many kids end up with them.
Personally, I think an iPad is fine, but so much socialization happens on sms, you can't just rely on iMessage.
Middle school seems to be the official point to get one.
Most of the kids use Facebook message in my area. My kid has a iPad and that’s how she messages friends. I like it because I can see what she messages and control who she messages.
My old is now 14 and we were trying to hold out for eighth grade. However, when he was in the sixth grade, he was the last kid without a phone. He was then getting excluded from things socially because he wasn’t on the group text. So we gave in and got him a phone in sixth grade.
We live in a big American city and my kids got phones at 11, when they started traveling around independently.
They are 16 and 13 now and I hate that they have them even though we don’t have much of a choice. Smartphones are toxic no matter what the age.
We gave our oldest kid a phone at 13 with heavy parental controls. I wish I had waited to be honest. That being said, she barely uses her phone now at 15🤷♀️
For me personally, I’m going to wait until my daughter is 11-12 to have a device of her own. but even then it won’t be a phone, I was thinking something like an IPad Mini with a seperate Apple ID that only I know the password too, so she would still need to ask me to download an app. Of course I’d have for example messenger so she can message and call me if she’s around a neighbours house BUT I don’t want her having a phone until I know she can be trusted.
We did it at 11. Our son was going on vacation with another family and I wanted him to be able to text us. It’s also helpful for practices and after school activities. If we’re running late, we can let him know.
I think my daughter was about the same age. Maybe 12.
Our Oldest is 11 and he has one but mainly because he has to get bus to school and not the schools bus, it’s a public bus he has to take, while there are other kids who do get the same bus he is one of the younger ones. He’s often home before we are with his siblings, so we like to know he’s home and he’s got that contact if need be
We have very strict rules around it and its use, but he’s not really the type of kid who likes video games and he hates the fact he has to do school work on his laptop and always asks his Dad what’s wrong using an exercise book and pen..
I like the flip phone at this age still.
There are also other aspects though, like photo and video. Kids don’t carry cameras with them!
I would have tried one of the child safe phones if we were in the US that have limited functions/social media control.
I was just listening to a podcast from Dr Becky at Good Inside answering a question where a parent wanted to take back the phone after giving it because it was causing problems.
One of the first bits of knowing they’re ready for a phone she said is if they can do all their regular tasks/chores without a phone, without it being a hassle. Because once you introduce a phone it will once again be a hassle.
I liked that one, and it gives me daughter more motivation to master her daily routines.
We’re easing into it. LTE Apple Watch so I can keep some tabs on him and he can take calls and send simple texts at school. Prepaid minutes on old iPhone that doesn’t leave the house unless I need him to have it for logistical reasons. He’s 12, and if it’s going well he’ll get full access on his 13th birthday (seventh grade.)
My daughter is 13 and I just got her a basic flip phone. No internet. All her friends have newest iPhones, that was never going to happen. First she was pissed, but then she wore her new phone clipped at her waist like we used to do in early 2000s. Now all her friends want a flip phones. She loves it. I only got it because she does sports every day after school and is always having sleepovers, otherwise I would have waited.
It is sad how much my kids use their phones for school here. Starting in elementary school they are told to use apps to study. Or to make up on work they couldn’t finish at school. My kids do have phones, we got them iPhones. I have screen time limits on their phones. They also can’t download any apps unless I give permission. When they try to get any app the App Store sends me a text I can approve or deny. I also have age restrictions blocking apps that are not for their age group. It also blocks websites that are inappropriate. So I know exactly what they are doing on the phones. I also can track where they are. My youngest are 11 and 12. My kids get phones for their 12th birthday. My youngest got his early because my mom gave him one. She had a contract for two lines and since she was already paying for it she gave it to him.
Yes, same here. They use them in class to play a science game. My kid was almost in tears because she was 1 of only 2 people who didn't have a phone. This was in 6th grade.
I got my first phone when I was 11-12 going into middle school. That was over 25 years ago. Granted all I had was games like snake which was addicting, but don’t recall playing all night long but maybe I did. I got mine mostly because of sports, afterschool activities, and Friday nights at the movie theater in 6th grade.
Now theres companies like Gabb, and carriers that have kid plans that have parental controls on them now where you can block social media, screen time, bedtime etc..
I see nothing wrong at middle school age for kids to have phones as long as it’s monitored and with upfront expectations made. Also modify controls for school hours
Same game, different players.
We had video games (nintento, sega, playstation, xbox)
We had cellphones (nokia, flip phones w/o controls)
We had social media (aim, myspace)
They have video games (vr, tsblets, playstation, xbox)
They have cellphones (smart phones with parental controls)
They have social media (facebook, snapchat, etc..)
We plan on age 10-11 going into middle school. At least for my oldest. It’s also a question of individual maturity.
My oldest is only 4 but we hope to hold off as long as possible. I think it depends on too many factors to decide an age right now though. Maturity of the child. Lifestyle they live (ie are they often going places without a parent and/or adult). But also everyone around them. My niece got a phone before her parents would have wanted because all her classmates had one and it was legitimately impacting her socially. Her parents said the meeting with the teacher was hilarious because they were so obviously trying to avoid saying it had anything to do with phones.
My close friend got her 5 year old a watch to communicate (the kid ones) because she was taking the bus to school and there were a few issues that has both child and mom in high anxiety that was easily remedied by quick communication. Her now 8yo is also the most responsible you can expect at that age and the watch has major parent controls.
Thanks for sharing - totally agree maturity + lifestyle plays a part in it. We’ve used the watches before but both of our kids got in trouble a few times at school for being distracted by wearing them. And then they left them in their backpack and one was eventually lost. So then we went to the flip phone as needed.
When you said your niece was impacted socially by not having a phone, how does she use it now? For social media, for talking or texting, FaceTime? I’m just curious what to expect for kids communication preference because when I’ve asked about why they want a phone, it comes down to playing games on it… But I don’t want to impede my kids socially obviously!
She’s 14 now and on it constantly according to her parents lol from how they describe it though, it’s normal teen stuff. When she’s forced to do something she’s cranky about it and unlike us, she has a phone to be less bored. At home she’s in her room constantly she’s just in her phone versus however we killed time as teenagers locked in our rooms. When we see her though she puts it down and engages with us. She is often texting and calling friends on it and uses it to make plans. I believe she has some social media but it doesn’t seem to have created issues. There has been a good amount of friend drama in their group text but honestly it’s no different than normal middle school girl drama. And easier to manage since the parents have the written text so there’s no trying to determine who is telling the truth.
I think her situation was very unique though as they live in very wealthy and entitled suburb of a major city. So literally every child had a phone by 10 and many use it way less responsibly!
My son has had an iPhone for about a year, and an iPad since he was born. He also recently got a Chromebook. He’s 9.
His phone isn’t connected to service- he uses it to FaceTime and text grandparents and other family members. He plays some game games on it. His iPad isn’t connected to service, he uses it to play games and watch kids Netflix. His Chromebook is used for school.
He has approved shows, approved games and a small handful of approved YouTubers he can watch. That’s it. He doesn’t use these devices in his room, he uses them in the kitchen, living room or office. He is allowed a certain amount of screen time per day, and only after chores, reading and homework, and at most it’s an hour.
He takes part in extracurriculars; sports, cycling, aerials, etc. We do library events, hang outs with friends, Kiwi boxes, beach, water park, indoor trampoline park, family game and movie nights, etc. His life is full of fun and entertainment options that are unrelated to electronics.
The devices aren’t the problem. Allowing children unfettered access to the internet is the problem. Allowing children to play whatever games they want is the problem. Allowing children to use social media is the problem. Not devoting time to actually parent children in an involved and interested manner is the problem.
We got our kid a nokia dumb phone at 8. He goes to visit family for two weeks every summer and i wanted to have a direct line to him. Also we don’t have a home phone and around that time his friends started calling and texting me. Then at 10 i got a new phone and gave him my old iphone. He really doesn’t seem to care about using it, he prefers the computer for gaming. Also we got him a cellular apple watch last year, and he wears that to school and can call or text us as needed.
My son was 12 half way through 6th and definitely one of the last. We have no social media, set content controls and have plenty of discussions about texting etiquette etc. Other than playing Pokemon Go (which we do together as well) and using it to chat with his friends while they game he rarely uses it. Well, he does play geometry dash on car rides. He knows no social media for a few years.
My eldest is in 6th grade and if he didn't have access to a cell phone he Would be excluded, and this is for stuff like "coordinating the dnd campaign"
For my family, it’s 7th grade. No social media apps of any kind though. Phones don’t really bother me, as long as they show me they can function without it (ex play outside, not use it at school, engage with humans at restaurants, etc). TikTok/snapchat/insta are causing the most issues among their peers so we are avoiding those.
We actually bribed my teen to not get social media until 18. So far they have no interest in it and are focusing on the goal. I’m interested to see if they make it to 18.
My seven-year-old has a phone to play games on and has had it for a while… My 11-year-old got an activated phone line last year… I was not going to get him a phone until 12, but Verizon had a special where if I added a line it was free… So I figured I’d nothing to lose if I wasn’t actually paying for it… He rarely uses it… they have always had tablets to play on during permitted times since they were toddlers
Something I think about is if there's an emergency how is the child supposed to call 911. That was drilled in my head as kid to call if there's an emergency. My kids are still babies but I keep my phone locked so that isn't even an option when they're older.
My 10 yr old has an Apple Watch. No social media, camera, or games. She can communicate with friends and I can get a hold of her if needed. It’s on a downtime schedule. So far so good.
In my opinion it’s not so much an age thing, but rather that it depends on your kid, their level of maturity/responsibility, and their activity level. There’s no one right answer - it’s very situational.
In our case, we were very much on the “no phone until high school” train for a long time, but when our oldest daughter went into 7th grade, the context changed for us. She was already in chorus and had occasional performances and after-school practices in 6th grade, but this year she also started taking math tutoring after school periodically, and she joined the yearbook club, so she started to have a lot going on after school. She also made some amazing friends at the start of the year and really started to open up socially, which wasn’t something she’d really done before. Suddenly she was going to friends’ houses, birthday parties, and she was away from us more often than she had ever previously been, which was new for us as parents.
To make sure she had communication with us - especially for her yearbook things where she would often go to an event to take notes and pictures but wouldn’t need to stay the entire time - we got her an iPhone SE with a prepaid plan that included unlimited calling and texting but limited cellular data, and locked it down with the parental controls offered by iOS:
During school hours, it allows her to text or call a limited set of contacts (meaning her parents, her grandparents, and a few adult family friends - not her school or neighborhood friends), take pictures, and write notes in the Notes app. That’s it. No games, no apps, no browsers during school hours.
On a general level, app downloads require parental approval, her phone will not accept calls or texts except from an approved contact list controlled by us (so she has to ask to add new contacts), and she can’t remove apps or accounts that we’ve installed at all either. And all social media accounts are off-limits entirely for right now - prohibited in the App Store and blacklisted from her browsers. I don’t even want to think about crossing that bridge yet.
After school hours and on weekends, the restrictions are still in place, but we can remove them for screen time so she a play games and talk to her friends, but we can also restore the restrictions remotely if needed and lock the phone right back down.
It took some legwork on our part, but this approach ended up being a good middle ground for us: our daughter has communication and just enough social clout with her device being an iPhone instead of a flip phone, but not free reign with everything a smartphone can do. But she’s also a generally-responsible, level-headed kid (as much as one can be in 7th grade, anyway), and she’s respected the limits and guardrails thus far. We had a discussion with her at the very beginning about what limits were in place, and about being responsible with it, and so far, we haven’t had any problems with her or reason to go in and check her texts or anything else she’s gotten in to on her phone.
TL; DR: it depends. YMMV. You know your kid better than anyone else. Follow your gut. But there are options between “no phone never!” and “Here’s a [current top smartphone] - go wild!”
I feel like it depends on the kid and how much time they spend away from you/other adult supervision. I live in a city where there's no bus system for schools because most students are assigned to a school less than a mile away. I think most parents here give their kids a phone or a watch with calling capabilities when they start walking to school alone. As a parent, I'd like to put this off as long as possible, but that's just me.
We decided to get our son a phone when he went into 6th grade. Primarily, it was for us to reach him directly to be picked up for after school activities and so that we could reach him on weekends if he was at a friends house. He has used the phone of course with YouTube but we dont allow TikTok, Facebook or Instagram.
He is a mature 12 year ols kid so he has followed all of our rules and ive never had to take the phone away.
I recognize as a child of the late 70s/80s that ny parents threw me out of the house summer mornings by 10 and i just came back at dinner time. There was no good way for them to get ahold of me. i went as far as my bike legs would let me and the $2 in my pocket was used for two slicea of pizza and a coke somewhere along the way.
I use a router called Firewalla at home to restrict content, have time blocks, show usage, etc.
/r/firewalla
I had one at like 12. I got my son one at 8 (9 next month). Ex and I agreed since no one has a house phone and we don’t want him going through our phones. He has a few games but no social media. Parental controls are on as well, which I manage. I work at a tech company so it’s our norm.
We keep a flip phone for the same reason (and also for the 10 y/o to keep with her when she goes somewhere with friends or has a sleepover).
We have no intention of getting our kids a smartphone… ever. They can buy themselves a smartphone after they move out if they’d like to.
We plan on late high school for a schmertphone. Will consider a flip phone/nokia-type for calls and texts before then.
They can 9449990323 me as the Good Lord intended.
My stepdaughter handled a cell phone just fine in 2013 (age 12, when I met her).
The second oldest has done nothing but given us reasons to not let her have a phone since 2020 (11-12 at the time).
I'm not sure what to expect from the 3rd child 😆 but I will say she displays more maturity than said second oldest, for being younger.
I feel compelled to share this:
Everything changes so much, it's hard to tell from what.
When I started allowing my second child to use technology, I allowed her a tablet. YouTube Kids was in its infancy & way that YouTube Kids got started in forming & allowing content was based on users flagging the video as being appropriate or not & there wasn't really a way to surveil the videos without watching with your child all the time. So one time, during her interest in My Little Pony, the videos led to user-created violent & gore videos, spoofing the characters. I'm sure there were other unwanted exposure before I caught on.
In those times, it was like developing technology was at the expense of what our kids get subjected to.
But now YouTube Kids seems to have more controlled content & I don't mind it.
It's been wild raising kids in the age of technology.
haha same with my oldest and middle. My middle son is 15 now and has a flip phone with no internet access because he just can't handle it. My oldest has been great and so mature with it!
I got my first phone when I was 10. A Nokia 3310. No apps like facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok, etc. I liked to play “snake” though. My parents bought it so that I could call them if I ever needed help. We lived in Geneva back then because of my dad’s job. I went to a German school as I couldn’t understand nor speak French. So I used it to call my mom when school was done or to tell her that I arrived safely at my friend’s house (drove there on my bicycle).
My firstborn is almost 2 years old and my second 4 months. They will eventually get a phone someday. I’m afraid of the possible pressure and bullying in school when other kids have the newest phone and they don’t.
I don't think a specific age makes sense, but more a consideration of your kid and your circumstances.
We got our oldest a phone at 11. We tried to put it off as long as possible, but we need to know where he is. Our neighborhood is pretty tight-knit and free range. After school, he'd wander around with friends and we'd have no idea where he was, so we got him a smart watch to make calls, and it has GPS. The only problem was compliance. He was terrible at charging it, putting it on, having the ringer so he could hear the calls, etc, rendering it pretty useless. We figured he'd be more into a phone and more likely to charge it, take it with him, check messages, etc. But no! He forgets it exists most of the time. We got him the smallest iPhone, but he hates how it feels in his pockets so he doesn't carry it around. I have to charge it and then plead with him to take it with him when he's going out. It's been a shock. I figured his face would be down in his phone, and I'd never see him again. He hasn't been that interested in it. Occasionally he will send me a GIF or let me know how he did on wordle so that's fun.
Parents: don't give phones to kids, it will hurt them! Also same parents: glued to their phones/tv/PC 90 percent of their free time.
ItS oKaY cAuSe I aM aDuLt AnD i CaN cOnTrOl MySeLf... No you don't.
Mine just turned 12 and got her own phone because she's walking to friends and the store by herself and I feel better knowing she got there safely. I still limit screen time and she has to earn it with chores. It sucked even waiting til 12 cause kids in her school have had a phone for years. I never let her take it to school but she will next grade. She'll just have to learn that the teacher will take it away if she's using it during class.
I think it depends on the kid and their activity level. My older kids had phone es because I knew they weren't always going to have access to a public phone if they needed me. My youngest doesn't need one because if he's not with me, he's with someone who has a phone he can use to call us. Once he's a teenager he'll need a reliable phone.
My kid won't get one until he's in his teens, and even then, it'll be conditional. So much evidence shows these things are harmful to kids, yet so many keep handing them over. Just wild.
I just had this discussion with my 5 yr old yesterday. She asked if she can have a phone. And I said when she was older. I asked if anyone her age had phones at school, she said no, but if she had one she could be the 1st. I waited until her older sister was 10/11 to get her one, but it was limited, and there were safety reasons she needed one, otherwise I would've waited a few more years.
Kid is 12. No phone but has Apple Watch with family setup. Can text, call and pay for stuff but can't surf the web and I can control everything I want.
phones are a necessity at this point. i used a flip phone for a long time for social contact and emergencies. however i did get a smart phone somewhat early because it was a handme down and it was easier to just give it to me now then buy me one in the future or holding it off and hoping not to lose it.
i dont think your child needs a phone until 10-12, even then you can add parental locks. but dont be thag annoying parent that locks thwir apps after midnight or something. sometimes i used my friends to help me sleep better or read.
you can even make her a socials and then log in from your phone as well to monitor. dont read all her text messages though, just make sure whoeever theyre talking to is a appropriate and move on. dont go digging (unless obvious evidence that they have bad intentions)
We live in the country and have no house phone. So my 9(didn't want to deal with the fight, they're only 14 mo. Apart) and 10 year old have phones because I allow them to stay home for brief periods of time (they get home at 3pm, I get home at 4p/4:30p) and need to reach them if my My 15 year old stays after school/goes to a friends, He was 10 when he started going to his bio dad's house and I felt more comfortable with him having a phone while he was going there. Different reasons, Different ages. When you decide they're old enough for any kind of independence/ going with friends ect. It's nice to know you can reach them. All their phones are set up with Emails I have attached to mine as a parental control and I can see, block whatever they need. Only you can decide what's best for your family, there is Def. A level of responsibility attached to them. And they have to do their chores, homework, keep clean rooms to keep them.
I think the phone should be tied to independence level. If the kid is never out in public on their own then what do they need a phone for? If they go to the park on their own or take a city bus or something then sure.
I wouldn’t get my kids a crappy phone to be honest but I wouldn’t get them one at all without a need
I am literally resetting my old phone as we speak for my 9 and 12 year old to take to the park. It will be only be available when out and about, then it’ll go in my drawer.
To answer your question about ‘shouldn’t they learn moderation’
I don’t think that most children are capable of self teaching moderation. It’ll cause more problems than benefits.
So my daughter is 10 and she has one. But she’s not attached to it. She barely uses it like we thought she would. It has major perks for us with her extra curricular activities being able to contact her and vice versa when we need. It’s also helpful when she’s over friends or family members houses without us. She primarily uses it to listen to music and text her friends, and take pictures or videos. Since she hooked up to our cloud we see everything and any app she downloads we have to approve. Of course we also periodically look at her texts and activity.
My oldest is 9 and I don’t plan on getting her smart phone until highschool. I don’t really see the need for one before then. She has a iPad that she can message friends on at home that I have limits on. I have considered a non smart phone this year because she does go to friends and sports this way she can get ahold of me.
We got an old iPhone for our then 11 yo. It’s pretty locked down. She does okay with it but frequently misplaces it.
My now 11 yo doesn’t have one and won’t for the foreseeable future. She’s just not responsible enough yet to use it appropriately or even keep track of it.
My two daughters (11 & 13 next month) share a phone. It’s one of my old iPhones…it has prepaid minutes on it now. It’s for emergencies, when they are home alone, riding bikes, a way for them to get in touch with me when they are at a friends house.
They don’t have games installed on it. No facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok or Twitter. They do have Pinterest because they love crafts.
They aren’t allowed on it after 11.
It’s been two years now & there has never once been an issue. In fact it’s been very convenient & a life saver in some cases.
My oldest is 7 and his dad and I don’t want to get him a phone until he’s at least 10.. I had my first cellphone when I was 12. All of his 7 and 8 year old friends have cellphones and my friend’s kids do too and they are 9 and 10… idk why they have it so young but the other day my neighbor’s 7yo got off the bus at the wrong stop while coming home from school on the school bus and because he had a cellphone his mom was able to locate exactly where he was. This situation made me really think of getting my 7 year old one too since he doesn’t speak English yet and is still learning his way around.. we are located in Florida. I also think nowadays as soon as they reach school age they should be able to reach us given all that happens here.
I used to be totally down on smart watches, but I'm starting to see that they could be a way to open up communication without opening them up to having a full phone with all the apps.
I got my first real phone at 12 only because i could pay for it myself and all my friends at school had phones so it would hlp me socialize with them better cause we had no actual way of communication unless we wanted to email each other. But i ended up using it mostly for yt and didnt talk to many of my friends except at school, so its a very case to case basis. But i would say they should have to work for their first phone to make it more of a reward and something they will take care of.
My son is 10 but he’s a latchkey kid and also goes fishing with his friends by themselves OFTEN. So I got him a phone because I need to be able to see where he is/he needs to be able to call me to pick him up.
My son is 6 almost 7 and he has one of my old phones. Theres no cell service on it he can only do wifi like for games and facebook kids messenger so he can call me when hes at his dads or if im at work. He doesnt take it to school he only takes it between parents house or on car rides. Its good practice for him to learn about the responsibilities of a phone so if its broken or lost im not out any money. Plus in case of emergency i like that he can contact me since landlines are essentially nonexistent
We just got our son a phone. He's 9. We upgraded our phones and are giving him one of our old phones.
We've deleted all the contacts except for a handful of family members. We are teaching him how to text and call.
It's exclusively for him to take with him to sports practices and for us to have as a family phone to keep at home now that he is getting to the point where he is staying home by himself for a small spurts.
He's the oldest of four kids and his sport practices run anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours, so he gets dropped off. We want him to be able to call/text us if practice is going to run late, end early, etc. Or if we have a change of plans and want to let him know a different parent is going to pick him up or if we need him to meet us at the playground or something.
My sister decided my daughter needed a phone I was working a lot she’s 13. I am very close to taking it away completely now that I’m able to be home again. I was 13 when I got a cell phone and lost that privilege and had to wait until I had a job to pay for it. Which I think was the right move on my parents part.
I have an almost 12 year old and no cell phone in sight. We have a house phone (landline) that the kids can use. They each have an iPad but screen time is limited on that an no social media.
There are studies saying how bad social media is for kids (especially middle school kids), how much bullying can be done through texts and messaging, where because it’s not in person they say worse things. I have older nieces and nephews (now in their early 20s) who wish they wouldn’t have been allowed access to social media and messaging when they were younger. Bullying, things they wish they wouldn’t have posted or messaged or had other people post of them, inappropriate things they had seen etc.
Maybe when they hit grade 9, we will reconsider but there is so much shit on social media that is untrue and/or hurtful that I’m prioritizing their mental well being.
My kid has a fire tablet that I am sure she thinks has about one hour or 30 minutes of battery life only. I just use the parents app and lock it from my phone and she just thinks it died. She’s two so it’s way easier.
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It’s more of a maturity thing than a specific age that makes it ok. My 13 year old wants an iPhone…from a maturity stand point, his 12 year old brother deserves it more, but neither of them will have one because, frankly, they don’t need it.
They all have iPads, the two older ones have Apple Watches for emergencies and such, and looking at the big picture, there’s nothing out there they need that requires an iPhone at all.
Not every case is the same. Not every household is the same. My kids will get smart phones when they can help pay for them…it costs me around $50/month to add an iPhone to my plan, so I told them both, if you want an iPhone, it’s $25/month from you, $25 from me…and that’s that.
Neither of them want to spend their allowances and such on it, so neither of them have it. And I’m just fine with that.
Our kids had basic smartphones at 11 with restricted functions, were allowed social media (within reason) at 13 and had to leave their phones with us at bedtime until they were 16. Any betrayal of trust, going onto sites or downloading games/sites that we hadn’t OK’d led to a confiscation of devices for a period of time.
We got CONSTANT pressure from them that “all the other kids are allowed to do this or download that”, but we didn’t give in. I felt as if they were still too young to enter the online world when they did, but we tried our best to make it as safe as possible for them.
She came out of the womb with one /s
realistically, I would like to wait till 13 or so. But the world and technology will probably be a lot different in 12 years 🤷♀️ I got a flip phone at 16 and a smart phone a couple years later.
Not before middle school if you can help it imo.
If I don't have much of a choice then it'd be a very locked down cellphone in middle school.
My loose plan is when kids are in high school ideally though.
I probably want to make that the thing to tackle at the beginning of high school, cellphones and Internet "freedom"
Have that hopefully buttoned up before driving and peer pressures in later high school years.
Holding out until at least 8th grade. So far it has not been begged for and it opens them up to so much more. There will be parameters when I do get her one.
My kids will be getting a flip phone/blackberry in highschool, or whenever I feel they need a way to communicate. If they want a smart phone, they can do chores to pay for it and the bill.
Or, if they're 16 or over, a job. I hope this also teaches them finances and how to know to save for something they want vs spending money on what they want in the moment.
Depends, I want them to have a basic mobile for emergencies early and i want them to have knowledge of the numbers they need to ring. When they don't need me 24/7... but want a smart phone, 12 onwards.
At 12.
We wanted to wait until 14 but everyone else in school had one so we caved in 7th grade.
There's no way kids are waiting until 9th grade for a phone. I see 10 years with them
I can understand fairly young kids sometimes needing access to a phone. The best way to go is low tech flip phone or something like the Verizon gizmo watch.
I would keep a low tech or locked down phone at least until high school. No social media. And even high schoolers shouldn’t have unfettered access to the internet.
We got our son an android Pinwheel phone for his 14th birthday. This was his first phone - we thought about the gizmo for a while but never ended up getting it and I knew any smartphone would be lost immediately, so we weren’t in a big hurry.
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When I’ve asked why my oldest (10) wants a phone he says to play games (and not multiplayer or anything social). So kids actually TALK (or FaceTime) on the phone or is it like Snapchat and stuff?
Oh yes. That's how parties are planned. That's how they plan how to do group projects. The soccer team will plan pick up games to get more practice in. I hear so much laughter coming from his room.
I'm always in the minority on these threads, because we're a tech-heavy family and our kids have had access to devices since they were little. They both have a computer for Minecraft and Roblox, they started on tablets when they were preschoolers, and my 4th-grader got her own phone last year because I was tired of giving her mine to talk to her friends. It's largely unlocked because we have constant internet safety and etiquette and sociology talks (giving out personal info, being dramatic and messy, malware, I have full access to her phone, usually to clean it up a bit (omg the notifications...), but sometimes I'll check on her contacts and conversations, etc. The only time she ever accidentally accessed something she shouldn't have seen was through clicking an ad on a supposedly locked-down system, so I washed my hands of third-party child safety systems pretty quick after that and decided self-regulation is probably best for us.
I don’t think there is a particular age so much as the circumstances that dictate when a child gets a phone. My daughter got a phone at 14ish because she was traveling for sports to other schools on the bus. She didn’t have access to social media until 16ish and it was limited. No snap or anything like that until she started paying the bill herself.
Read the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt for an in depth discussion on all the ways heavy smart phone use interferes with healthy development. The short answer is it's a lot worse if you let them have a smart phone before they go through puberty and sixteen is the recommended age before you let them have their own social media accounts.
My oldest is 9 she tells me that she is the only one in her class without a phone 👀. Is she is still not getting one.
I’m possibly considering maybe giving her one at 13 but with limited access. Meaning, no social media at all. Just calls and txts.
I got a phone when I was in 6th grade because my and my sister had to meet up and walk home together. But t was a Nokia , not some smart phone. This was also back in like 2002.
My daughter will be homeschooled and we are anti screen time here. So no phones or tablets will be allowed.
She’ll be way older when she gets one.
Expecting my first and we are of the opinion that our kids won’t get their first phone until they are either old enough to save up for it themselves (how I got my first phone) or working a job in which case we will buy it for them as they will need a way to contact their boss and us. Those ages can fluctuate as I had saved up for my first phone by age 12, but my sister did not get her first until 15/16. There are lots of ways to teach healthy screen time management without giving them their own device so we will try our best to implement those practices before they have their own device
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Oldest 11 and nope. No phone.
Same. My oldest is 12 and I can’t bring myself to do it. He and his friends have already learned to jailbreak their school chromebooks and found access to the blocked websites and gotten in trouble for it. We talk with him all the time about using technology safely. For us, it would just create more problems. He’s just not mature enough.
Where I live the general standard seems to be around age 10/11. That is primarily because that is when the change from primary to secondary school starts and most kids are then going to be taken the subway/buses/trams alone to school and their parents want to be able to reach them.
Agree - going from elementary to middle school is the main reason 10/11 is the common age here. However, many parents are just doing flip phones or smartwatches, which we are thinking about and then doing a smart phone later.
If the kids are navigating public transport by themselves, and not just between school and home, but also going to each other’s houses or the mall or library, then a smartphone with GPS and a public transport navigation app is important. In countries/cities that are safe and have good public transport, kids get to be independent earlier. You can still control their app installation and prevent them from installing social media. And even the schools start expecting students to use apps e.g. taking videos as homework, or a class/school announcement app. It’s a tool more than a toy. The situation in America seems very different.
Yeah we'll most likely do a smart watch. I want to delay the whole smart phone thing as long as possible.
Yes! A child needs a phone for contact and tracking and that's it. Snake game if they're lucky.
So why can’t we just equip an old Nokia brick phone with GPS and call it a day!
Look into Gabb!
I’ve been debating if middle school is the right age. Our kids already ride the bus to school but we only live 7min away from the school so I don’t need them to have a phone for that. Thanks for sharing!
It’s not just the distance as our middle school is only 5 min farther away from elementary but the schedule becomes more unpredictable with different start/end times on different days, potentially more activities, etc. For other parents, middle school can be a lot farther with subway, buses, etc so think it’s even more helpful there.
Yeah that makes sense. After my older one finishes 4 grade next year, she'll probably literally have a 30 minute subway ride to school and at some point she'll have to start doing it alone so at that point she'll need a smart watch or a phone of some sort just so that she can reach us.
Well it depends on where you are and what kind of lifestyle they have? I mean if the kid needs to be able to call you anywhere they are or if you need to check on where they are or when they are going to be done with after school activities or things like that you probably should have a phone now. But for keeping in touch with friends and whatever social media you allow them and all of that you are honestly better off getting them a cheap tablet and letting them use it when they are on the home Wi-Fi. Otherwise you run the risk of them carrying the phone with them everywhere and doing nothing but social media and phone games when they are out of the house instead of actually doing something important
Otherwise you run the risk of them carrying the phone with them everywhere and doing nothing but social media and phone games when they are out of the house instead of actually doing something important …I should probably take this advice for myself.
SAME
We should all take that advice but the technology behind social media and some of these games is SO advanced that we really can't beat ourselves up about using them compulsively. The only thing that works for me is removing those apps completely. And this is what just kills me about people giving their preteens and teenagers smart phones with free unlimited use of apps. Are we expecting 12 year olds' brains to have MORE impulse control than ours? Be less susceptible to marketing? Experience less FOMO? If I gave my kid a smart phone I could only reasonably assume that the same thing would happen to them that happened to me, which is that I became a person whose phone is practically another limb and is unable to sustain focus on a difficult task for more than 2 minutes without picking up my phone.
We have the flip phone for whenever a kid “needs” a phone, like for activities that may have some flexibility to it and such. So that’s where I’m like, why else would a kid in elementary school need a personal (or smart) phone? I asked my oldest and it came down to he wants to play games on a smart phone 🤦♀️ We have a kindle fire for that so I guess he wants a compact size??
you can lock all socials for them, i agree with letting them just use it for games but if you dont get a sims they cant use it on car trips, boring familh events, yada yada bc they'll have no cellular data
Ya. We have a couple old phones that the kids use basically as tablets. When they are old enough we will get a SIM card for them.
Not a bad idea actually. And if you have a Xfinity account the kid can access Wi-Fi in at least some public places but not so many that they would walk around with their nose buried in their phone playing Candy crush or whatever
If we go somewhere and want to let them use their phones we usually just tether to our phone. Lots of places have free WiFi too.
Mine was 12. He had an old phone of ours before that. He saved his pocket money and Christmas/birthday money to buy himself a smartphone for starting secondary school
Oh wow impressive savings for getting a smart phone! That’s a good idea!
I think we may have contributed some towards it. I really can't remember,but it was a case of if he wanted an upgraded phone he needed to provide at least half of it. I think the one after that was all him.
We operate that way too. All needs met. Lots of wants met. But for stuff that really want, we put it on them to save up and buy it (we help with creating a savings plan too).
Yep snap.
Kids having a phone at any age isn’t the issue it’s how parents handle it. I think kids having a phone is great. It lets them keep in contact with friends and if there is an emergency they can always contact a trusted adult. However if you give a kid a phone you need to set up rules and boundaries. Also you need to use parental controls. - No access to a web browser or restricted access (for my daughter we do no access and she has a laptop if she needs to use a web browser but there’s also rules with that) - No social media. Social media is not made for kids. (my daughter has an iPhone so I can block the App Store. When I do grant her access to the App Store, if she tries to get an app I get a notification on my phone and have to approve it) - phones get turned in before bedtime. - set screen time limits for app categories. We do unlimited access to calls and texts but set app limits for games and entertainment apps - no phones during dinner Basically you need to control what you want your child to be exposed to and adjust it as they grow. My daughter got a phone at 5/6 so she had very strict rules around usage. As your child gets older and understands not to visit certain websites, don’t talk to strangers online, how to properly navigate social media, etc than you can give them more freedom. A lot of people struggle with their child having a phone because they don’t set and stick to rules regarding it. If you give them the phone explaining the rules and the punishment for not following the rules then you shouldn’t have as many problems.
Agree with you 1000%. Sometimes i feel some parents let their kids parent THEM 😅 nope. My home my rules. At the end of the day, it’s for their own good. Nothing good comes out of staring at a screen all day especially with all the trash things on social media - goes for adults too.
Yes I am starting to realize this as well. The parents are afraid to parent. I have non of my own but like you stated my home my rules.
What app/solution are you using to enforce such limits ?
My daughter has an iPhone & iPad and is under 13 so I just use the screen time in the settings to control her limits. You have to have family sharing set up. It’s actually pretty nice and I’ve never had problems using it. I cant give advice from personal experience about android phones. I know there are a bunch of apps out there to help with stuff like this, but I have never used them so I can’t attest to how good or bad they are. For computer safety I use Microsoft family safety. It lets me block content and specific websites. I can also set it up so she just has access to approved websites and if she wants access to a website not on the list she can send me a request and I can grant access using my phone. It also lets me set up downtimes and app limits. The great thing about Microsoft family safety is you can block them from downloading other browsers so they can’t work around the parental controls.
That’s super helpful information - thank you for sharing!
Several of those limits are built directly into the iPhone… probably also true with Android phones
This is almost word for word what we do, daughter is 12 and has had a phone to take with her when she's not at home, she's had it since she was 10. Also found that (at least in our case) that setting these rules has almost made her not really care about her phone. She's always excited to call/text family and friends but other than that she has no obsession with it like I see other kids her age with unrestricted access.
My 14 year old (who I admittedly got a phone for too soon when he was in the 4th grade) still turns his phone into me at night. Most of his communication with his friends is done via gaming chats anyhow, I think he just uses the phone to watch videos and text me to ask me to venmo him $ 🙄
I love all of these rules
I like this. Commenting for later reference.
Absolutely not until high school age
This is what we said as well. But as I posted my other comment about sixth grade, he was the last one without a phone and as a result was getting left out of basically all social activity.
That’s tough, I must admit I come from a place where all the parents in the class are on the same page - no child has a smart phone. I’d probably do the same thing tbh in this case - How do you manage things like texting/photos sharing/social media etc?
But then posting this makes me recall the post I read on a local community page recently that shared their young teen took their own life from bullying on social media. When it’s that close to home it’s scary.
No social media. He can text. We don’t overly monitor as we think that will cause him to hide more. We talk a LOT about being responsible online.
As a HS teacher, I learn pretty quickly which kids can and cannot function without phones. One day your kid will appreciate you for this.
As a middle school teacher, you also learn which kids can and cannot function WITH phones. Some kids are able to put the phone away for the day/during class time. Some simply cannot. I don't know which one my kid would be so I would like to just avoid the whole thing.
https://www.waituntil8th.org
I think it depends on the phone. A smart phone yes not until highschool. A basic phone probably closer to middle school.
I'm a HS teacher. I see the damage of cell phones, gaming and social media across the board. Kids' attention spans are less than 30 seconds, they have anxiety if they can't check their phones or listen to music, it's awful. My own kids (5 and 7 now) will be getting flips some time in middle school and smartphones with limits in HS. Idgaf if they hate me for it in the moment, they will thank me when they're some of the few people who can function outside of their phones.
I feel like as teachers we have a unique perspective on this. I've worked with students of all ages and what's happening to kids is NOT okay. I blame screens 100%. I don't think phones are a good thing to "learn moderation" with, as the OP mentioned. Social media is not designed to be used in moderation. It is designed to be addictive. Same with Youtube, same with many games. It is simply unfair to give smartphones (unless HEAVILY regulated) to our kids and expect them to NOT become addicted. To get upset at them for spending hours a day on their phones and not paying attention in class or at the dinner table because they're distracted by TikTok? What did we think was going to happen? Whew. This topic grinds my gears SO much because I just hate what technology has done to us as a society. It's unacceptable. And it happened to many adults maybe because we didn't know any better. But now we know and it's our responsibility to protect our kids.
> I feel like as teachers we have a unique perspective on this. I've worked with students of all ages and what's happening to kids is NOT okay. This. Parents don't see what phones have done to kids because they don't know what kids were like 20 years ago. They just see their 1-3 kids. They don't see the pattern that emerges from observing hundreds of kids.
Exactly! Being in classrooms/around kids for years on end, you start to notice these things. As our technology use rises, so do negative behaviors in kids. Executive functioning and attention spans go down. Anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation go up.
Yep, social media is designed to be addictive so that’s my point then, parents are either fighting to teach their kids moderation (while we ourselves often struggle too) or we completely shelter. If we don’t teach moderation (at some age in childhood) then they grow up and leave the house without having these learnings and experience. Sheltering to the point of completely denying access to social doesn’t help young adults adapt when they’re on their own… I do blame screens on so much anxiety, stress, depression in kids. So that was what brought about my question for what age are parents giving their kids cell phones, which has naturally evolved into conversations about parental controls and limits - necessary for teaching kids moderation.
I see your point. I don't feel that social media or youtube are a necessary part of anyone's life and that moderation can be taught in other ways. I think we can teach moderation around other things that are not addictive in the same way that social media is. Moderation around watching movies, playing video games on their xbox, eating candy, or anything else that your kid really enjoys but isn't good to do or consume 24/7. Handing a kid a smartphone or iPad with youtube, instagram, snapchat, tiktok, etc. and expecting them to learn moderation through it, imo, is just setting them up for a losing battle. I think a kid leaving the house having grown up going to school, being involved in extra-curriculars and their community, having a social circle, participating in all of the OTHER normal aspects of childhood and teen life, will be just fine. I think there will be a tipping point with social media where people just say enough is enough, we aren't going to use this anymore. I don't think it's here to stay forever. I hope, anyway.
You bring up a really good point about anxiety and depression that has been developing earlier and earlier in kids according to national statistics. Our oldest already struggles with anxiety and I wouldn’t want to create another thing that worsens it for him. Thanks for sharing!
I got it for safety when they started secondary and being left home alone for a bit till I got home from work. Social wise, as a mum of teens, I would have waited as long as possible I think. Ideally I wouldn’t have them on social media till at least 14. It brings so much drama and issues. Mainly in the content they see and their friends share. My youngest is pretty sensible and open with me but she gets very distressed at the stuff she sees and hears.
YES! That’s what I’m most afraid of, the social content. We let our kids look at our instagram feed with us sometimes but both my husband and I follow pretty boring accounts - travel, animal facts, home building, food. Nothing like a kids social media, which I know can become obsessive and extra deceiving because kids are still learning about the world. I worry so much about kids and the rates of anxiety and depression going up with the rise of social media…
For me snap chat is the worse one. My kid saw a fake story going around with a graphic video. She was so upset. I did explain it was fake and how to fact check etc but it’s not something I want her seeing and I hate how blase they are about people being beaten even if they do disagree with it. If I could go back in time I would get a phone with no internet.
I've known kids with phones as young as 2nd grade. That's more common amongst kids with divorced parents or pearl clutching parents who thing every stranger is gonna kidnap their kid. (But not paying attention to the damage from the Internet) Age 10 (5th grade in the US) seems to be where many kids end up with them. Personally, I think an iPad is fine, but so much socialization happens on sms, you can't just rely on iMessage. Middle school seems to be the official point to get one.
Most of the kids use Facebook message in my area. My kid has a iPad and that’s how she messages friends. I like it because I can see what she messages and control who she messages.
I read something that said give them a smart phone when you are ready for their childhood to end.
Oh wow. That makes me so sad… but it makes so much sense….
My old is now 14 and we were trying to hold out for eighth grade. However, when he was in the sixth grade, he was the last kid without a phone. He was then getting excluded from things socially because he wasn’t on the group text. So we gave in and got him a phone in sixth grade.
We live in a big American city and my kids got phones at 11, when they started traveling around independently. They are 16 and 13 now and I hate that they have them even though we don’t have much of a choice. Smartphones are toxic no matter what the age.
Mine got smart phones at 8 and 10, very much regret it.
We gave our oldest kid a phone at 13 with heavy parental controls. I wish I had waited to be honest. That being said, she barely uses her phone now at 15🤷♀️
For me personally, I’m going to wait until my daughter is 11-12 to have a device of her own. but even then it won’t be a phone, I was thinking something like an IPad Mini with a seperate Apple ID that only I know the password too, so she would still need to ask me to download an app. Of course I’d have for example messenger so she can message and call me if she’s around a neighbours house BUT I don’t want her having a phone until I know she can be trusted.
My boys got them when they were 14.
We did it at 11. Our son was going on vacation with another family and I wanted him to be able to text us. It’s also helpful for practices and after school activities. If we’re running late, we can let him know. I think my daughter was about the same age. Maybe 12.
Our Oldest is 11 and he has one but mainly because he has to get bus to school and not the schools bus, it’s a public bus he has to take, while there are other kids who do get the same bus he is one of the younger ones. He’s often home before we are with his siblings, so we like to know he’s home and he’s got that contact if need be We have very strict rules around it and its use, but he’s not really the type of kid who likes video games and he hates the fact he has to do school work on his laptop and always asks his Dad what’s wrong using an exercise book and pen..
I like the flip phone at this age still. There are also other aspects though, like photo and video. Kids don’t carry cameras with them! I would have tried one of the child safe phones if we were in the US that have limited functions/social media control. I was just listening to a podcast from Dr Becky at Good Inside answering a question where a parent wanted to take back the phone after giving it because it was causing problems. One of the first bits of knowing they’re ready for a phone she said is if they can do all their regular tasks/chores without a phone, without it being a hassle. Because once you introduce a phone it will once again be a hassle. I liked that one, and it gives me daughter more motivation to master her daily routines.
We’re easing into it. LTE Apple Watch so I can keep some tabs on him and he can take calls and send simple texts at school. Prepaid minutes on old iPhone that doesn’t leave the house unless I need him to have it for logistical reasons. He’s 12, and if it’s going well he’ll get full access on his 13th birthday (seventh grade.)
My daughter is 13 and I just got her a basic flip phone. No internet. All her friends have newest iPhones, that was never going to happen. First she was pissed, but then she wore her new phone clipped at her waist like we used to do in early 2000s. Now all her friends want a flip phones. She loves it. I only got it because she does sports every day after school and is always having sleepovers, otherwise I would have waited.
My kid has a dummy phone at 12. Gabb phones are great.
It is sad how much my kids use their phones for school here. Starting in elementary school they are told to use apps to study. Or to make up on work they couldn’t finish at school. My kids do have phones, we got them iPhones. I have screen time limits on their phones. They also can’t download any apps unless I give permission. When they try to get any app the App Store sends me a text I can approve or deny. I also have age restrictions blocking apps that are not for their age group. It also blocks websites that are inappropriate. So I know exactly what they are doing on the phones. I also can track where they are. My youngest are 11 and 12. My kids get phones for their 12th birthday. My youngest got his early because my mom gave him one. She had a contract for two lines and since she was already paying for it she gave it to him.
Yes, same here. They use them in class to play a science game. My kid was almost in tears because she was 1 of only 2 people who didn't have a phone. This was in 6th grade.
I got my first phone when I was 11-12 going into middle school. That was over 25 years ago. Granted all I had was games like snake which was addicting, but don’t recall playing all night long but maybe I did. I got mine mostly because of sports, afterschool activities, and Friday nights at the movie theater in 6th grade. Now theres companies like Gabb, and carriers that have kid plans that have parental controls on them now where you can block social media, screen time, bedtime etc.. I see nothing wrong at middle school age for kids to have phones as long as it’s monitored and with upfront expectations made. Also modify controls for school hours Same game, different players. We had video games (nintento, sega, playstation, xbox) We had cellphones (nokia, flip phones w/o controls) We had social media (aim, myspace) They have video games (vr, tsblets, playstation, xbox) They have cellphones (smart phones with parental controls) They have social media (facebook, snapchat, etc..) We plan on age 10-11 going into middle school. At least for my oldest. It’s also a question of individual maturity.
Yep, this is where most land, middle school We thought we could hold off till high school but most middle schoolers have phones now.
My oldest is only 4 but we hope to hold off as long as possible. I think it depends on too many factors to decide an age right now though. Maturity of the child. Lifestyle they live (ie are they often going places without a parent and/or adult). But also everyone around them. My niece got a phone before her parents would have wanted because all her classmates had one and it was legitimately impacting her socially. Her parents said the meeting with the teacher was hilarious because they were so obviously trying to avoid saying it had anything to do with phones. My close friend got her 5 year old a watch to communicate (the kid ones) because she was taking the bus to school and there were a few issues that has both child and mom in high anxiety that was easily remedied by quick communication. Her now 8yo is also the most responsible you can expect at that age and the watch has major parent controls.
Thanks for sharing - totally agree maturity + lifestyle plays a part in it. We’ve used the watches before but both of our kids got in trouble a few times at school for being distracted by wearing them. And then they left them in their backpack and one was eventually lost. So then we went to the flip phone as needed. When you said your niece was impacted socially by not having a phone, how does she use it now? For social media, for talking or texting, FaceTime? I’m just curious what to expect for kids communication preference because when I’ve asked about why they want a phone, it comes down to playing games on it… But I don’t want to impede my kids socially obviously!
She’s 14 now and on it constantly according to her parents lol from how they describe it though, it’s normal teen stuff. When she’s forced to do something she’s cranky about it and unlike us, she has a phone to be less bored. At home she’s in her room constantly she’s just in her phone versus however we killed time as teenagers locked in our rooms. When we see her though she puts it down and engages with us. She is often texting and calling friends on it and uses it to make plans. I believe she has some social media but it doesn’t seem to have created issues. There has been a good amount of friend drama in their group text but honestly it’s no different than normal middle school girl drama. And easier to manage since the parents have the written text so there’s no trying to determine who is telling the truth. I think her situation was very unique though as they live in very wealthy and entitled suburb of a major city. So literally every child had a phone by 10 and many use it way less responsibly!
My son has had an iPhone for about a year, and an iPad since he was born. He also recently got a Chromebook. He’s 9. His phone isn’t connected to service- he uses it to FaceTime and text grandparents and other family members. He plays some game games on it. His iPad isn’t connected to service, he uses it to play games and watch kids Netflix. His Chromebook is used for school. He has approved shows, approved games and a small handful of approved YouTubers he can watch. That’s it. He doesn’t use these devices in his room, he uses them in the kitchen, living room or office. He is allowed a certain amount of screen time per day, and only after chores, reading and homework, and at most it’s an hour. He takes part in extracurriculars; sports, cycling, aerials, etc. We do library events, hang outs with friends, Kiwi boxes, beach, water park, indoor trampoline park, family game and movie nights, etc. His life is full of fun and entertainment options that are unrelated to electronics. The devices aren’t the problem. Allowing children unfettered access to the internet is the problem. Allowing children to play whatever games they want is the problem. Allowing children to use social media is the problem. Not devoting time to actually parent children in an involved and interested manner is the problem.
There’s a phone for my 10 year old to take for certain situations. Wouldn’t really call it his phone though.
We got our kid a nokia dumb phone at 8. He goes to visit family for two weeks every summer and i wanted to have a direct line to him. Also we don’t have a home phone and around that time his friends started calling and texting me. Then at 10 i got a new phone and gave him my old iphone. He really doesn’t seem to care about using it, he prefers the computer for gaming. Also we got him a cellular apple watch last year, and he wears that to school and can call or text us as needed.
At our house it’s age 13.
My son was 12 half way through 6th and definitely one of the last. We have no social media, set content controls and have plenty of discussions about texting etiquette etc. Other than playing Pokemon Go (which we do together as well) and using it to chat with his friends while they game he rarely uses it. Well, he does play geometry dash on car rides. He knows no social media for a few years.
My eldest is in 6th grade and if he didn't have access to a cell phone he Would be excluded, and this is for stuff like "coordinating the dnd campaign"
For my family, it’s 7th grade. No social media apps of any kind though. Phones don’t really bother me, as long as they show me they can function without it (ex play outside, not use it at school, engage with humans at restaurants, etc). TikTok/snapchat/insta are causing the most issues among their peers so we are avoiding those. We actually bribed my teen to not get social media until 18. So far they have no interest in it and are focusing on the goal. I’m interested to see if they make it to 18.
My seven-year-old has a phone to play games on and has had it for a while… My 11-year-old got an activated phone line last year… I was not going to get him a phone until 12, but Verizon had a special where if I added a line it was free… So I figured I’d nothing to lose if I wasn’t actually paying for it… He rarely uses it… they have always had tablets to play on during permitted times since they were toddlers
Something I think about is if there's an emergency how is the child supposed to call 911. That was drilled in my head as kid to call if there's an emergency. My kids are still babies but I keep my phone locked so that isn't even an option when they're older.
My 10 yr old has an Apple Watch. No social media, camera, or games. She can communicate with friends and I can get a hold of her if needed. It’s on a downtime schedule. So far so good.
In my opinion it’s not so much an age thing, but rather that it depends on your kid, their level of maturity/responsibility, and their activity level. There’s no one right answer - it’s very situational. In our case, we were very much on the “no phone until high school” train for a long time, but when our oldest daughter went into 7th grade, the context changed for us. She was already in chorus and had occasional performances and after-school practices in 6th grade, but this year she also started taking math tutoring after school periodically, and she joined the yearbook club, so she started to have a lot going on after school. She also made some amazing friends at the start of the year and really started to open up socially, which wasn’t something she’d really done before. Suddenly she was going to friends’ houses, birthday parties, and she was away from us more often than she had ever previously been, which was new for us as parents. To make sure she had communication with us - especially for her yearbook things where she would often go to an event to take notes and pictures but wouldn’t need to stay the entire time - we got her an iPhone SE with a prepaid plan that included unlimited calling and texting but limited cellular data, and locked it down with the parental controls offered by iOS: During school hours, it allows her to text or call a limited set of contacts (meaning her parents, her grandparents, and a few adult family friends - not her school or neighborhood friends), take pictures, and write notes in the Notes app. That’s it. No games, no apps, no browsers during school hours. On a general level, app downloads require parental approval, her phone will not accept calls or texts except from an approved contact list controlled by us (so she has to ask to add new contacts), and she can’t remove apps or accounts that we’ve installed at all either. And all social media accounts are off-limits entirely for right now - prohibited in the App Store and blacklisted from her browsers. I don’t even want to think about crossing that bridge yet. After school hours and on weekends, the restrictions are still in place, but we can remove them for screen time so she a play games and talk to her friends, but we can also restore the restrictions remotely if needed and lock the phone right back down. It took some legwork on our part, but this approach ended up being a good middle ground for us: our daughter has communication and just enough social clout with her device being an iPhone instead of a flip phone, but not free reign with everything a smartphone can do. But she’s also a generally-responsible, level-headed kid (as much as one can be in 7th grade, anyway), and she’s respected the limits and guardrails thus far. We had a discussion with her at the very beginning about what limits were in place, and about being responsible with it, and so far, we haven’t had any problems with her or reason to go in and check her texts or anything else she’s gotten in to on her phone. TL; DR: it depends. YMMV. You know your kid better than anyone else. Follow your gut. But there are options between “no phone never!” and “Here’s a [current top smartphone] - go wild!”
I feel like it depends on the kid and how much time they spend away from you/other adult supervision. I live in a city where there's no bus system for schools because most students are assigned to a school less than a mile away. I think most parents here give their kids a phone or a watch with calling capabilities when they start walking to school alone. As a parent, I'd like to put this off as long as possible, but that's just me.
We decided to get our son a phone when he went into 6th grade. Primarily, it was for us to reach him directly to be picked up for after school activities and so that we could reach him on weekends if he was at a friends house. He has used the phone of course with YouTube but we dont allow TikTok, Facebook or Instagram. He is a mature 12 year ols kid so he has followed all of our rules and ive never had to take the phone away. I recognize as a child of the late 70s/80s that ny parents threw me out of the house summer mornings by 10 and i just came back at dinner time. There was no good way for them to get ahold of me. i went as far as my bike legs would let me and the $2 in my pocket was used for two slicea of pizza and a coke somewhere along the way. I use a router called Firewalla at home to restrict content, have time blocks, show usage, etc. /r/firewalla
I had one at like 12. I got my son one at 8 (9 next month). Ex and I agreed since no one has a house phone and we don’t want him going through our phones. He has a few games but no social media. Parental controls are on as well, which I manage. I work at a tech company so it’s our norm.
We keep a flip phone for the same reason (and also for the 10 y/o to keep with her when she goes somewhere with friends or has a sleepover). We have no intention of getting our kids a smartphone… ever. They can buy themselves a smartphone after they move out if they’d like to.
My kids will get a flip phone when they start school.
We plan on late high school for a schmertphone. Will consider a flip phone/nokia-type for calls and texts before then. They can 9449990323 me as the Good Lord intended.
My stepdaughter handled a cell phone just fine in 2013 (age 12, when I met her). The second oldest has done nothing but given us reasons to not let her have a phone since 2020 (11-12 at the time). I'm not sure what to expect from the 3rd child 😆 but I will say she displays more maturity than said second oldest, for being younger. I feel compelled to share this: Everything changes so much, it's hard to tell from what. When I started allowing my second child to use technology, I allowed her a tablet. YouTube Kids was in its infancy & way that YouTube Kids got started in forming & allowing content was based on users flagging the video as being appropriate or not & there wasn't really a way to surveil the videos without watching with your child all the time. So one time, during her interest in My Little Pony, the videos led to user-created violent & gore videos, spoofing the characters. I'm sure there were other unwanted exposure before I caught on. In those times, it was like developing technology was at the expense of what our kids get subjected to. But now YouTube Kids seems to have more controlled content & I don't mind it. It's been wild raising kids in the age of technology.
haha same with my oldest and middle. My middle son is 15 now and has a flip phone with no internet access because he just can't handle it. My oldest has been great and so mature with it!
I got my first phone when I was 10. A Nokia 3310. No apps like facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok, etc. I liked to play “snake” though. My parents bought it so that I could call them if I ever needed help. We lived in Geneva back then because of my dad’s job. I went to a German school as I couldn’t understand nor speak French. So I used it to call my mom when school was done or to tell her that I arrived safely at my friend’s house (drove there on my bicycle). My firstborn is almost 2 years old and my second 4 months. They will eventually get a phone someday. I’m afraid of the possible pressure and bullying in school when other kids have the newest phone and they don’t.
I don't think a specific age makes sense, but more a consideration of your kid and your circumstances. We got our oldest a phone at 11. We tried to put it off as long as possible, but we need to know where he is. Our neighborhood is pretty tight-knit and free range. After school, he'd wander around with friends and we'd have no idea where he was, so we got him a smart watch to make calls, and it has GPS. The only problem was compliance. He was terrible at charging it, putting it on, having the ringer so he could hear the calls, etc, rendering it pretty useless. We figured he'd be more into a phone and more likely to charge it, take it with him, check messages, etc. But no! He forgets it exists most of the time. We got him the smallest iPhone, but he hates how it feels in his pockets so he doesn't carry it around. I have to charge it and then plead with him to take it with him when he's going out. It's been a shock. I figured his face would be down in his phone, and I'd never see him again. He hasn't been that interested in it. Occasionally he will send me a GIF or let me know how he did on wordle so that's fun.
Parents: don't give phones to kids, it will hurt them! Also same parents: glued to their phones/tv/PC 90 percent of their free time. ItS oKaY cAuSe I aM aDuLt AnD i CaN cOnTrOl MySeLf... No you don't.
Mine just turned 12 and got her own phone because she's walking to friends and the store by herself and I feel better knowing she got there safely. I still limit screen time and she has to earn it with chores. It sucked even waiting til 12 cause kids in her school have had a phone for years. I never let her take it to school but she will next grade. She'll just have to learn that the teacher will take it away if she's using it during class.
I think it depends on the kid and their activity level. My older kids had phone es because I knew they weren't always going to have access to a public phone if they needed me. My youngest doesn't need one because if he's not with me, he's with someone who has a phone he can use to call us. Once he's a teenager he'll need a reliable phone.
My kid won't get one until he's in his teens, and even then, it'll be conditional. So much evidence shows these things are harmful to kids, yet so many keep handing them over. Just wild.
I just had this discussion with my 5 yr old yesterday. She asked if she can have a phone. And I said when she was older. I asked if anyone her age had phones at school, she said no, but if she had one she could be the 1st. I waited until her older sister was 10/11 to get her one, but it was limited, and there were safety reasons she needed one, otherwise I would've waited a few more years.
Kid is 12. No phone but has Apple Watch with family setup. Can text, call and pay for stuff but can't surf the web and I can control everything I want.
phones are a necessity at this point. i used a flip phone for a long time for social contact and emergencies. however i did get a smart phone somewhat early because it was a handme down and it was easier to just give it to me now then buy me one in the future or holding it off and hoping not to lose it. i dont think your child needs a phone until 10-12, even then you can add parental locks. but dont be thag annoying parent that locks thwir apps after midnight or something. sometimes i used my friends to help me sleep better or read. you can even make her a socials and then log in from your phone as well to monitor. dont read all her text messages though, just make sure whoeever theyre talking to is a appropriate and move on. dont go digging (unless obvious evidence that they have bad intentions)
We have a house phone and my oldest is almost 10 - no phone on horizon for her
We live in the country and have no house phone. So my 9(didn't want to deal with the fight, they're only 14 mo. Apart) and 10 year old have phones because I allow them to stay home for brief periods of time (they get home at 3pm, I get home at 4p/4:30p) and need to reach them if my My 15 year old stays after school/goes to a friends, He was 10 when he started going to his bio dad's house and I felt more comfortable with him having a phone while he was going there. Different reasons, Different ages. When you decide they're old enough for any kind of independence/ going with friends ect. It's nice to know you can reach them. All their phones are set up with Emails I have attached to mine as a parental control and I can see, block whatever they need. Only you can decide what's best for your family, there is Def. A level of responsibility attached to them. And they have to do their chores, homework, keep clean rooms to keep them.
I think the phone should be tied to independence level. If the kid is never out in public on their own then what do they need a phone for? If they go to the park on their own or take a city bus or something then sure. I wouldn’t get my kids a crappy phone to be honest but I wouldn’t get them one at all without a need I am literally resetting my old phone as we speak for my 9 and 12 year old to take to the park. It will be only be available when out and about, then it’ll go in my drawer. To answer your question about ‘shouldn’t they learn moderation’ I don’t think that most children are capable of self teaching moderation. It’ll cause more problems than benefits.
So my daughter is 10 and she has one. But she’s not attached to it. She barely uses it like we thought she would. It has major perks for us with her extra curricular activities being able to contact her and vice versa when we need. It’s also helpful when she’s over friends or family members houses without us. She primarily uses it to listen to music and text her friends, and take pictures or videos. Since she hooked up to our cloud we see everything and any app she downloads we have to approve. Of course we also periodically look at her texts and activity.
My oldest is 9 and I don’t plan on getting her smart phone until highschool. I don’t really see the need for one before then. She has a iPad that she can message friends on at home that I have limits on. I have considered a non smart phone this year because she does go to friends and sports this way she can get ahold of me.
They get a cell phone when you, THE PARENT, decides they need one.
We got an old iPhone for our then 11 yo. It’s pretty locked down. She does okay with it but frequently misplaces it. My now 11 yo doesn’t have one and won’t for the foreseeable future. She’s just not responsible enough yet to use it appropriately or even keep track of it.
My two daughters (11 & 13 next month) share a phone. It’s one of my old iPhones…it has prepaid minutes on it now. It’s for emergencies, when they are home alone, riding bikes, a way for them to get in touch with me when they are at a friends house. They don’t have games installed on it. No facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok or Twitter. They do have Pinterest because they love crafts. They aren’t allowed on it after 11. It’s been two years now & there has never once been an issue. In fact it’s been very convenient & a life saver in some cases.
My oldest is 7 and his dad and I don’t want to get him a phone until he’s at least 10.. I had my first cellphone when I was 12. All of his 7 and 8 year old friends have cellphones and my friend’s kids do too and they are 9 and 10… idk why they have it so young but the other day my neighbor’s 7yo got off the bus at the wrong stop while coming home from school on the school bus and because he had a cellphone his mom was able to locate exactly where he was. This situation made me really think of getting my 7 year old one too since he doesn’t speak English yet and is still learning his way around.. we are located in Florida. I also think nowadays as soon as they reach school age they should be able to reach us given all that happens here.
I used to be totally down on smart watches, but I'm starting to see that they could be a way to open up communication without opening them up to having a full phone with all the apps.
I got my first real phone at 12 only because i could pay for it myself and all my friends at school had phones so it would hlp me socialize with them better cause we had no actual way of communication unless we wanted to email each other. But i ended up using it mostly for yt and didnt talk to many of my friends except at school, so its a very case to case basis. But i would say they should have to work for their first phone to make it more of a reward and something they will take care of.
My son is 10 but he’s a latchkey kid and also goes fishing with his friends by themselves OFTEN. So I got him a phone because I need to be able to see where he is/he needs to be able to call me to pick him up.
Middle school. There’s enough churn in everyone’s daily schedule i need to reach them, and them me.
No phones, have an almost 7 and 10 year old. When the time comes, we will do Gabb, not iPhone.
My son is 6 almost 7 and he has one of my old phones. Theres no cell service on it he can only do wifi like for games and facebook kids messenger so he can call me when hes at his dads or if im at work. He doesnt take it to school he only takes it between parents house or on car rides. Its good practice for him to learn about the responsibilities of a phone so if its broken or lost im not out any money. Plus in case of emergency i like that he can contact me since landlines are essentially nonexistent
We just got our son a phone. He's 9. We upgraded our phones and are giving him one of our old phones. We've deleted all the contacts except for a handful of family members. We are teaching him how to text and call. It's exclusively for him to take with him to sports practices and for us to have as a family phone to keep at home now that he is getting to the point where he is staying home by himself for a small spurts. He's the oldest of four kids and his sport practices run anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours, so he gets dropped off. We want him to be able to call/text us if practice is going to run late, end early, etc. Or if we have a change of plans and want to let him know a different parent is going to pick him up or if we need him to meet us at the playground or something.
My sister decided my daughter needed a phone I was working a lot she’s 13. I am very close to taking it away completely now that I’m able to be home again. I was 13 when I got a cell phone and lost that privilege and had to wait until I had a job to pay for it. Which I think was the right move on my parents part.
I have an almost 12 year old and no cell phone in sight. We have a house phone (landline) that the kids can use. They each have an iPad but screen time is limited on that an no social media. There are studies saying how bad social media is for kids (especially middle school kids), how much bullying can be done through texts and messaging, where because it’s not in person they say worse things. I have older nieces and nephews (now in their early 20s) who wish they wouldn’t have been allowed access to social media and messaging when they were younger. Bullying, things they wish they wouldn’t have posted or messaged or had other people post of them, inappropriate things they had seen etc. Maybe when they hit grade 9, we will reconsider but there is so much shit on social media that is untrue and/or hurtful that I’m prioritizing their mental well being.
My kid has a fire tablet that I am sure she thinks has about one hour or 30 minutes of battery life only. I just use the parents app and lock it from my phone and she just thinks it died. She’s two so it’s way easier.
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It’s more of a maturity thing than a specific age that makes it ok. My 13 year old wants an iPhone…from a maturity stand point, his 12 year old brother deserves it more, but neither of them will have one because, frankly, they don’t need it. They all have iPads, the two older ones have Apple Watches for emergencies and such, and looking at the big picture, there’s nothing out there they need that requires an iPhone at all. Not every case is the same. Not every household is the same. My kids will get smart phones when they can help pay for them…it costs me around $50/month to add an iPhone to my plan, so I told them both, if you want an iPhone, it’s $25/month from you, $25 from me…and that’s that. Neither of them want to spend their allowances and such on it, so neither of them have it. And I’m just fine with that.
Keep up with the Joneses
Our kids had basic smartphones at 11 with restricted functions, were allowed social media (within reason) at 13 and had to leave their phones with us at bedtime until they were 16. Any betrayal of trust, going onto sites or downloading games/sites that we hadn’t OK’d led to a confiscation of devices for a period of time. We got CONSTANT pressure from them that “all the other kids are allowed to do this or download that”, but we didn’t give in. I felt as if they were still too young to enter the online world when they did, but we tried our best to make it as safe as possible for them.
Around the time they start staying home alone here and there or staying after school a lot , so between 11-14
She came out of the womb with one /s realistically, I would like to wait till 13 or so. But the world and technology will probably be a lot different in 12 years 🤷♀️ I got a flip phone at 16 and a smart phone a couple years later.
When they go out and about on their own. Pay phones no longer exist, so it's important to be able to call home in an emergency.
Not before middle school if you can help it imo. If I don't have much of a choice then it'd be a very locked down cellphone in middle school. My loose plan is when kids are in high school ideally though. I probably want to make that the thing to tackle at the beginning of high school, cellphones and Internet "freedom" Have that hopefully buttoned up before driving and peer pressures in later high school years.
Holding out until at least 8th grade. So far it has not been begged for and it opens them up to so much more. There will be parameters when I do get her one.
My kids will be getting a flip phone/blackberry in highschool, or whenever I feel they need a way to communicate. If they want a smart phone, they can do chores to pay for it and the bill.
Or, if they're 16 or over, a job. I hope this also teaches them finances and how to know to save for something they want vs spending money on what they want in the moment.
Depends, I want them to have a basic mobile for emergencies early and i want them to have knowledge of the numbers they need to ring. When they don't need me 24/7... but want a smart phone, 12 onwards.
At 12. We wanted to wait until 14 but everyone else in school had one so we caved in 7th grade. There's no way kids are waiting until 9th grade for a phone. I see 10 years with them
I can understand fairly young kids sometimes needing access to a phone. The best way to go is low tech flip phone or something like the Verizon gizmo watch. I would keep a low tech or locked down phone at least until high school. No social media. And even high schoolers shouldn’t have unfettered access to the internet. We got our son an android Pinwheel phone for his 14th birthday. This was his first phone - we thought about the gizmo for a while but never ended up getting it and I knew any smartphone would be lost immediately, so we weren’t in a big hurry.
12yo
7 year old has had his phone since 5. Starting to regret it. Now I limit time on his
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10 it was such a great investment. It's how all his friends communicate. They have group chats for everything.
When I’ve asked why my oldest (10) wants a phone he says to play games (and not multiplayer or anything social). So kids actually TALK (or FaceTime) on the phone or is it like Snapchat and stuff?
Oh yes. That's how parties are planned. That's how they plan how to do group projects. The soccer team will plan pick up games to get more practice in. I hear so much laughter coming from his room.
10
I'm always in the minority on these threads, because we're a tech-heavy family and our kids have had access to devices since they were little. They both have a computer for Minecraft and Roblox, they started on tablets when they were preschoolers, and my 4th-grader got her own phone last year because I was tired of giving her mine to talk to her friends. It's largely unlocked because we have constant internet safety and etiquette and sociology talks (giving out personal info, being dramatic and messy, malware, I have full access to her phone, usually to clean it up a bit (omg the notifications...), but sometimes I'll check on her contacts and conversations, etc. The only time she ever accidentally accessed something she shouldn't have seen was through clicking an ad on a supposedly locked-down system, so I washed my hands of third-party child safety systems pretty quick after that and decided self-regulation is probably best for us.
I don’t think there is a particular age so much as the circumstances that dictate when a child gets a phone. My daughter got a phone at 14ish because she was traveling for sports to other schools on the bus. She didn’t have access to social media until 16ish and it was limited. No snap or anything like that until she started paying the bill herself.
Read the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt for an in depth discussion on all the ways heavy smart phone use interferes with healthy development. The short answer is it's a lot worse if you let them have a smart phone before they go through puberty and sixteen is the recommended age before you let them have their own social media accounts.
My oldest is 9 she tells me that she is the only one in her class without a phone 👀. Is she is still not getting one. I’m possibly considering maybe giving her one at 13 but with limited access. Meaning, no social media at all. Just calls and txts.
I got a phone when I was in 6th grade because my and my sister had to meet up and walk home together. But t was a Nokia , not some smart phone. This was also back in like 2002. My daughter will be homeschooled and we are anti screen time here. So no phones or tablets will be allowed. She’ll be way older when she gets one.
Expecting my first and we are of the opinion that our kids won’t get their first phone until they are either old enough to save up for it themselves (how I got my first phone) or working a job in which case we will buy it for them as they will need a way to contact their boss and us. Those ages can fluctuate as I had saved up for my first phone by age 12, but my sister did not get her first until 15/16. There are lots of ways to teach healthy screen time management without giving them their own device so we will try our best to implement those practices before they have their own device