“When are you planning to give your kid a smartphone?”
I get asked this question alot. I haven’t written about this topic up until now because my answer isn’t simple.
My short answer is that I don’t 100% know yet.
My longer answer is that it will depend on when my husband and I believe he can handle it.
Here’s why I think this
I am aware of how much time I, with my adult brain and “mature” impulse control, spend online, texting and on social media and I know it would significantly harder as a middle schooler.
I recently attended a panel that included local teens who said they wished they hadn’t had social media in middle school. (Shout out to the Pelham Together Youth Council). I’m paraphrasing but they shared that the FOMO of realizing socializing was happening without them in real time and the general distraction were really hard to manage in middle school.
While the data and research aren’t great there is some connection between social media and poor outcomes for young people including not enough sleep, poorer test scores, mental health & more. I recently reread Emily Oster’s interview with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy - its a very good conversation.
No one actually NEEDS a smartphone to communicate. I’m not trying to upset anyone who has already given their kid a smartphone but the phone part IS different than the internet & apps part. You don’t HAVE to give them both at the same time.
On the other hand
A smartphones IS a very reliable way to stay in touch with your young person and you absolutely can lock it down using parental controls. I am not judging anyone who has given their child a smartphone at whatever age they did.
I know that my smartphone-less kid has and will have plenty of other opportunities to be online. I’m not so naive as to think that avoiding a smartphone will keep my kid off the internet. I just don’t want the internet in his pocket just yet. To be honest, there are days I wish it wasn’t in mine!
A (tentative) plan
I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I will share what I think we’re going to do:
My 10 year old will get through 5th grade with his Gizmo Smartwatch.
Next year when he starts middle school we might try a dumbphone so he can call and text his friends without us having to manage tons of parental controls. There are several dumbphones that include GPS and thats really the only upgrade feature I’m looking for.
At some point, after that we’ll give a smartphone. The first smartphone he gets will have all the parental controls. And we’ll be actively managing them and monitoring his ability to get his work done, get enough sleep, moodiness etc. We’ll see how he handles it all. Out parenting goal is to relax over time and foster independence. But definitely no social media in middle school.
I don’t yet when these milestones will happen because I don’t know yet how easy time management will be for my middle school aged kid. And I don’t know yet how he’ll want to stay in touch with his friends. Nor how sneaky he might or might not be.
If this sounds like a real complicated roll out plan, it is. There are alot of variables that make this complicated. And I don’t want to rush this.
Paid Subscribers can read on to see the research I gathered on dumbphone options. And tune in next week for my refresher on how to implement all the parental controls you need for your young person’s smartphone.
The Top 6 Dumbphones I’m considering
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