Honestly, I’d rather let my 2 year use a iPhone at 2 then when she’s 12. I mean think of all the social media anxiety that comes with being a teen nowadays…plus think of all the teens that pressure each other to test nude to one another.
Teens with smartphones really worry me more than kids between the ages of 5 and 10 having an iPhone.
I know there are a lot of safety features and apps you can place on smartphones to help protect your children, but let’s be real, teens are way smarter than parents, and teens share all of their “hacks”, so if parents think that they really know what is going on with what their teens are doing with their smartphones, then you better think again.
Trust me, the Instagram and Snapchat accounts that your kids have, you know the ones that they let you follow them on, well those are their “family” accounts. Your teen has more than one Instagram and Snapchat account, and the ones that you don’t know about are the ones that they don’t want you to know about for a reason.
Anyway, back to the question that I posted in the title of this article: What’s the Perfect Age To Give Your Kid a Smartphone?”
The decision to give a child a cell phone, and at what age, is a personal one for each parent. Nationally, the average age at which kids get a phone of their own is 10.3 years. One thing experts agree on is that later is better. Once you open the door, it can be very difficult to close.
I get that. I’m learning about kids and device addiction the hard way. My 8-year-old niece is attached to her iPad at a level that I think is unhealthy. My siste admits that she regrets allowing her to own a tablet at such a young age, but the iPad did play the part of a good “babysitter” at times.
Society and marketing is what really places pressure upon parents to get their kids smartphones at such young ages, and most times kids are not ready for such a powerful tool.
In my opinion, the best way to decide whether it’s time to give your child a phone is to break down the factors that go into that decision and weigh the pros against the cons in the context of your own family’s needs. Know what you’re getting into, from both a functional and a social perspective.
Smartphone addiction is a thing, and the Internet can be a dangerous place. Some parents opt to start their kids with a dumb phone – one that doesn’t give access to web pages, social media sites, streaming sites and so on. Phone calls only.
Plenty of other parents go straight to a smartphone, which has some of its own advantages. GPS tracking tells you where the phone is, and that can give some parents a level of comfort. Plus, iPhones and Androids alike can be locked down with various parental controls.
-Set limits on your child’s cell phone-
As the parent, it’s up to you to set clear limits, make them known, and enforce them.
Decide in advance what the consequences will be for broken phone rules, and follow through.
-On and off hours-
Cell phones have the potential to interfere with bedtime, and even to disrupt your child’s sleep during the night.
Phones can be a serious distraction during the school day, and they can prevent your child from focusing on responsibilities at home in the evenings. Consider an app or parental control that allows you to shut off the device at certain times.
Phone time takes away from face-to-face time and can interfere with family relationships. That can be true for phone users of any age. Consider the culture you want to nurture in your home.
-Behind the wheel-
Once your child is a teen, you’ll face the clear and well-documented dangers of using phones while driving. Texting, posting and phone conversations have all been shown to cause people to drive as if they’re drunk. One-third of all accidents are caused by drivers using a phone to text or call. Teens can figure out pretty quickly how to disable “driving mode” on their phones.
The best way to ensure compliance is to enforce the no-phone rule behind the wheel with 100 percent consistency for a long time before you let the child drive with the phone but without you.
-Social media-
Social media platforms and other apps that are accessible from a phone, including when mom and dad aren’t around to supervise, are breeding grounds for digital aggression, cyberbullying, hate, and the pressure to live up to our perception of others’ lives as portrayed on social media.
Keep your child off social media platforms that are designed for adults until they are old enough to meet the age requirement. Once they get there, you’ve got a whole new parenting issue to research.
And as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, your kids will have more than one account for every social media platform that they are using. So just know that, and just know that there really isn’t anything you’ll be able to do about it.
-Texting and sexting-
Here’s a news flash you really won’t want to read. An author who surveyed more than 70,000 children found that sexting began, on average, in the fifth grade. Pornography consumption began at age 8.
Wait, WTF?
Yes. Kids are taking, sharing or viewing images that qualify as pornographic, using a smartphone as the tool. This is a cultural reality, and you might come to regret it if you assume that your child won’t get wrapped up in it in some way. He might never view or send an inappropriate image, but since there is a chance that inappropriate content may become available to him, your job is to head off that content or be prepared to respond if it appears.
-The reason to give your kid a phone-
Before you offer your child a phone of her own, make sure there’s a reason to do so other than the joy you feel any time you give her something she really loves. It may be a matter of delayed gratification for both of you, but stand firm until the time is right for your family.
Many families love being able to reach each other any time.
But the places your child goes may have a no-phones rule so you might not achieve your communications goal anyway.
When you really break it down, potential drawbacks to giving your child a cell phone can be greater than the potential benefits. Give your child a cell phone when your justification is compelling enough to outweigh the benefit of waiting even longer.
Please share any advice about this subject with me in the comments section!
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