Is there a smartphone under your family's tree this year? If so, make sure your child is ready for this responsibility. We have a new family phone plan to read together outlining healthy boundaries and what should not be on the phone to start.
A good plan is to start with basic features on the phone while the child learns how to use the phone safely. Therefore, the following features should not be on a child's phone to start:
THE APP STORE
My parents are responsible for downloading and deleting apps. They have removed my ability to download and delete an app through parental controls. If I would like a new app on my phone, I must talk to them about it and not attempt to download the app myself.
THE INTERNET BROWSER
I am not allowed to have the internet browser on my phone until my parents think I am ready for this responsibility. The easy access to constant entertainment and plenty of inappropriate content make it a privilege to be earned instead of a given feature on my phone.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is not allowed on my phone. I understand many health and parenting experts do not recommend social media until 16+, and many don’t recommend it at all.
This is just one section of the phone plan! There are lots of other good limits to keep in mind. Check out the phone plan if you have said yes to the smartphone recently or about to cross this bridge. When we say yes to tech, let's say yes with healthy limits!
You’ve got this!
Cheers,
Brooke
Is your child asking for social media?
We loved hearing from this Wait Until 8th Mom!
I wanted to share with you our conversation we had today when our daughter asked to have Instagram under my account.
She had expressed she was responsible, a good kid, and wouldn’t do the stupid things she’s heard about her friends doing.
I was trying to explain that our choice to not allow her to have social media had absolutely nothing to do with her being a “good” or “bad” kid. It also had nothing to do with her being a responsible or irresponsible child.
I was struggling to really convey what I wanted to when my husband said this: “We trust YOU with social media but we don’t trust SOCIAL MEDIA with you.”
That was so powerful to me. He was absolutely right. Our daughter is responsible. She is a member of the National Junior Honor Society and serves as student body president and student counsel member. Her resume for being a “good” kid is lengthy.
Social media’s resume for being “good” is not. Increase in teen suicide, decrease in connection, decrease in self worth, altered reality and the list goes on and on. All things studied, proven, and admitted to by the creators of social media. I hope that one day she will understand and appreciate the reason we chose for her to wait.
I wanted to share his quote because it just summed up my feelings perfectly. I appreciate your campaign and please keep posting. As a former educator I saw on a daily basis how smart phones and social media are ruining our children’s innocence.
Thank you for sharing your story!
Parents, we love to hear about family conversations like these. Always feel free to share to help encourage other parents.
Also, if your child is asking for social media, read this powerful story together about Harry Potter and the Magical Phone.
If you are about to say to social media for an older child, check out our new social media guide.
Important News from 2023
Surgeon General Warns Social Media May Harm Children | New York Times
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a warning that social media poses a threat to kids' mental health, escalating calls for new safeguards aimed at minors. The advisory adds to scrutiny over the effects of excessive use and harmful content, which has been blamed for consequences ranging from disrupting kids' sleep to promoting suicidal thoughts. Murthy is calling on policymakers, platforms and parents to create safe limits. He's previously said he believes age 13 is "too early" for kids to join social media. Read more: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | New York Times | NPR
Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health | After Babel
A new report may encourage many more parents to delay the smartphone. Sapien Labs, released a “Rapid Report” on a question asking young adults (those between ages 18 and 24): “At what age did you get your own smartphone or tablet (e.g. iPad) with Internet access that you could carry with you?” When they plot the age of first smartphone on the X axis against their extensive set of questions about mental health on the Y axis, they find a consistent pattern: the younger the age of getting the first smartphone, the worse the mental health that the young adult reports today. The respondents who got their first smartphone before they were 10 years old are doing worse, on average, than those who didn’t get one until they were in their teens. The most mentally healthy respondents are those who did not get a phone until their late teens. There is increasing evidence that smartphones have a variety of detrimental effects on child development including reductions of sleep, focus, and time with friends in person, along with increases in addictive behaviors, so it makes sense that the cumulative effect of getting one’s first phone in elementary school would be larger than for those who don’t get a phone until high school. Learn more here.
We're Mad to Give Our Children Smartphones | The Times
We all know one: an inquisitive, bright-eyed ten-year-old who used to love stickers or novels and was always zooming around on her scooter. But she’s changed in the last few years. It started some time after the now-ubiquitous rite of passage, the iPhone unwrapped on her 11th birthday. Yes, with parental controls, but still stuffed with the most addictive, toxic, disturbing and pointless media known to man. She became glued to her phone, obsessed with selfies, always browsing, “liking”, judging, fingers twitching with the tap-tap-tap of constant messages. Continuing reading here. Continuing reading here.
Instagram Connects Vast Pedophile Network | The Wall Street Journal
Instagram helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content, according to investigations by The Wall Street Journal and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Pedophiles have long used the internet, but unlike the forums and file-transfer services that cater to people who have interest in illicit content, Instagram doesn’t merely host these activities. Its algorithms promote them. Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found. Continuing reading here.
Increased Social Media Use Linked to Eating Disorders | Good Morning America
Increased time spent on social media is a risk factor for disordered eating, research shows .
Andrea Vazzana, a child psychologist who specializes in the treatment of eating disorders in children said the negative influence of social media is largely owed to the amount of social comparisons that are part of engaging in these social media platforms. Read more.
Matthew and Camila McConaughey Delay Social Media for Their Son Until 15.
Matthew and Camila McConaughey released a video about how they delayed social media for their son Levi until his 15th birthday. They share about how all of Levi's friends have had social media for a long time.The average age a child starts social media is 12 years old but many young kids start earlier than that. According to Common Sense Media, 38% of tweens (children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old) use social media. We have never met a parent who wished they had said yes to social media earlier for their kids. Delay! Delay! Delay! We recommend delaying social media until 16.
Major UN Report Issues Warning Over Phones in School | BBC
Smartphones should be banned from schools to tackle classroom disruption, improve learning and help protect children from cyberbullying, a UN report has recommended. Unesco, the UN’s education, science and culture agency, said there was evidence that excessive mobile phone use was linked to reduced educational performance and that high levels of screen time had a negative effect on children’s emotional stability.
Allowing access to phones in school introduces risks, including distraction, disruption, bullying and abuse, and can be detrimental to learning. Several studies have shown that banning mobile phones from schools improves academic performance, the report notes.
Instagram and Facebook Are Addictive and Harmful for Kids, Sweeping Lawsuits From 41 States Claim | People Magazine
A bipartisan group of attorneys general from 41 states and the District of Columbia are suing Instagram and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, charging that the social networks are deliberately addictive — and knowingly harming children’s mental health. With features like infinite scroll and notifications, sites like Instagram are deliberately designed to keep young people engaged — and coming back for more, the AGs charge in their lawsuit.
Facebook and Instagram recommend sexual content to underage users and promote minors’ accounts to apparent child predators, the state of New Mexico alleges in a lawsuit | The Wall Street Journal
The civil lawsuit, filed in New Mexico state court, alleges that “Meta has allowed Facebook and Instagram to become a marketplace for predators in search of children upon whom to prey.” It also claims that Meta has failed to implement protections against usage by children below the age of 13 and has targeted the age-related vulnerabilities of children in the interest of increasing its advertising revenue. The suit says Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is personally responsible for product decisions that aggravated risks to children on Meta’s platforms.
The New Mexico attorney general’s office filed the suit after it ran an investigation that included setting up test accounts on Instagram and Facebook purporting to other users to be those of teenagers or preteens, including artificial-intelligence generated photographs of the fictional account-holding children. The suit says that Meta’s algorithms recommended sexual content to those accounts and that they were inundated with explicit messages and sexual propositions from other users. Continue reading here.
New School Pledges
More parents are saying yes to delyaing the smartphone! Congrats to the following new active pledges. An active pledge is 10 or more pledges in the same grade at a school.
Breton Downs, MI
Brunswick School, Greenwich, CT
Cary Christian School, Cary, NC
Evergreen School, King, WA
Greenwich Academy, Greenwich, CT
Greenwich Country Day School, CT
Hyde Park, Austin, TX
McKenzie Elementary, Wilmette, IL
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Carmel, IN
Porter Gaud School, Charleston, SC
Riverdale Grade School, Portland, OR
Ruth Acty Elementary, Berkeley, CA
Sacred Heart, Atherton, CA
Saint Simon & Jude School, Chester, PA
Savannah Country Day School, Savannah, GA
St. Andrews Episcopal School, Austin, TX
St. Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY
Woodland, Weston, MA
Parenting Talks
What a treat it was to be back in the Windy City this month! I loved speaking to a group of Chicago parents about the importance of delaying smartphones and social media.
There is something powerful about a group of parents coming together to talk about parenting in this digital age ! There are so many challenges and linking arms together helps. Strength in numbers
Is your community struggling with how to navigate parenting in the digital arena? Are you wrestling with what the right age is for a smartphone and social media? Do you wish you could turn back time and make different tech decisions for your family?
No matter where you are on your parenting journey with technology, you don't want to miss one of my parenting events. I talk about the importance of delaying smartphones and social media and help parents already in the middle of smartphone battles with some strategic advice and tips to rein in smartphone use. More info is on our website under the speaking section .
Next up - talks in Atlanta and Orange, California in 2024!
Learn more about how to book a speaking engagement here.
