All the reasons why not to get your kid their first phone.
They’re not hard to come by…
There are group chats (to be in or out of), endless doorways to who knows where through apps and the internet, and we can’t even guess what videos they’re watching.
Like many parents, you might also worry about managing your kids' screen time when managing your own is a daily struggle.
The research shows that 86% of parents have screen time rules while only about a quarter consistently enforce them.
We do what we know we should do, that we know how to do: establish boundaries and set out ground rules.
But when it comes to actually enforcing the rules we’ve set, hypocrisy enters the chat, so to speak: we tell our kid to put their phone away while we continue to smash our thumbs into ours.
We’ve found that as parents spend more on their screens, their younger children also spend more time on their screens.
As with most habits, there’s no magic fix to improving our own screen time behavior. But there are some strategies to consider to help ensure your kid adopts healthy digital habits out of the gates.
Here are a few quick ideas:
Create tech-free areas of the house, like the kitchen table and while you’re in the car (you might just have to talk to one another…)
Set out some "when/then’s", for instance, when I use my phone after dinner, then I’ll put it away after 30 minutes, or when I get a text message while I’m doing homework, then I’ll reply once I’m done the task I’m working on
Finally, honesty is the best policy: a lot of apps and games are designed to be addictive, and we shouldn’t shy away from talking to our kids about it.
When you have to use your phone in front of your child, maybe to answer a work email, it's important to explain why you are using your device at that moment.
Research has shown that using our phones in front of our children sends the message that what's on the device is more important than they are in that given moment. It's been associated with lowered levels of emotional intelligence in younger children.11
Creating good habits is often simpler than shedding ones that don’t serve us down the road.
Setting up a few basic, ideally specific, ground rules for using tech in your family is the foundation to connect and to have productive conversations around how, when, and why to use tech and how it makes us all feel.
BRAIN SNACKS 🍿
The title of this recently published paper says it all: “Mommy, do you love your phone more than me?”
A fresh-off-the-press study shows social media use has a particular effect on boys
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1 Does Digital Media Use Harm Children’s Emotional Intelligence? A Parental Perspective (2022) © Robin L. Nabi, Lara N. Wolfers