When Should My Kid Get a Phone?

What we do in our house

A smartphone comes when they get their driver's license. By then they're driving on their own and I need to be able to reach them, so the phone actually has a job to do, and they're old enough to handle everything else that comes with it.

Until then, a simple flip phone with texting is fine in middle school, so they can reach me and their friends without having access to the internet and all social media. The one rule that goes with it is no group chats unless I can see them.

When they're younger, a landline like the Tin Can phone lets them call their friends and their grandparents, and that covers most of what they actually want a phone for at that age.

I tell my kids exactly that, and I don't change it every time someone in their class gets a phone. It's a lot easier on everybody when they know where I stand.

Start with what problem you're actually solving

Before anything else, answer this one truthfully. What is the phone for?

If it's that you need to be able to reach them, that's a real problem, and it has a much smaller solution than a smartphone. A flip phone or a watch that only calls and texts solves it completely, for years, without any of the rest of it.

If it's that they're walking home or taking the bus alone, it's the same answer. A phone that can call and share where they are covers it, with no browser, no app store and no social media.

If it's that everyone else has one, that's real too, and I wouldn't brush it off. Being the only kid left out at that age is hard. It's a social problem, though, and a full smartphone is an enormous solution to it. A basic phone with texting usually takes care of most of the left out feeling, because what they're really missing is being reachable when their friends are making plans.

And if it's that they want the internet in their pocket, that's the decision most of us end up making without ever really talking about it, so it's worth talking it through and deciding on purpose.

How to tell if they're ready

The age on its own doesn't tell you much. These things tell you a lot, and you're looking for them month after month rather than for one good week.

The biggest one by far is whether they tell you when something goes wrong. A kid who hides a broken thing or a bad grade is going to hide a bad message, and the whole thing depends on them coming to you. A kid who brings you problems will bring you the one that actually matters.

After that, can they stop something they're enjoying when you ask? It doesn't have to be happily, just reliably. Do they keep track of their own stuff, because a phone is an expensive thing living in a backpack. Can they handle being bored, because a kid with no tolerance for boredom will use a phone to never be bored again, and that's where the trouble is. Have they shown you good judgment when you weren't watching, and you can usually think of an example, and if you can't, that's information too. And do they ask before they install or buy things on the tablet or the console, because that habit carries straight over.

If most of that is solid, the conversation is reasonable. If a few of them are shaky, it's completely fine to wait, and I'd tell them why, with one specific thing to work on, so it isn't just a no.

Decide these six things before it comes in the house

Once it's in their hand, every one of these turns into a negotiation, so it's a lot easier to decide them before it arrives.

Where it sleeps at night. In our house phones stay downstairs, and of everything on this list, it's the rule I'd start with.

What it can install, meaning whether the app store is locked to your approval or open. Pick one on purpose instead of finding out later.

Whether social media is happening at all, and which ones, because that's a completely separate decision from the phone.

Who pays for what, especially a cracked screen, because kids treat an object differently when breaking it costs them something.

What you can see and what you can't, and be honest about this one. Checking things secretly and getting caught does more damage than it prevents, and it goes a lot better when they know what you look at and why.

And what happens when a rule gets broken, which you want to decide calmly now instead of angrily later.

Write it down together

A phone agreement sounds a little formal, but it really does help, because when an argument comes up later, you're pointing back to something they already agreed to instead of fighting about whether you're being unfair.

Keep it short, because six lines is plenty. Read it together, both of you sign it, and stick it somewhere you'll both see it for the first month.

There's one line most families leave out, and it's the one I care about most. Write down what you'll do if they bring you something scary. Something like, if you see something that upsets you, or someone sends you something they shouldn't, you can tell me and you're not going to lose your phone for telling me. Kids hide the worst things because they assume the phone gets taken away, so promising them it won't is the line that keeps them coming to you.

There's a lot of room between no phone and a smartphone

I wish somebody had told me this sooner, because the in between steps really do work.

In our house it goes a landline when they're little, then a flip phone with texting in middle school, then a smartphone when they get their license. Other families use a watch that only calls and texts, the Light Phone, which has no browser and no app store, or the Bark Phone, which comes with parent controls built in. When the smartphone does come, you can open up apps one at a time, each one with a conversation attached to it, and you want all of it to happen well before they leave your house, so they're practicing while you're still around to talk about it.

Every step is a chance to see how they do before the next one. Handing over the whole smartphone on day one skips all of that.

What age do you give your own kids a phone?

A simple flip phone with texting in middle school, with no group chats unless I can see them, and a smartphone when they get their driver's license. That's our house, and plenty of families do it differently. What matters most is that you decide it on purpose and tell your kid where you stand.

What's the average age kids get a phone?

Averages are a trap here, because your kid's readiness and what your family actually needs aren't the average, and "everyone has one" is usually less true than your kid makes it sound. Ask two other parents in their grade and you'll get a much more useful answer.

Should a first phone have social media on it?

They're two different decisions, and it helps a lot to keep them separate. A phone is for reaching people, and social media is built to keep them scrolling as long as possible. In our house social media comes with the smartphone, at 16, so a flip phone in middle school is a yes and social media is a not yet.

Should I track their location?

Plenty of families do, and I think that's reasonable as long as your kid knows about it. If they find out later that you were tracking them without telling them, what they learn is that you watch secretly, and they just get better at hiding.

They already have a phone and we never set any rules. What now?

I'd sit down and set them up together, calmly. I'd say something like, I gave you this without really thinking it through, and that part's on me, so let's set it up together now. Owning your half of it gets you a lot less resistance than new rules appearing out of nowhere.