Digital Habits
"Why do you get to be on your phone all the time?"
What to say
Start here
"That's a fair hit and you're right. I'm on it more than I want to be, and I don't love it either."
Take your share of it
"I'm not going to pretend the phone rules are the same for both of us, because being the adult does come with a longer leash. But you noticing how much I'm on mine means it's landing on you, and that matters more to me than winning this one."
Make it a thing you both do
"So here's what I'll do. My phone goes on the kitchen counter at dinner too, same as yours, and you get to call me on it when I pick it up anyway. You don't have to be polite about it, just say it, and I'll put the phone down."
What not to say
"I'm an adult, I have work to do." Sometimes it is even true, and it still teaches your kid that the phone rule was never about the phone and only ever about who makes the rules, which is the version they will hand back to you at fifteen.
Why this matters
This is the question that decides whether your phone rules feel honest to the person living under them. Conceding it costs you nothing and buys you the right to hold every other line, because your kid now knows the rule is about what a phone does to a room and not about who is in charge.
Follow-up questions
- "When does it bug you most, at dinner or when you're talking to me?"
- "What would you want me to do differently?"
- "Do you want to be the one who tells me when I slip?"