Best age to give a phone to kids

[Gifgaf]

My soon to be 8 year old keeps asking us when she gets a phone and I have to explain numerous times she's too young right now and will think about it once she's independent enough.

What is the right age really ? How do you approach this question without making them wish to be older straight away ?

I have GC older than your kid…..honestly you are projecting your issues onto your kid….shame on you….she will be friendless and ridiculed by the time you let her out

Every parent is different but primary school is still way too young. I think from my mid-teens I can maybe budge for

DS got his phone at 11. I would have preferred him to have to wait a little longer, but he was starting secondary school and homework is set on an app.

School has a mobiles off on site policy, which I like - other local secondaries seem to have so much phone based drama which isn't helpful for kids or leadership.

He doesn't have a new phone - it's an old iPhone which is too obsolete to play a lot of apps and we limit screen time.

Different parents have very different views around screen times are restrictions. It's hard to find a happy medium, so I feel it's important to foster a good relationship where your child can come to you about any concerns and parents can check regularly to ensure appropriate usage. .

I thought the minimum age for tiktok and Snapchat was 13. Why would you let your 8 year old have it?

I think smartphones for younger kids is utter madness. I’d sort of unconsciously assumed we’d give our son one when he went to high school but now we’re at that point there’s just absolutely no way he’s mature enough or has the self control to have the whole internet in his pocket the whole time. We’ve got him a basic Nokia, he can make calls and send texts so he’s not isolated and he can call for help if something goes wrong when he’s out and about which is something we all worry about.

The thing is, as a parent, you are in control
of that, especially with an 8 year old. You can stop her having access to a phone, she doesn’t have to see YouTube videos of things she then asks for, you can stop it all and she doesn’t have to grow up so fast. It’s so easy to sleepwalk in to this because we just see it as the world we live in now but it doesn’t have to be like that. You absolutely have the power to stop her having any more access than you want her to all of this. Smartphones make children less safe, not safer.

We've just discussed this and said secondary school.

Not averse to technology at all, we are a gaming household, play with consoles, happy for tablets (with restrictions) to be used etc., but mobile phones and all the communication and social media it opens up are not for little children. I'm hoping they are social media restrictions in place for young people before my two get there.

If you’re really concerned about child’s safety OP then please read up on Roblox and how dangerous it can be.

It’s a 10 min walk to secondary school and we’ve walked with her on transition days.

And TikTok for an 8yo is awful IMO. Texting pals is one thing but TikTok is full of harmful garbage.

DD has just recently got a phone, she is just about to go into year 6. we mainly got it for her as she is going out more often independently (to the park, shops with friends etc) and does sometimes walk to and from school without us.

She doesn’t have any social media on there other than WhatsApp, and she checks with me before she gives her number to anyone (friends). She won’t be having social media until at least 13.

It's not that she's not on screens but if she is through our phones and as you mentioned, she does communicate with family and does play games but everything is monitored and we do speak to her regarding dangers also. I know weirdos have always been around but it's just got so much worse and I am ok with people judging me and thinking I am over the top, at the end of the day it's my kids safety I am more concerned about. My niece is now 16 and has had a phone since early teens but a lot of teens misuse or unfortunately end up having friends that are also a bad influence and I've seen that first hand with her. My other nephew who's 10 now has had a phone since 8 and was subject to racist attacks through his phone and the things these kids write is so beyond me. Unfortunately teens in their post puberty phase need EXTRA monitoring until they reach an age that is deemed more mature.

She likes watching random tik tok videos, mainly toy organisation ones or funky dances. Snapchat - loves calling her friends on it. These apps aren't dangerous with the right controls in place. Me and her dad are seperated and it's great for video calling when she's with him or we message each other, vice versa him when she's with me. She never posts anything on tik tol etc just watchs video, so much content on there is made by kids, it's very similar to YouTube just shorter videos. It's not like she's just left to her own devices with them either, she's always with an adult that knows what she's doing / looking at.

I chose to give my children smart phones at around 11/12.
I chose this age for various reasons:
•For me to feel more relaxed with giving them greater freedom of movement and this coincided with school change.
•to be able to monitor said phones for a couple of years, with their knowledge, and help them learn what is acceptable and not in terms of posting etc. I felt that this sort of checking would be invasive at an older stage, and that 11-13ish was best for us all.

My DC had a friend who didn't get a phone until year 8. Year 7 was really hard for her because she wasn't in group chats, missed spontaneous invites to the park. She actually had an account for something or other that she would check on devices at some friends' houses.

The worst thing for her was that it wasn't a moral decision but just because her parents couldn't be bothered to get her a phone.

•to be able to monitor said phones for a couple of years, with their knowledge, and help them learn what is acceptable and not in terms of posting etc. I felt that this sort of checking would be invasive at an older stage, and that 11-13ish was best for us all

This is really important @plasticmack

11 and 12 you can still closely monitor their SM and check their phones. You can't really do this when they're 16. They need some privacy by then.

Shame on me for wanting to protect my child ? Shame on you for judging 🙄. I never said I am locking her in the house in darkness to never see humans but teenagers do need more monitoring.

And this is why we are having so many problems in schools with kids and phones. You are allowing your child access to social media that even the people who own these apps have agreed aren't suitable for children under 13. Roblox is one we are warned about all the time as there are ways you can end up with doggy content on it really easily. They end up with poor attention spans and not able to concentrate for long times and it doesn't actually help them access a lot of high end tech either.

It's fine saying they are tech savy, but what we end up with is kids who come to high school who have no idea how to use actual computers. Ie a mouse, turn the machine on. Use a word processor or other more sophisticated software because they are used to everything been spoon-fed by apps and touchscreens. Which actually don't always exist everywhere yet. DH uses high end machines in a high tech job but being able to use a smartphone won't teach you how to use any of the software or hardware he works with. 🤔

We got our eldest one for her 11th birthday (she is fairly young in her year so it was at the end of year 6).
Youngest DD is 9.5 and keeps asking for one but we still think she's too young and really doesn't need one. Some kids in her class have them but most don't yet.
I think 11/to start secondary school is about right

I don't think you are protecting them. Teaching them sensible use of a phone and putting in boundaries is protecting them.

By not giving any tech you're putting up an obstacle on their social life and not training them to use normal everyday equipment that one day soon will become an inevitable part of their lives.

We wanted to protect our DC so we gave them tech and worked with them on it until they got to an age where we could trust them and give them more freedom.

When they start walking around by themselves and organising their own social lives. My daughter got a basic non-smart phone at 8 when she'd been getting around independently for about a year and we realised she was just having to borrow phones all the time to let us know where she was going after school etc.

Smartphone is a very different beast. Not appropriate until teenage years imo.

My 11 y/o plays on a tablet that we can monitor. No SM until 13/14 they don't need it. Personal choice and all that but apps have age restrictions for a reason.

Keep her in the dark ages? No you're potentially exposing her to all sorts. You cannot be watching her every minute she is on the phone. DS was never on SM as he wasn't interested, he's now a software engineer, being on SM at 8 is definitely not necessary and just downright dangerous, even the phone companies are saying so. Very poor parenting IMO.

And parents shouldn't be letting kids make ticktock content either. I really hope we see this banned at some point and realise what issue we where causing to the mental health of the younger generations.

There has been a massive increase in mental heath issues amongst teenagers and more and more data is showing that it looks like it is related to them having been exposed to social media. Their brains are not as developed as adults and cannot cope with a lot of the stuff that gets thrown at them on the Internet as robustly as adults can and even adults struggle.

My DD knows how to use most Microsoft Office apps already with a laptop or on her tablet, she also knows some basic coding and is currently attempting to build her 1st roblox game on my laptop, this is of the back off watching one of her favourite YouTubers build one. Her attention span is fine and she is achieving higher than expected across all school subjects. Like I've said, having these devices is the norm for her peers (some have had them from age 6). She also doesn't actually spend roo much time on these devices and I think part of that is due to me not making a big deal about access to them. She's very creative so will spend more time doing arts and crafts, playing role play games with barbies etc than on her phone or tablet. I completely see if as a parent your unsure how to monitor this stuff or use certain safety controls you would not want to give them a Smart device but do agree late teens is too old as you'll need to figure out the monitoring by that point so they understand how to use them safely.

When we feel the right age for her to have a phone and to be more independent, we will teach those boundaries.

When I go up North (mainly see it there), I see girls & boys as young as maybe 13 in their little groups, dressed a certain way, looking a certain way and honestly it makes me feel so uncomfortable, they are kids and kids who get given all this freedom in their most vulnerable stage, will find ways to misuse if not them, someone else will do it to them.

She has lots of friends, and is very close with cousins and we take her social events all the time. Believe me, she's not missing out. I am her parent, not her friend..

We've just given our DD her first phone - she's 10.5 and going into Year 6 - will start walking home from school by herself next week.

She's got an old smartphone, but we have turned it into a 'dumb phone' by setting it up so it only does calls, text messages, WhatsApp, location tracking and Duolingo. No access to internet, no social media, can't download any apps.

We've spoken about how it is only for communicating with us in an emergency and so we can see where she is. She's not allowed to add any friends' phone numbers or use it for any kind of entertainment / social contact, or take it upstairs. We'll see how it goes, and gradually allow some more functionality (eg. Spotify) when she turns 11 in 6 months.