What do I need to know or do before I get my 12 year old a phone?

[coodawoodashooda]

Just that. I've given in to the pressure. How can I make the experience as painless as possible?

I have two DDs aged 12 and 15 and both got phones when they started secondary school. We use Family link for safety features, such as needing approval to download apps etc. They have whatsapp only. No tiktok, no snap chat, nothing else at all. All phones including mine are on silent when at home. That way they message friends when they want to, and don't feel pressured by constant beeps. We also set whatsapp to invite only where groups are concerned so that our DDs can't constantly get added to groups. In my experience, groups are where the problems start. Both my daughters are in groups but they are small and made up of their friends, not 30+ members of a form or whatever. Hope this helps!

Oh and phones are kept in our room overnight to charge, and both DDs know that I will check their phones periodically. They both have Spotify for music.

But as pp said, install screentime as you'd have no way of enforcing this.

We had a long chat about social media.
How whatever you put onto the internet or into the digital world is almost impossible to delete.
They need to understand,in the world today, something they could cause them huge issues in the future. Jobs, uni all sorts can be lost on a previous post or stance.

We had a rule they could have a certain social media app if they could properly justify the need for it. All my friends use it was not a good enough justification alone.

Their phone number is personal data. They need to be very,very careful who they share that with. Only trusted friends and they must be friends who will understand that they can't share their number without their consent.
I'd keep them off WhatsApp for as long as possible- their number is too easily shared and it's very easy for groups to be used for inappropriate messages and bullying.

My girls are 18&16 and still have very little social media presence by their own choice. They saw all the stuff others went through in their year groups and were happy to be out of it.

We were very happy for them to use us as the bad guys to their friends, 'poor me my parents are so strict'

No phones in room lasted as long as we could but they both listen to music to sleep now.