How to raise a smartphone-free child

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably felt like there’s no good answer to the question of whether to give your child a smartphone. On the one hand, you recognize these devices can expose your child to a wide range of disturbing content. Even with parental controls, these devices can dramatically increase a child’s screen time and take the place of healthier social activities.

On the other hand, parents face tremendous social pressure to give children smartphones, and at earlier ages. It’s not uncommon to see children as young as 7 years old bringing smartphones to school. By sixth grade, a majority of students might have one.

This post is for parents who’ve so far resisted the pressure to give their child a smartphone and are struggling to figure out when it’s OK to do so. If you’re feeling confused and unsure about this question, that’s understandable. There’s a lot of debate and conflicting information on the internet about smartphones and kids. The fact that you’re thinking deeply about this issue shows you’re striving to make a responsible choice.

Wait until eighth… or wait longer

Some parents say kids are ready for a smartphone around eighth grade, and there’s even a website dedicated to “wait until eighth.” Waiting until eighth grade is better than sixth grade (and certainly second grade). I am going to go a step farther and argue that it’s worth waiting even longer than eighth grade if at all possible. Why? The simple answer is that we still don’t understand what effect these devices have on developing minds. But the data we do have is not encouraging. Reported depression and anxiety levels among children, especially girls, has skyrocketed over the past decade. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that depression and anxiety levels have risen along with smartphone use among teens and preteens.

I also don’t think it’s extreme to compare concerns of smartphone use among kids to those expressed about kids smoking. Society, while it has never condoned kids smoking, fully tolerated the practice years ago. Consider, for instance, that the first baseball cards were inserted into packs of cigarettes. Can you imagine today’s baseball heroes allowing their images to be associated with cancer sticks? Heck, I remember at my high school, in the 1990s, the entry area being littered with cigarette butts. Some kids openly smoked between classes! Such a thing would be unheard of today at most schools.

My point is that we’re still in the early stages of understanding the long-term effects of smartphone use. Kids have become Silicon Valley’s guinea pigs, driving corporate profit at the expense of smartphone users’ health. We may someday look back at this time period in the same way we do old photographs of kids working in factories or babies riding in vehicles without car seats. We’ll likely be aghast that we so willingly set up kids to develop digital addictions.

That being said, knowing these dangers doesn’t reduce the social pressure that kids feel to start using a smartphone. These devices are everywhere, and kids today don’t remember a world without them. They will ask for one as soon as they start seeing their friends use them, and maybe even before that.

Get ahead of the social pressure

However, parents can get ahead of this pressure by talking with their kids about how to live without a smartphone long before they start asking for one. With our two kids, I started talking to them about smartphones when they were preschoolers. Before their friends started getting smartphones, I explained how their friends would soon have these devices. I told them that they, too, might want one of these devices. It was OK to want one, I said. They do look like a lot of fun. But I also made clear that they didn’t need one to have a fun and fulfilling childhood.

In case you’re wondering, we are not Luddites. I’m typing this post on the family’s laptop, which sits in the kitchen, for my website. Our kids use a computer, too, including to occasionally play games. But along with no smartphone, they don’t have iPads (except for devices they use at school). And, they don’t have a video game system. Computer use here is highly regulated.

Model the lifestyle you want for your kids

It’s one thing for me to tell my kids they don’t need a smartphone, but it’s another to model that behavior. I think it’s critical for parents, who are determined to delay giving their child a smartphone, to model the life that they want for their kids. Too many adults are addicted to their devices and create the appearance that these devices are necessary for day-to-day living. If you’re going to tell your child that he or she doesn’t need a smartphone, you should be prepared to prove it. Sure, there are ways to use smartphones in a responsible manner, but how many adults can pull that off? It’s best, in my opinion, to simply not have one and eliminate the temptation.

Of course, a parent needs some type of cell phone to communicate, even if you don’t have a smartphone. That means acquiring a dumb phone, which many companies have turned into an afterthought. Fortunately, there is a growing list of companies which share my and other people’s concerns about the effects of smartphones. They’re making quality devices, and I recommend researching them. Many of these devices do not connect to the internet, though require data for features, such as weather updates and GPS. Some don’t have cameras, while nearly all of them allow you to text. You just have to decided how “dumb” you want your dumb phone to be.

Cell phone substitute for your kids: a landline

Gen Xers like myself will remember that, as teenagers, the landline was a critical communication tool. Nowadays, teens use their smartphones for anything but talking. We’ve had a landline for years, and I love it. It allows our kids to use a phone without needing to “borrow” my or Mom’s cell phone. Our kids sometimes answer the landline when it rings, such as when the grandparents call. The landline gives them some power and independence. Plus, a landline teaches them how to have a phone conversation, a skill that a lot of kids, despite having smartphones, lack.

There are a couple other benefits. I often use the landline, too, because the connection and sound quality is superior to a cell phone. You don’t have to worry about a call dropping or breaking up (at least from the landline’s end). Finally, the landline ensures that our children will always have access to a phone at home in an emergency.

Yes, a landline is an extra expense, but not that much. We get ours as part of our internet service package, and it comes to about $20 a month. We’d spend more if both our kids had cell phones.

The boomerang effect on your health

In considering whether to give your child a smartphone, also consider the potential effect on your health—not just your child’s. Here’s what I mean: Our kids keep me physically active. And if they had smartphones, they’d be sitting around more often, scrolling on them, and where would that leave me? I play with our kids usually everyday and often some type of ball game. We’re either shooting hoops on the driveway, or in the living room with a Nerf ball. If not basketball, it’s baseball. We’re either playing at a nearby school or in the basement on our knees while using a two-foot bat and pillows for bases. Or, we’re running through the snow with a football. Or sledding. Sometimes my son and I will just start wrestling on the kitchen floor, despite his sister’s protests that we’re disturbing the household peace. Our exercise routine is spontaneous.

The question becomes: Would I get all this exercise if our kids spent hours on smartphones? Maybe some of it, but I doubt all of it.

Those of you who regularly read this blog know I’m a big believer in practical physical activity. I don’t enjoy exercising just for the health benefits. If I’m going to elevate my heart rate, I want to do it while having fun. I want to make it into a bonding opportunity with family or friends.

It’s no coincidence that people are becoming more sedentary as they spend more time on screens. The smartphone is just the latest (and arguably most powerful) screen to keep people attached to their sofas. So why introduce another screen into our children’s lives if it’s not absolutely necessary? The decision could hurt your physical activity levels at least as much as theirs.

Parental controls miss the point

Some parents might feel better about giving their child a smartphone set on strict parental controls. I don’t know enough about these controls to say whether they’re effective in terms curbing some of the mental health risks, but I’m skeptical. For one, kids are constantly finding ways around these controls.

For another, I think parental controls miss the larger point. One of my main goals in not giving our kids a smartphone is to create a memory for them of what life was like before they started carrying a smartphone. Should they, as adults, decide to use a smartphone, they’ll be able to balance that lifestyle against their memories of a long childhood without smartphone dependence.

Kids who receive smartphones at such young ages won’t have that memory. They’ll develop a dependence on devices without any idea of how to break that dependence. That’s why I feel strict parental controls is nothing like living without a smartphone. These controls, while they limit access to certain content, still foster a dependence on smartphones—and that’s the real problem.

Ultimately, it’s the dependence (or addiction) that’s my motivation for keeping our kids off these devices for as long as possible. The content is a secondary concern.

How long exactly can I and our kids go without a smartphone? I’m not sure. Obviously, I have my convictions, and so far I’ve been able to honor them.

An uphill battle worth fighting

But I’m not that naïve. The reality is that smartphones are no longer novelties but have become increasingly integrated into people’s lives, so much so that we sometimes run into situations where people actually do need them. The erection of what I call “digital gates” is a troubling development, one that will challenge those determined to shun smartphones over the next several years. But while these “digital gates” are real (for example, some high schools now require students to use an app that turns their phones into bathroom passes), I don’t believe we’ll reach a point in the immediate future in which children truly need a smartphone to navigate their day-to-day lives. 

I believe the goal for parents should be to delay giving their child a smartphone for as long as possible and only after all other options have been exhausted. At some point, I do expect to give our children dumb phones, while maintaining an extraordinarily high bar for a smartphone. If we had in the United States a system like China used to track its citizens’ COVID test results on smartphones, I’d probably have no choice than to give our kids smartphones. In China during COVID, people needed a smartphone to access public and private buildings. Thankfully, that’s not the case in the U.S. So until we’re forced to carry smartphones, it’s worth waiting. While it’s still possible, let’s give our kids the opportunity to learn how to live life without becoming dependent on these devices.

In the meantime, if you feel strongly that your child needs some way to communicate with you, don’t rule out the dumb phone. Just because their friends all have smartphones doesn’t mean they need one. As I said earlier, quality dumb phones do exist! You can find dumb phones that allow your child to call or text but come with none of the addictive software found on smartphones.