How Parent Chat Groups May Help Reduce Pressure to Buy a Smartphone for Your Child
A recent conversation I had with a close friend about our kids' phones led me to review some of the things I've written on this topic over the past years. While dumb phones can be a practical for making after-school arrangements with your kids, they can also be a source of embarrassment for them. Smartphones, on the other hand, have highly addictive properties even most adults cannot withstand. So, what is the best way to approach this issue?
In this post, I'd like to revisit my thoughts on the thorny issue of embarrassment around dumb phones, what the right age for giving smartphones to children may be, and how starting a parent chat group may offer a sense of solidarity when dealing with these common problems.
Dumb phones and smart ones
There will come a time when you'll need to be able to call your kids and vice-versa. In my case, this had to do with changing working hours, which meant my youngest had to stay in aftercare. Knowing I could call to let them know about delays or changes in the arrangements made these situations feel less uncertain, and so we began using a feature phone, also referred to as a dumb phone. In other families' cases, I can image after-school activities, stay-overs and camps could all be reasons you'd want to be able to call or text your children.
Dumb phones, like the Nokia 8110, are essentially long-range walkie talkies with texting. They are a perfectly good solution to the problem of keeping in touch, but aren't always received well at school, socially.
I had different experiences with two of my kids. While the middle child enjoyed the quirky, dated look and feel of a Nokia feature phone, my youngest was mostly embarrassed. Some calls were missed due to the awkwardness; no matter the logic of my views on this as an adult, this was the reality on the playground.
I decided to set up a smartphone for my youngest, a little earlier than planned, and wrote an article about the right age for buying a smartphone. I landed on twelve for various reasons, an important one being that withholding smartphones, apps and the Internet much longer from kids may take away the opportunity to learn how to use such these responsibly. A smartphone at twelve gives them about six years to learn and make mistakes under our supervision as parents.
Rereading that post, I see that some of the 'rules' I recommended in the article were broken pretty soon after the smartphone came into regular use. While the SIM-card less approach works well for me, and continues to work for the middle sibling, the youngest somehow managed to persuade us to purchase a SIM card for the relatively new smartphone. So that strategy didn't work.
What has worked is the supervised learning. My children are teenagers, but still ask us for permission to take their smartphones to their room to record a video for school, or listen to some music. We decide on a case-by-case basis. Having rules established early on—specifically, the rule that smartphone use in the bedroom will not be the norm—has made these conversations comparatively painless for us, with the occasional disagreement between the parents or tensions with the child, of course.
Another positive aspect of the guided learning approach is that we occasionally have conversations about privacy. My kids use smartphones with alternative operating systems and app stores, and that sometimes enables good discussions about how apps steal our data, and which apps might be most appropriate to download. As a parent, I feel super proud when these conversations are initiated by my children, and I try not to be overbearing, being The Privacy Dad and all, a running joke in our family.
That then brings me back to the main pressure point on parents to introduce smartphones earlier and earlier: what happens in other families, and especially, what happens in school. I believe that if families whose kids go to the same school and find ways to communicate and compare home and school rules, parents will be in a much stronger position to negotiate the right age for the first smartphone on their own terms. While no parent wants their child to be the odd one out, some may be surprised that other families have similar standards to yours with regards to smartphone use!
Setting up or joining a parent chat group
A recent conversation with a good friend, who has two kids in elementary school, offered a new perspective on the thorny issue of smartphones for kids before the age of twelve.
He told me that he and a few of the other parents in his school had joined a chat group (WhatsApp...I did suggest Signal, of course!) to compare notes about the issue of early adoption of smartphones. He explained how communication and agreement between parents can be an effective method for dealing with the pressure to buy a smartphone for kids in this younger age group.
The way it works is that if a few parents agree between themselves not to give their kids smartphones yet, then the problem of peer pressure at school is greatly reduced. Having a small group agree can have a big impact. You may even find other interested parents wanting to join in, or reverse some allowances they've let happen too early.
I recall having such a conversation with parents our last parent-teacher night of elementary school for our youngest. I was surprised to discover that my child had not been the only child without a smartphone, and that a small number of parents shared my views on privacy and smartphone addiction! It would have been useful to know this all those times when we were having discussions about buying a smartphone at home.
Children in these discussions may not lie deliberately, but in their minds, being one of a handful of kids without a smartphone may be embellished to the view they are the only ones left out.
This was one important reason we ended up deciding to give our child a smart phone towards the end of the final year in elementary school: the fear of creating unnecessary embarrassment, and of your child being left out of conversations that happen online. Navigating the social aspects of school and growing up can be tough as it is, and as a parent, you want to avoid adding any negative pressure to the mix.
Reflections
Had I been able to compare notes with other parents early on and realised that there were at least three other families with a similar mindset to ours, then we could have banded together and built some resistance against the type of pressure you might experience as a family on your own. It would be a step towards normalising not having a smartphone, or even to using a dumb phone at that age.
If you do want to try a feature phone, and if can afford to spend a bit more, I recommend taking a look at the Punkt. MP02 or even a Light Phone 2, as they both have a trendy feel and look about them. However, the much more affordable Nokia 8110 will do the job of calling and texting just fine too.
The friend I had this conversation with is not a privacy advocate per se, but, like most parents, he does worry about the mental and social impact of connected devices for his children. His parent chat group seems to be working well in that regard, and I wish them all the best. I recommend that parents with concerns around smartphones for kids in elementary school try the same thing.
I still stand by the argument that the age of twelve might be a good time to begin having conversations about a smartphone for your child, with clear boundaries, but also I know from friends who teach in elementary school or have kids there now that children as young as eight or even six are being given smartphones without any meaningful supervision. This cannot be good for their development and happiness, as so many smartphone apps are built for addiction, nor is it good for the families' privacy online in general.
If parents can band together and make their own decisions about smartphone use and as a result be less influenced by peer pressure to buy smartphones early, then perhaps we can adjust current accepted practices to a healthier and more normal standard. Now that more schools banning smartphones during class hours, we may begin to see real change in the negative impacts these devices have on our youngest generations.
Thanks to Nathan from The New Oil and his family member for helping me redraft this article! You can read his blog here.
Documentation
Punkt. MP02 as a Feature Phone for Kids
Smartphone use, wellbeing, and their association in children Nature 2025
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