How old is the right age and which phone is the right one to give your kid?

Episode 13

If one or two decisions could change the trajectory of our children's lives while growing up in our interconnected digital age, these could quite possibly be it.

(I sooooo wish I would have known these things years ago when I made this decision for my kids, each one getting one at younger and younger ages.)

It is often an exciting time for both us and the kiddo, but we also must realize that it is like a portal to the world, allowing access to our kid and our kid to the world, opening the door for comparison and feelings of inadequacy to enter their realm of awareness, while ushering their innocence out the door.

Listen in for my tips on making this decision if your child does not yet have a phone, or if needing to back pedal a bit on that decision if already made.

#beTHATMom #beTHATMomMovement #beTHATMomStrong

For 20% off of Bark, use code BETHATMOM at https://www.bark.us or CLICK HERE!

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P.S. I want to hear from you! Text BETHATMOM TO 50597, email me at [email protected], or connect with me on IG @dollydenson https://www.instragram.com/dollydenson! Please share if this is helpful and if you have a story of your own in being THAT mom that could help another mom! (Looking for a few guests to share their story on future episodes of the podcast!)

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Full Transcription

This is episode 13 of the be that mom movement podcast.

(00:07): Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the bead that mom movement with your host, Dolly Denson.

(00:33): Hey, I'm so excited to be back again today. And I think I say that same sentence at the beginning of almost every episode, but it is true. So today I'm recording this while I'm sitting outside on my front porch, and I hope you will forgive me for any background noise that you may hear because sitting out here just brings me joy. And so I just thought it would be a good place for us to chat today. So today I want to talk about something that I was asked today, and it brought this to the forefront of my mind as being probably the thing that could have been pivotal in the course of giving my children access to the digital world and how that influences them over time. So I was asked if I haven't given my kid a phone yet, when would you do it?

(01:19): And as I thought about that, a couple of things came to mind and I would absolutely stick to my guns with this. If I knew then what I know now. So if I had not given my kid a phone and they were in their elementary school years, that's when the, I mean, the pressure starts so young. Now I've had friends tell me that their kids in kinder and first grade are telling them that friends are bringing phones to school. Like Holy cow is crazy, but, um, I have a friend, my best friend has twin girls and they, I believe are getting ready to enter sixth grade. And she just gave them their first phone in the last couple of months. And I think that is an appropriate age with one caveat. And that is that they don't get a smart phone. And when I was giving my kids their first phone, my oldest there weren't the smart phones.

(02:15): Weren't so smart. When my oldest was getting to the point of getting a phone, like it didn't have social media and all that stuff. It was just calling and texting and listening to music that I don't even know if it had music on it and made it just had been calling and texting. Maybe not even texting, I don't know, but they weren't so smart. Then the other two got iPhones from the get go. My philosophy then was, if I'm going to give them a phone, I'm going to give them the one like I have, because I know how to use it. And at that time, Android phones didn't have all of the capabilities and all the apps and their phones just weren't as nice as I-phones. And so I thought I'm just going to give my kid what I have. Oh my goodness, big. Now I know this.

(03:00): So what I would do is start out by whatever age you decide is appropriate for your kid. I would start out with a not so smart smartphone. They do have them. They do still exist. You can probably get them at the mainstream places that you buy cell phones, but one place that I know of, and I'm not sponsored by them or affiliated with them in any way is called gab wireless. I've mentioned them a couple times in other episodes, but it's G a B B wireless.com. And I would get a phone from them because it has no internet access. You can call and you can text and you can listen to music. And my best friend's daughters think it's like the world to have this phone that does these things. They know no different. And you know, they don't need the other things. They don't need social media and all of those other things, the next step would be to give them an Android phone with a couple of limitations.

(03:54): So the reason that you want to do an Android versus an iPhone is iPhone. Apple has it set up to where some of their apps can not be monitored, like they can on an Android. And that doesn't mean imposing on their privacy. That means using something like BARK. If you go to bark.us, you can learn more about this, but it's basically a monitoring app. There's multiple other ones that exist. But this one seems to be the most comprehensive, that, of all the ones that I have looked at. So it's the one that I do recommend, but putting something like bark on the phone, some of the apps do not allow it to monitor to the depth that it will monitor on an Android there's limitations with all of them, but it does better on an Android phone besides putting the monitoring thing on there. I would also have boundaries set up for when the phone could be used, where it can be used and when it has to be shut off at night and plugged in and in my bedroom or in a common space, but not in their bedrooms.

(04:53): So they shut it off and they're not tempted to use it past those designated times. And then I would also have logins for all of the social media and apps that I do allow. And then over time, when they earn more independence with this, when I'm not getting bark alerts, when I'm, you know, seeing that they're being responsible, I, as they get older would let the, you know, let the leash out a little bit and allow them to earn that extra independence. But I wouldn't start with that independence and wait for them to crash and burn in order to take it back and set boundaries. I would start with those boundaries. And I do believe that these are the most pivotal and important decisions that we can make because they do, like I said, another episode, they do have access to anything and everything with the phone that is not monitored and that has no limitations on it and you're letting them download and do anything they want.

(05:56): It's just, it's setting them up for failure. And then that's not even mentioning the comparison game that goes on with having social media and seeing friends, the dangers of being contacted by someone who wants to do them harm or wants to somehow coerce them, the ones that do cyber bullying. There's just so much that goes into this, but this is where I would start, would be when that, what age I gave the phone and start with the knots of smartphone. And then from there move to the smarter phones, but with monitoring and limitations and knowing that they earn the use of that phone over time. And then it is a privilege and not a right. So I hope that that is helpful for you when asked this question today, that is the pivotal thing. The thing that I have thought about a thousand times over, if I could just go back and change the decisions that I made around that, I think it would have changed the trajectory of what happened with us.

(06:57): But at the end of the day, I know that everything that has happened with us has been there for a reason. And we have a happy ending. We have course corrected and our family's doing well. The kids are all doing well, but I just feel like in general, that this is the reason that our children, as a whole, you know, I'm speaking, um, society as a whole are struggling with anxiety and depression and other things like that because they have the comparison. They have the addiction to the devices. They have the propensity to want to be on it at all times a day and night, and they don't know how to regulate it. They don't know how to articulate that it's causing an issue. And so it has to start with us. It has to start with awareness like I've talked about before. It has to start with boundaries and monitoring and communication.

(07:45): Remember the framework that I've mentioned in other episodes, that is the absolute framework, and this is not an easy thing to do. It's not an easy road to be on when other parents aren't aware of this. When other parents don't want to do the work to monitor and make sure that their kids are protected from the dangers, it makes it really, really difficult. And that's why being that mom is not easy. And that is why we need to band together to do this together. And that we also need to be providing our own self care habits so that we can better be there for our family when we are strong and taking care of ourselves and of course supporting each other in this route. So I hope that helps you today. I hope you are in my be that mom community on Facebook so we can support each other in being #thatmomstrong. Thanks so much. I'll chat with you next time.

(08:36): thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join Dolly's free community till next time.