Parenting: When is the right time to give your a child a smart phone?

With his twin girls off to High School next year, Cambridge’s coast-walking dad Chris Howard wonders if it’s time to give them their first smart phones. . .

The time has come for the great phone debate! Well, for Thing One and Thing Two at least, who are in their last year before going to High School. Our cubs are growing up too fast, although in the back of my mind is the excitement that it’s one step closer to them getting a job and paying their own way! Like chimney sweeps - they still exist - so why are my two being so workshy at the age of 11? Honestly ‘they’ve gotta learn, aint they?’ *effects Mancunian accent for no apparent reason*.

It’s a serious discussion though and every family, parent and child will have a different view (and therefore approach) to how they do the phone thing. To smart or not to smart? That is the question, my liege; imagine if Shakespeare was from Manchester, like Oasis (most exciting reunion since Mufasa appeared as a cloud to Simba!).

There’s a big campaign to say no to smartphones for children and I love that people have an opinion on how we should or should not raise/protect our little sproglets from the nasty pocket robots; it really sparks debate and surges progress.

However, I’m reminded of Margaret Mead saying: ‘Children must be taught how to think, not what to think’. We’re all doing the best we can and what we think is right at the time. I don’t want to ignite controversy so here’s what I think, you can take it or leave it, like a voicemail on a Sunday that you can’t be bothered to listen to.

Smartphones seem to be the enemy, blamed for young people being exposed to; online bullying, anxiety, FOMO (fear of missing out) and inappropriate content. There are ‘cyber aware’ lessons in school and information for parents and families online but the hard part for me is that we have to try and understand all of this now, too, because we didn’t grow up with it. Knowing what to do for the best is hard. Like remembering phone numbers, we no longer have to! Why? Because the phones in our pockets have more power and access to information than any computer system we’ve ever used. And then there’s social media which can be hugely damaging and bad for all of us. The flip side is that phones can be used as a tool for positive things too.

Our cubs have a healthy relationship with screens and devices right now but that might not last. We’ve tried to help them understand that there are other things to interest and occupy their minds. I am in favour of my cubs having access to all the information I didn’t and for them to be learning in a positive and measured way with us at their sides. I accept the smartphone has pitfalls but I equally accept it can be managed.

I am left wondering if the campaigning will stop Skynet hacking our phones and sending terminators from the future to eradicate the children of the resistance before they’re adults, sparking a war across time and torching the sky in a judgement day sequel. . . But then I remember, the future children of the resistance also sent back Arnie to protect us (confused?).

It’s about trust and managing a child’s relationship with their devices. Smartphones are not the problem, the relationship a child develops with a device is. They should be guided by a parent in the best way they can, just like any other developmental stage. We’ll talk to the cubs and have house rules around phones and help them understand it’s a tool, not a toy. That is of course unless the evil phone bot comes to life and fires phaser cannons at us from its Decepticon war transformer formed with our air fryer! We’ll all run and I’ll be heard shouting ‘I’ll be back!’ *Laughs at his own impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger doing an impression of Liam Gallagher.*

Read more about Chris’s adventures at thecoastwalker.com