Considering a first phone for your child? Read this first!
Your One Step:
✓ If you're considering a phone for your child, use our Phone Options matrix to help guide your decision.
Parents have told us they don’t feel sufficiently informed to select an age-appropriate phone for their child. And when they do get a phone for their child, many feel regretful and overwhelmed by the resulting parenting challenges.
To help you with this major family decision and transition, we have created a matrix to outline the range of current options. The phones an dwatches below allow your child to stay in touch (with Grandma!) while avoiding unnecessary risks and needless temptations.
Simple Phone & Watch Options
We recommend downloading this PDF and using the active links to research and learn about the many options for simple phones and watches. To understand the matrix, let’s walk through it.
Looking from left to right, the matrix shows several alternatives ranging from no mobile phone to a stripped down iPhone. Looking top to bottom, the toggle icon (in black or green) indicates additional features that can be enabled or turned off, depending on the product.
Basic features like calling and texting can meet the communication needs of children and families, and many products can be set up without additional features and apps that often become an unhelpful distraction.
Is a simple iPhone possible?
This image is an actual iPhone for an actual 7th grader. His parents wanted to allow basic communication but delay other features until they felt their son was more mature.
Use our tutorial video below to set up an iPhone with limited features. For example, you can allow only texting, FaceTime, and phone calls while choosing to remove the App Store, Safari (internet access), as well as time-zapping apps like YouTube, video games, and social media.
Video Tutorial: Setting up a First iPhone
Our top suggestions for saying yes to a first phone or watch:
Take it slowly. Very, very slowly.
More apps and features on a device means MORE parenting for you plus more distraction and risk for your child. To simplify your parenting role, delay unnecessary features.
Determine the essential need you’re trying to address, and provide the minimum tech to meet that need but nothing more. For example, if the need is to communicate with parents and friends, roll out a phone or watch that enables calling and texting only.
Remember to set up a phone for a young user before handing it over to your child. Most phones are set up by default for adults, not kids. If you’re considering an iPhone, watch how to set up a barebones iPhone for a child.
Find inventive ways to take collective action so it’s easier to meet basic communication needs while avoiding harm. For example, see if parents around you want to get the same Ooma or Tin Can landline or pick the same basic phone or watch so herd mentality flips toward the greater good!
Let’s reclaim childhood for its developmental purpose: to play, be outdoors, develop life skills and competence, and spend time IRL with other people. A phone should be a helpful tool to support these goals, not displace them.
Need more help?
If you’re looking for more support around giving your child a phone, reach out to our team of consultants at info@screensense.org. We can help you strip down an iPhone, set up Apple Screen Time, prepare to give your child a first phone, or reel in current phone use.