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If you have a teen or a tween who doesn’t have a cell phone, we’re willing to bet they’ve been asking for one. But when is the right time to get that first cell phone for your kids?
Tech billionaire Bill Gates famously banned cell phones from his kids until they were 14. Steve Jobs was purportedly against giving his children iPhones or iPads. Other Silicon Valley giants have voiced wariness of exposing their children to too much technology too young.
While there’s an undeniable temptation to follow the lead of these tech icons, some of us live in the real world without the luxury of paid parental support—including full-time nannies, housekeepers, and drivers. No matter how much we want to keep technology at arm’s length, the fact is we are living in a wired world and we may need to rely on cell phones to make parenting more manageable and to keep our kids safe.
We spoke with tech experts Ian O'Byrne, a digital literacy researcher, former grade school teacher, and the host of the Technopanic podcast, and Michelle Lipkin, executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, about how to figure out the right age to give your child their first cell phone, and, hopefully, how to make the foray into technology successful for your family.
What is the best age to give a child a cell phone?
While it’s generally accepted that a child gets their first cell phone sometime in middle school, both experts explained there is no universally correct answer that will reveal the best age for getting a cell phone.
“It’s important that we don’t just put a stake in the ground and say that there is one exact moment that's right and not a moment sooner,” says Lipkin. “There are so many factors to consider.... There are ways to give a child a cell phone at an appropriate age for your family and make it [a positive choice] for your family.”
Why does your child need a cell phone?
This is the first question these experts recommended you ask yourself. If your child's "need" is to communicate with friends or keep up with the external pressures of classmates, you can probably stick with a Chromebook or a tablet for the time being.
There are plenty of valid reasons for giving a child a cell phone at a younger age, however. If your children rely on getting themselves home in any way, or if they spend a significant amount of time on their own, both are good reasons to get them a cell phone at a younger age.
How can you tell if your child is ready for a cell phone?
Lipkin and O'Byrne both say that if your child is showing signs of media responsibility, that’s a good indication that they may be responsible enough to have a cell phone. Study how good they are at caring for their current devices, and how adept they are at turning them off at the appropriate times.
“If they are showing poor impulse control when it’s time to turn off their tablets or TV, phones can be even more challenging to establish boundaries with,” says O'Byrne.
He also said that a good litmus test for readiness can be as easy as noting that a child who doesn't know how to take care of a phone or a device probably isn't ready for one.
"Make them responsible for the care and keeping of their devices. Have them show the level of responsibility needed to keep them charged and cared for," he says. What that means is ensuring that devices are plugged in and kept in a safe and reliable place when not in use.
O’Byrne explains that it’s all about exhibiting a certain level of responsibility. If they can’t be trusted to keep track of a device and keep it charged, then they probably can’t be trusted to make good choices about their cell phones—which do require a greater level of responsibility.
“If you let them know that it's not simply a toy but a responsibility from the get-go, there is a greater chance they will treat it as one,” says O'Byrne.
How do I keep my kids’ cell phones safe?
There are lots of options for parental controls that can be downloaded onto a cell phone. Bark is a popular one and the iPhone has parental controls already integrated into its operating system. Be forewarned, however, kids today are smart and many times they are more tech-savvy than their parents. There are lots of ways to sneak around these controls and kids are always swapping tips on how to trick the system with their friends.
O’Byrne and Lipkin both advise that there be clear and enforceable rules around cellphone usage, so boundaries are evident and so that kids can be guided to make good choices for their overall well-being.
O’Byrne talks about a colleague who prefers that all phones and devices are kept out of the bedrooms at night and, we have to say, we are a fan of that method. A cursory search through parenting Facebook groups and Reddit will show that most of the most egregious missteps of judgment happen behind a closed door to a kid's room when they are left to their own devices (pun intended).
A family charging dock is a smart investment for promoting and modeling responsible cell phone ownership. Charging all of your family’s devices in one place takes away the secrecy inherent to cell phone usage while allowing kids to mimic the responsibility you take in caring for your devices. Overall, it’s easier to teach, manage, and monitor your child's level of responsibility if their devices are out in the open.
For Darby Saxbe, associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and director of the USC Center for the Changing Family, the family rule is that screens must be public and purposeful.
By public, it means that her kids don't do private screen time. By purposeful, she means no aimless browsing. The goal, she says, is to mitigate the tendency towards undirected scrolling, which can both eat up time and can cause kids to stumble into less-than-ideal situations.
"If they want to watch a show, we watch that specific show. If they want the iPad, it's to play a specific game. No aimless scrolling on social media and no YouTube surfing from clip to clip—I think those are particularly addictive ways to engage," she says.
Family charging dock at Amazon for $39
What is the best cell phone for kids?
Our Parenting Editor loves the Gabb as a first cell phone for kids.
That’s the big question. There are phones for kids that were made specifically with tweens in mind and with a mission to protect kids from the dangers they may stumble into on social media.
For younger kids, our Parenting Editor Anna Lane recommends Gabb Wireless cell phone. You can read her full review here. Some of the standout features that Lane liked most about the Gabb phone were unlimited talk and text and active GPS tracking while denying or limiting access to the internet and social media.
Depending on their age, the iPhone SE gets good reviews from our testers and parents alike. It’s relatively budget-friendly, it’s more durable than some of the larger smartphones with more exposed screen space and it comes with family controls.
Our Accessibility Editor Sarah Kovac recently gave her 9-year-old daughter an iPhone SE and endorses it as a good choice for a starter phone. Kovac personally uses an Android but she says she likes the parental controls on iPhones, so she uses an old iPhone to monitor her kids’ usage.
“The phone itself is small and sturdy, and I have an app on it that shows me her location and other safety info. She rides the bus with her younger sister, who has medical needs, so I am very comforted that there's someone with her who can contact me or vice versa. I also feel better about her visiting friends in the neighborhood knowing I can check in at any time,” says Kovac.
Whatever phone you start with, we are going to recommend that you start small. A kid doesn’t need the latest and greatest Android or iPhone.
Figure out your boundaries first
Don’t wait to figure out your boundaries around cell usage until after you’ve given your child a phone. Before you purchase their first cell phone, consider this: Do you plan to monitor their texts? Do you want to keep certain social media sites off limits? Will you allow phones in their rooms unsupervised? What time do cell phones get turned off each night?
Having clear boundaries from the onset helps prevent power struggles down the line.
Lipkin says, "We have to be talking about technology and media with our kids. The conflicts come from not having clear rules or talking about them. You have to have clarity around how the family is going to interact with technology."
O’Byrne agrees and recommends sitting down with your child to discuss the rules and boundaries before your child’s first cell phone is even purchased. "Really, it's all about building healthy conversations from the get-go. If you have that in place, it doesn't have to be such a scary thing and everyone will feel more prepared."