“When do you think you won’t need location sharing for your children?” asked the young woman working at the cell phone store.
“Probably when they go off to college?” I replied.
“I’m 23 and my mom still wants to know where I am,” she laughed.
“I guess I’m not sure then, but all I do know is that I won’t let my kids have social media until they’re in high school.”
“You’re keeping them so much safer that way.”
I thanked her for her help setting up my son’s phone and for affirming my protective motherly instincts.
Both of my older children now have smartphones.
They have each received one for their 11th birthday, right before entering 6th grade, which is the start of middle school in our town. I know that there are so many hot-button issues related to smartphones, so what follows, should you choose to read on, is where my family has landed. I’m not prescribing our way as the best way; I’m simply sharing what we’ve been doing for the past two years.
My husband and I gifted them phones at this age, primarily for communication and location tracking. They walk to and from school. They are home alone for brief periods of time. They have activities they are dropped off at, in locations all over town, which conclude at varying times. They have reached the age where they are old enough to text friends. They have graduated from iPads (one passed theirs onto a younger sister and the other had one too many screen cracks), so they can play games, watch shows or YouTube, listen to music, and take pictures on their smaller device.
However, they CANNOT have social media.
I do know that YouTube can be considered a form of social media, but since our children do not have access to like, comment, or create profiles, we do not regard it as such. They CANNOT download Snapchat, Instagram, or TikTok. Do some of their friends have it? Absolutely. Do they sometimes try to convince us that they would only connect with their friends and watch videos like they do on YouTube? Also, yes.
But it’s a non-negotiable. At least until high school; however, I’m not so sure I’ll be ready to ease up then.
I’ve been a high school teacher for 20 years. I have seen how teenagers have changed since social media became a regular fixture of their lives. It’s not their fault exactly. They are just keeping up with what surrounds them.
But what surrounds them on these tiny devices isn’t healthy. It’s not healthy to feel compelled to check Snapchat multiple times a day. It’s not healthy to be shown videos that subconsciously make you believe you need certain products or that you need to look or act a certain way, often at the detriment of your self-esteem.
Am I being extreme with my words? Not really. Read the following research from American Educator, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Surgeon General, or the National Library of Medicine, if you don’t trust me.
There’s only so much I can control, and this is one of the few areas where I feel some semblance of control. My incoming 8th grader already requests certain products just from what she sees in real life. She, like other young women, doesn’t always love how she looks. She doesn’t need more opportunities, however veiled they are, to doubt herself.
With my incoming 6th grader, I’m worried in a different way. He’s sillier, more competitive, and very much needs the time limits on Clash Royale and YouTube. While I’m not excusing the “quality” of content in some of the videos he watches on YouTube, his algorithm mainly generates “experts” playing and talking about video games and sports. If he had access to the expanse of social media, I know I would essentially be handing him an invitation to addictive content, which would be hard to break.
My kids’ phones are not allowed in their rooms at night. They know I can (and do) check their text messages and camera roll on any given night. Have I found anything concerning yet? No. Could they be deleting something before I see it? Potentially.
Which takes me back to why I’m so strict about no social media right now. It’s too hard for me to monitor. Content can appear or disappear in a flash. A picture or comment can be shared quickly and anonymously. Something could plant a morsel of pain or confusion that my children wouldn’t necessarily recognize had taken root in their still-developing brains.
Or maybe they would instantly comprehend or feel it, but not want to talk about it. Or perhaps they would write or share something that they would regret. I don’t want to risk any of those possibilities right now. I’m too nervous and frankly, I’ve got too much else to navigate, parenting two middle schoolers.
High school is only a year away for my first child. I’m not sure if I’ll let her join social media as a 9th grader. Maybe I’ll take her to the cell phone store and let the friendly clerk share some words of daughterly wisdom.
