Actually I have 3 children from elementary to high school age. Only my eldest has a phone. We got it for her for our convenience as she is often participating in activities with unknown end times.
Well, huge respect for raising reasonable and well behaved kids.
What makes it hard, imo, is that kids chase status and conformity (social school dynamics, probably). What could be worse than seeing everybody in class with a shiny new smartphone and not having one? Also, them being precisely engineered addiction machines doesn't really help. Which makes me curious, how did you manage to pull it off?
My daughter started asking for a phone at 9. After just saying no a few time she stopped asking. Before we got her a phone she realize why we had been saying no. Her friends that had phones younger were already addicted to them to the degree that the phone was more important than friends that were physically present. It is my job to protect my children from danger. I see device addiction to be as dangerous as drugs. Peer pressure is tough to deal with but that affects all aspect of growing up. Not just keeping up with the Jones. It takes help to navigate that feeling of missing out.
