There sure is a lot of discussion about how
old kids should have to be to have a cell phone
and I want to talk about that today. I'm Nicholeen Peck. I'm a parenting expert.
Author of Parenting: A House United. And a speaker
all over the world that teaches parents and children how to have self-government.
Well, having self-government is a big part
of picking when a child should have a cell phone and we're going to talk about
that in this video.
So, how old should kids be to have a cell phone?
Well, what if it's not about age at all? There's 2 different ways that we can
look at this. We can make an age argument or we could make a readiness
argument. So, let's look at the age argument.
Why do people think that children need cell phones by certain ages?
Well, because schools start doing convenient things like putting
assignments and different things on there
or start telling them, "Oh, look this up." Or "You can access
this on this web page or whatever." And so, they start making it
seem like that a cell phone or some sort of a device that they've got with them
all the time is really important for school success.
Also, where are all the pay phones? Whatever happened to giving a child
a quarter, okay? That was a million years ago. I realized that.
I was back when I was a child. I remember when it changed from being a dime to a
quarter. That's how old I am. But anyway, we can't do that anymore. So
we worry, right? We think, "Okay. Well when our child is going to be out a
little bit more, then they probably need to have a cell phone to be safe",
right? I mean that's a pretty good age argument
to make. And we also want to make sure that we
can keep track of them a little bit more just
because there's so much more freedom of movement that happens nowadays.
People going every which way. It keeps it helps us keep tabs on our children. So, we
feel like there's a safety concern especially once they reach a certain age.
Especially once they get in those adolescent years. Well in our family,
we actually always had a kid phone. This was a phone that was actually...
We called it the dumb phone because it definitely wasn't a smart
phone. It was a flip phone. Didn't have access to the internet or data or
anything like that. But they could make calls
and get a text. And this phone was our phone. The parent's phone.
And so, the children had use of the phone sometimes. They could borrow the phone if
they needed to go on a babysitting job or if they were going to go to a
friend's house and we needed to contact them.
Especially the use of this kid phone started happening
around the age of 16 when our children would get their driver's licenses.
So, that was how we handled the age situation with the phones. So, now the
readiness argument. This is the argument that
suggests we don't give a person a device that can
control them unless we know that they're ready to be
the one in control. So, we've always taught our children that
devices, digital devices are supposed to be tools
not toys. So, what that means is
they need to see this thing as something that's going to be respected,
something that they are going to govern over.
Because a tool if it is not respected, if it is not kept within the right
boundaries and used properly can easily hurt
somebody. Right? So, if you treat a tool as a toy, that thing could very easily
get in a position where it could hurt you. I was talking to
a father the other day and he said, "You know, I don't know what
to do because we're in a divorce situation and
their mother wants them to have cell phones
so that she can talk to all of them all the time. But my children have been
accessing some really bad stuff. And I don't want them to access this stuff.
And what do I do?" He said, "I truly will feel like...
You know, if I can't help my children conquer this pornography situation, if
they get trapped in that, I'm going to feel like i'm a failure as
a parent." I have heard that type of statement
so many times. We worry, don't we? That our children
are going to end up in bondage to some addiction, some habit
like porn or gaming or just general digital addiction.
But yet we do know that there's like this
need sometimes to use a phone. So, what about their readiness? How much does
that really matter? Well, in our family, that
matters the most. If our children do not know how to
govern themselves with basic things like how to follow
instruction, accept no answers, accept consequences
and disagree appropriately, then they are not ready for a phone.
Because when you have a cell phone and something...
You know, say there's an email that comes through and you see it on
your notification. You need to give yourself an instruction
right then. I'm going to go to that email, I'm going to look at it and then I'm
going to be done i'm not going to look around at
everything else. And otherwise you get sucked in
or a notification from social media, forget it. You'll be there for 2 hours
before you even realized, "Oh, no. I was doing something. What was I doing?
I don't even know." Your brain stops thinking, okay?
And so, you have to tell yourself. Self-govern self.
This is how much time I will spend. "I will go look at that one notification
because it's from a person I care about." And that's it. I will not look at my feed
or anything else. And then once you're in there and you're
done with that one notification, you have to keep thinking long enough to say, "Self,
now i'm giving you a no answer." And now you have to turn the thing off and set
it down and go back to whatever it is that you were doing. Have you noticed
that people just grab their devices all the time
like they just can't stop looking at them even when they're talking to other
people? And it's because they don't have
self-government over the device. The device at that moment is controlling
them. It has happened to me. It has probably happened to every person
who has a device. That's why it's so important that a
person is ready. That there's a readiness associated with
getting that device. So, that readiness in our family is
called self-government. So, what's self-government?
Self-government is being able to determine the
cause and effect of any given situation and possessing a knowledge of your own
behaviors so that you can control them. So, what
that means is you do make those plans ahead of time of what you want to
accomplish and then you make yourself follow
through so that you get the desired result that you're looking for. And you
stay in the ultimate position of freedom. Freedom over your own
cravings, freedom over other devices or people
controlling you. Which all equate to bondage. So, when my
children are good at following my instructions,
accepting my no answers, disagreeing appropriately with me when
they have a concern, then I know that they will be good at
giving themselves instructions, giving themselves no answers and
disagreeing appropriately potentially even with the devices.
Saying, "No. You know what? I'm not going to be doing that because..."
And they will make sure that they are not held in bondage to those devices.
Now, when a child first gets a device, you still have to have
oversight. You don't just say, "Well, he makes his bed every
day and I think he does his chore. He even does his music practice. He's
probably good." No. It takes practice. In fact, there is a
big period of time sometimes a few months
maybe even a year where a person is in training for how to self-govern
themselves on these devices. Get filters get apps like maybe the web
safety app, is a really good app if your children have android phones.
There's a phone called the gab phone which is a really good training phone
for children because it doesn't have as much digital stuff associated with it.
And that's a great way for them to learn what that phone really is for
and how it is a tool. Because it behaves just like a tool
and not as much options to have that toy experience
with the phone. Even so, even if you have a training phone,
you still have to talk to them regularly about that experience of using the phone
and the training associated with it. So, make sure you give yourself enough
time to have oversight over a phone before you would give it to your
children anyway. Many people pose the question, "How old
should somebody be before they get to have a cell phone?" But
you can't stamp an age on that. I know society keeps demanding actions
that seem like they require cell phones. But if you have a cell phone as the
parent, then they can always use your phone to
communicate with people, people can text you if they need to get
a hold of them if they absolutely must. And it really is about readiness.
They are not ready if they can't control themselves no matter how old they are.
And I also caution you about using a cell phone with a child
too young because the prefrontal cortex of the brain
grows and grows over time. And that's the part that helps the person do
discernment. So, the prefrontal cortex is not fully
developed until a person is between the ages of 18
and 26 years old. I know that what we've shared
is not going to make the children happy. In fact, some of them
might even get upset. So, it's important to know
and to have skills for how to deal with them
when they choose to get upset. They need to learn self-government, in all things,
not just with the phone. And if you would like to help them get
on that road to self-government and you'd like to learn some
self-government yourself and help them not have temper tantrums when the answer
is going to be no for a little while, then you're probably going to want to
watch my next video which is How Do You Deal With Temper Tantrums?