When does your kid need a phone for social purposes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she at least have an iPad to text friends? My kids classes all formed large text groups in 4th grade and they would have been out of the loop without. I also found that was about the time i actually needed them to have cells for logistical purposes with sports, carpools, etc.

Have you looked at the large text groups? We had 4th grade for dinner of my kids during lockdown and they had a big Google chat. There was absolutely nothing worthwhile that anyone would have missed except for an abundance of poop emojis.

If your kids takes public transit in middle school, might be useful to have a non social media phone option. If they're still getting driven everywhere in the suburbs you can probably wait longer

[Anonymous]

I'm going to try and hold off on not giving my kid a phone until she's at least 12 or 13. There is just so much scary stuff on the internet I would much rather that she work on not having social interactions on there until she's a lot older. And I am planning on really limiting the amount of time she can spend on social media and monitoring things.

[Anonymous]

DS is in 4th and has an apple watch with cellular service - mostly so we can track the school or camp bus and get in touch if an afterschool activity is cancelled, etc. But friends can also text him. Prior to this, friends facetimed and send texts via his ipad.

[Anonymous]

Pp here, I am aware of 2 of his friends with iphones. And a handful of classmates have either the apple watch or gizmo.

[Anonymous]

My 12 yr old 7th grader doesn't have one and does just fine socially. If she wants to hang out with a friend, I text their parent. I have to drive her anyway, so parents are still needed to coordinate this.

She sees friends at school and sports. Once home, she is very busy with homework and studying (just getting into the swing of new middle school rigor). She doesn't need the distraction of a phone right now. Our plan is 9th grade. That will give her a good couple years of taking truly hard classes in middle school, while doing sports, and developing good organization and study habits.