Appropriate Age for Smartphone

[Anonymous]

Subject line says it all. At what age do most kids get a smartphone? What do you all think is the best age/grade for one? DS has been asking for one, so far we haven't. He of course insists that everyone has an iPhone, that he's the only one that doesn't. (Flipphone when he needs to be in contact, which is not often).

Average age? Best age?

TIA

[Anonymous]

I don't know if it's the best age, but pretty much all kids have them by the end of 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

When they start taking public transit or walking to school and home by themselves, not before then.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the family. We will get one earlier than later. We'd probably give our old iPhones and get new ones (they are 5's so nothing exciting about them).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if it's the best age, but pretty much all kids have them by the end of 5th grade.

Not at my kid's school which goes through 8th grade. A few kids maybe. Most of the kids who got them young either have divorced parents or older siblings. Our kid will be getting one in 7th.

Check out the screenagers blog on how to set limits.

[Anonymous]

I agree that most kids have them by the end of 5th grade.

My youngest is finishing up 6th grade and we are going to get him one sometime between now and the start of 7th grade. My oldest got his the summer before entering 5th grade.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, I think it depends on the individual kids' situations. I do however feel like if your kid doesent have one by high school they will certainly be missing out socially. Not saying it's a great thing, but there is a lot of socializing that happens via social media/texting.

[Anonymous]

Most kids seem to have them sometime during 7th grade, either for the start of the school year, a birthday, or Christmas in 7th grade. Some start sending text messages on iPads the summer before 7th. I would say that very few had them in elementary, so very few that they had few friends to text on them.

[Anonymous]

I have a 6th grader and an 8th grader. IME, hardly any of my kids' friends had them in 5th grade. In 6th grade, most had a phone but a mix of smart and "dumb" phones. By 8th grade, virtually everyone has a smartphone.

[Anonymous]

9:35 here. Just FYI, I don't think it's appropriate, but that's
What is common in 7th. I put restrictions on amount of phone time .

[Anonymous]

Sometime in middle school seems most common. We got DD a smartphone the summer before 6th grade, for reasons that were almost entirely due to parental convenience. She most likely didn't need it; I think access to a phone (not necessarily a smartphone) of her own might have been more critical socially by 7th grade when it seems that kids made plans directly with each other and not really through parents. We tied the privilege of having the smartphone to grades and behavior, and if either wasn't meeting certain standards the phone was among the first things to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometime in middle school seems most common. We got DD a smartphone the summer before 6th grade, for reasons that were almost entirely due to parental convenience. She most likely didn't need it; I think access to a phone (not necessarily a smartphone) of her own might have been more critical socially by 7th grade when it seems that kids made plans directly with each other and not really through parents. We tied the privilege of having the smartphone to grades and behavior, and if either wasn't meeting certain standards the phone was among the first things to go.

When does middle school start in your district? I think many parents have a mindset that their kids can have a cell phone "around middle school", and even if they decide to cave and give one earlier, it doesn't seem too bad, because their kid will be in middle school soon enough anyways. In our district, middle school starts in 6th, so 5th grade doesn't seem that young. I think a lot of the people who are horrified by 5th graders having cell phones probably live in an area where middle school starts in 7th.

[Anonymous]

A few years ago, the average age was 12. Now it's 10. (I just looked this up because I have a 10 year old starting at a private middle school next year in 5th grade).

My plan had been 7th grade and I'm going to hold on to that as long as I can. I went to a parenting seminar recently, and the speaker said that you should try to delay it as long as you can, but when their peer group start getting phones, give serious consideration to also getting your child a phone. They do organize most things socially on them these days. So I hope I'm lucky in that my son's peer group is a later in getting phones.

He has to have an ipad for this school, and that will give him imessage for use at both school and home, and anywhere he's got wireless. I hope that's enough for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few years ago, the average age was 12. Now it's 10. (I just looked this up because I have a 10 year old starting at a private middle school next year in 5th grade).

My plan had been 7th grade and I'm going to hold on to that as long as I can. I went to a parenting seminar recently, and the speaker said that you should try to delay it as long as you can, but when their peer group start getting phones, give serious consideration to also getting your child a phone. They do organize most things socially on them these days. So I hope I'm lucky in that my son's peer group is a later in getting phones.

He has to have an ipad for this school, and that will give him imessage for use at both school and home, and anywhere he's got wireless. I hope that's enough for now.

Sorry about typos.

[Anonymous]

when they turn 3 years old