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[quote=Anonymous]We have historically been reluctant to introduce our kid to screens/technology, believing that less screen time/tech is better while a kid's brain is still developing.  Due to family health issues during the pandemic, our very strict approach to limiting screen time became severely eroded. For the past year or so we have been trying to claw back some on screen/tech time and reset some reasonable limits.

However, our kid believes that almost every other 6th grader in the world has a phone. He feels like he is an outlier at school because we want to wait until 8th grade to introduce a phone. To be clear, we aren't worried that he'll lose or damage it (he's responsible) or that we can't enforce use limits or teach him online safety (he already has an ipad and plays video game online with friends and we set limits on that). It's more that we don't want to introduce this addictive device that controls so many peoples' entire lives. We want him to engage with the actual world and enjoy his time in his non-online life. He spends a lot of time playing sports, so he does have outside activities, but we were planning to delay the phone until 8th grade because we think phones generally do more harm than good to kids.

So my question to the DCUM private school world is: do most kids at area independent schools have a phone in sixth grade? Is "wait until 8 still a thing?" Does this vary depending on the school or area (e.g. "big three" v. catholic schools or MoCo v. VA v. NWDC)? Is it actually stigmatizing for a kid not to have a phone (this seems ridiculous to us, but I guess it's possible?)? If your kid got a phone in 6th (or younger) any regrets? [/quote]

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