Anonymous wrote: I have two daughters, "Larla" and "Darla." Darla is in seventh grade and got a phone at the beginning of fifth grade when she started staying after school more often for clubs and things like that. She was one of the last in her grade and her friend group to get a phone but she didn't care.
I planned to do the same to Larla, who is in fourth grade and get her a phone when she started fifth grade like I did her sister. But all of the kids in her friend group and her grade have a phone and Larla has been begging for one so she could talk with her friends after school. Since she didn't socialize with anyone during the pandemic, I allowed her to use her sister's phone to talk to her friends. That has gone horribly. She goes to her room and videochats with her friends for three hours straight like she didn't just see them all day at school. She downloads apps and takes a million pictures. Today Darla had to delete a bunch of pictures and texts because Larla ran down the storage. The storage was so low Darla wasn't able to open WhatsApp to communicate with her father who is in the military overseas in Germany. Larla, Darla, and I had a big fight about how if I let Larla have a phone than she wouldn't have to run down the storage on Darla's. Darla decided to forbid her sister from using her phone because she knew with the amount of pictures that Larla took and the hours and hours of videochatting, she'd just have to delete more stuff a month later. Darla has my old Samsung with horrible storage and I'm not getting her a better phone until I upgrade.
I am not getting Larla a phone any sooner than when I agreed on and Darla is getting frustrated that she has to share a phone with someone who runs down the battery and storage. How do I get Larla to understand this?
Darla's phone, she can choose not to share. Either let Larla use YOUR phone or get a flip phone just for calls and texts.