The Apple Watch was kind of glitchy for us. So we bought an iPhone SE. I didn’t want to spend money to upgrade our older phones.

No phone till 8th. Apple Watch works fine

Anonymous wrote:How do you keep track of your kids if they are 11-12 years? That's the primary reason I am considering a phone for our almost 12 year old boy

I don’t need to “keep track” of them. Just like your parents didn’t need to keep track of you

Oh, and I wanted to add that my kids know and abide by certain rules, like no phone use at restaurants. If my youngest is super bored I'll let her do my mini Sudoku book. And when it's time for bed and phones are put downstairs, they read for an hour before going to sleep. I feel like so far we've been able to embrace technology while still having boundaries and doing things that are separate from screens.

Our kids walk to school starting in middle school so we got them phones then. I considered the Gizmo but my oldest looked so crestfallen when I suggested it, and I'm glad I went with a regular phone. She is very responsible and doesn't abuse her privileges.

Re settings . . . The 11 year old cannot download any apps without permission (iPhone - parental controls). The 14 year old doesn't have Snapchat or Tiktok and can only use her private Instagram for an hour per day (she can send us a request for more time). Both of their phones go into "downtime" at a certain time of night, as does mine. They have to charge them outside of their rooms at night and we have access to look at them whenever we want.

Still, ya know, nothing is perfect, and kids are kids. You just have to trust that you were similarly able to access questionable things as a kid and you turned out OK. Have a close-knit relationship with your kid and check in a lot. I read a lot about screen addiction and talk about it with my kids; these apps are designed to suck as much time out of our lives as possible, and we have to be pro-active about prioritizing what's important to us (i.e. lash ourselves to the mast). We have books of sudoku and crossword puzzles and talk about how it's better for your brain to play games that way, etc.

I'm sure there are bumpy times ahead but so far my kids have been generally responsible. My oldest even told me when a friend of my youngest tried to use her to get Snapchat secretly (she had to send the code to someone older than 13). My guile-less kid told, "Larla's parents couldn't figure out how to approve Snapchat so I'm helping her," and I was like, oh sweetheart, and immediately texted Larla's mom, lol. NO, Larla's mom did not know about any of it.

We did it in 6th. There were complicated pick-ups and drop offs that year and wanted to be able to reach him and track him. We activated all the built in protections, enabled no access to social media, and monitored all his communications. It was fine.

For first phone, either a parent’s hand-me-down, or a cheaper iPhone like an SE.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are pushing for cell phones. They claim 80-90% of 6th graders have one.
If you got your kid an iphone, please share what kind of phone did you give them? i.e. your older phone, or you got kid a new phone at t-mobile, verizon etc, or you got kid some kind of refurbished phone on-line, etc.....thanks for any tips on how to handle this.

Give your kid any model that is less likely to be stolen. And if you say it would never happen to your kid because they go to a private school, all I have is eye rolls.

My sixth grader has an Apple watch, and we got her a new but older iPhone before school started because some of the specific apps we wanted on the watch don't work well without a unique phone paired. The phone is locked down so she can't web surf, buy anything without approval, spend more than a certain amount of time on games, use it outside certain hours, or call/text anyone we haven't preauthorized. She doesn't take the phone to school and honestly doesn't use it much, but having it has streamlined our overall tech process a lot.

Many fewer sixth graders have actual phones than I thought would be the case. About 25% of parents raised their hand on this topic at a huge parent meeting beginning of the year.

That said, here is what we did. We used a vey old iPhone to attach to a watch. My kid wears her watch to school every day. We can track her and she can communicate the bus is late, etc. The iPhone is now the “house phone”. It lives at our house in the kitchen. She cannot use it without permission. We let her take it on a church beach weekend to take pictures. She took it with her to a special event to take pictures. But it isn’t “her” phone.

We handed down an old iPhone to our sixth grader. I have it locked down as others have said - screen time limits for each day, requests for app install, no social media etc. I find it’s locked down far more than her friends who use IPads at home (except I can call her on her phone which is nice) I also have made it clear that I will check her messages and phone usage and internet history and I have the bark app monitoring it. I’ll loosen up as we go along, but I want to see responsibility with what we have.

When my son was in 7th grade, he said he was only one or to kids without a phone. The teachers verified this (they collected phones in homeroom for the day). I got him one at the end of 7th grade.

My 6th grader got my old phone. Like a previous PP said, I set up all the Apple controls before she got it and she cannot add or delete apps without me getting an approval notification. The phone is pretty locked down but she can text/FaceTime with friends, and can reach me whenever needed now that she is out and about a bit more independently.

We are “practicing” with our 10 and 8 year olds having Gizmo watches. They can call/text a limited number of people and it has GPS. In a couple of years I’m likely to trade up to Apple Watches but not a phone.

Anonymous wrote:How do you keep track of your kids if they are 11-12 years? That's the primary reason I am considering a phone for our almost 12 year old boy

We got my 6th grader an IPhone SE for her 11th birthday over the summer. I have the Life360 app on it. Great for tracking and it’s free.