About to give rising 7th grader a phone on 13th birthday in a few weeks. Stressing about it...but it's time.

Parent of 5th grader at "big 3" private school. Maybe 5-10% of 5th graders had their own phones. I expect that number to go up to 25% in 6th.

LMGTFY is very annoying. Our DS got iPhone 3 when he was 9. The most important thing was to learn to use it. A question - Google it. Information at fingertips. Introduction to budget and money came the same year, Bitcoin - several years later. Our choice is to embrace, learn and adopt. We all see each other on life360 or get transaction alerts. It's knowledge, convenience and nothing more.

My kid is finishing 6th grade and doesn't have a phone. But this is the year that many of her friends appeared to be getting them. I will probably get her one over the summer so she has it for 7th grade

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Our son is graduating elementary school soon. We're considering getting him a cell phone for graduation so he'll have one in middle school. We're on the fence though as to whether we really should or shouldn't. We're concerned about it becoming an addiction, and about all of the social media exposure.

What are your experiences with it? Should we try and find a phone without data, i.e. just calls and texts? Yes I know he'll be upset if he can't download apps

Dad of 6th grader and 8th grader.

They ALL have phones going into 6th grade. These do become a social life lifeline. If you are "that" parent who refuses, it does put your child in the minority. That's just the simple truth. I'm sure a bunch of people will chime in and argue with this, but most of them will be parents of toddlers and infants who are absolutely certain how they will parent a decade from now.

Do what we did: Draft a contract with your kid and make it a teaching moment. And buy the insurance.

Total and complete BS.

No, OP, "all" the kids going into 6th grade do not have phones. This is what parents like this PP like to tell themselves, because they know their kids shouldn't have one, and yet they were too weak to say no. My oldest DS is going into 8th grade a well-known DC private school, and I would estimate that a good 25 - 30% of his classmates -- and more than 50% of his close friends -- do not yet have phones. They may get them over the summer, but at this point they do not.

Hold off for as long as you can. You do not need this additional hassle in your kid's life. And that's what it will become.

Most get iPhones around 3-4 grade. At least the kids I know.

Thank goodness this is not the norm at our school, at all. I have a 3rd grader and none of his friends have them.

My oldest just got a phone, near the end of 7th grade, for his 13th birthday. I'm sure it limited his social life some but he wasn't that interested until relatively recently. I'm glad we put it off this long - it was only a few days before he was asking for social media stuff that I didn't want, and only a few weeks before he started getting inappropriate texts that we had to step in and deal with. On the plus side, he is happy to have it but he's not obsessed at all. I'm pretty sure if he had to choose between his kindle and his phone, he'd chose the kindle (it's a fire, so it does have youtube and all the other stuff.)

I know this was not part of the question but I am going to say this in case people don't know. Cellphones subtly emit a dangerous level of EMF radiation. Children should either not be given phones so early or educated properly about not holding phones near their heads. See this book by a DC woman: http://www.disconnectbook.com/
If you are ever curious about the actual levels of radiation emitted, you can buy an electrosmog meter--iPhones, for example, are almost over the established SAR limit and their radiation is off the charts. Interestingly, Samsung phones have very moderate levels of radiation because of how Samsung designed its antenna about a decade ago. And, no, this is not a plug for Samsung. My SO happens to have one, while I have HTC, which is off the charts similar to iPhone.

OP here again: has anyone used the Family Time app? It seems like it gives a lot of parental control options and restrictions. Seems like it solves some of the issues with controlling access and time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. My son is finishing 6th grade and he sometimes asks for a phone but he just wants it to watch You Tube videos. He is not out of the loop without one. Maybe it is because he is a boy but if he wants to have friends over or sleepovers, he uses my iPad to text that kid's mom and she responds. It isn't like social things are happening and he isn't left out. He does what he wants using my phone. He has no actual need for a phone now. Maybe once he hits high school.

I have seen it change a LOT from 6th to 8th grade. 8th graders do not text a friend's mom to plan time together.

Oh well. Not everyone has the money for everything either. I don't know how people can afford new iPhones for all of Europe kids plus data plans etc. Heck, I teach in a Title One school and most of my steachers dents have better phones than I have plus data plans. I cannot afford that for myself let alone my kid.

Anonymous wrote:Wow. My son is finishing 6th grade and he sometimes asks for a phone but he just wants it to watch You Tube videos. He is not out of the loop without one. Maybe it is because he is a boy but if he wants to have friends over or sleepovers, he uses my iPad to text that kid's mom and she responds. It isn't like social things are happening and he isn't left out. He does what he wants using my phone. He has no actual need for a phone now. Maybe once he hits high school.

I have seen it change a LOT from 6th to 8th grade. 8th graders do not text a friend's mom to plan time together.

Wow. My son is finishing 6th grade and he sometimes asks for a phone but he just wants it to watch You Tube videos. He is not out of the loop without one. Maybe it is because he is a boy but if he wants to have friends over or sleepovers, he uses my iPad to text that kid's mom and she responds. It isn't like social things are happening and he isn't left out. He does what he wants using my phone. He has no actual need for a phone now. Maybe once he hits high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Our son is graduating elementary school soon. We're considering getting him a cell phone for graduation so he'll have one in middle school. We're on the fence though as to whether we really should or shouldn't. We're concerned about it becoming an addiction, and about all of the social media exposure.

What are your experiences with it? Should we try and find a phone without data, i.e. just calls and texts? Yes I know he'll be upset if he can't download apps

Dad of 6th grader and 8th grader.

They ALL have phones going into 6th grade. These do become a social life lifeline. If you are "that" parent who refuses, it does put your child in the minority. That's just the simple truth. I'm sure a bunch of people will chime in and argue with this, but most of them will be parents of toddlers and infants who are absolutely certain how they will parent a decade from now.

Do what we did: Draft a contract with your kid and make it a teaching moment. And buy the insurance.

Total and complete BS.

No, OP, "all" the kids going into 6th grade do not have phones. This is what parents like this PP like to tell themselves, because they know their kids shouldn't have one, and yet they were too weak to say no. My oldest DS is going into 8th grade a well-known DC private school, and I would estimate that a good 25 - 30% of his classmates -- and more than 50% of his close friends -- do not yet have phones. They may get them over the summer, but at this point they do not.

Hold off for as long as you can. You do not need this additional hassle in your kid's life. And that's what it will become.

Most get iPhones around 3-4 grade. At least the kids I know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Our son is graduating elementary school soon. We're considering getting him a cell phone for graduation so he'll have one in middle school. We're on the fence though as to whether we really should or shouldn't. We're concerned about it becoming an addiction, and about all of the social media exposure.

What are your experiences with it? Should we try and find a phone without data, i.e. just calls and texts? Yes I know he'll be upset if he can't download apps

Dad of 6th grader and 8th grader.

They ALL have phones going into 6th grade. These do become a social life lifeline. If you are "that" parent who refuses, it does put your child in the minority. That's just the simple truth. I'm sure a bunch of people will chime in and argue with this, but most of them will be parents of toddlers and infants who are absolutely certain how they will parent a decade from now.

Do what we did: Draft a contract with your kid and make it a teaching moment. And buy the insurance.

in the contract will he or she start covering the monthly cell bills once they start working?

No, they'll be on their second phone probably before they get a job that can pay those bills. Contract covers responsibilities and expectations (hours of use, no taking photos without permission, no posting embarrassing things anywhere, no app downloads without permission, etc).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Our son is graduating elementary school soon. We're considering getting him a cell phone for graduation so he'll have one in middle school. We're on the fence though as to whether we really should or shouldn't. We're concerned about it becoming an addiction, and about all of the social media exposure.

What are your experiences with it? Should we try and find a phone without data, i.e. just calls and texts? Yes I know he'll be upset if he can't download apps

Dad of 6th grader and 8th grader.

They ALL have phones going into 6th grade. These do become a social life lifeline. If you are "that" parent who refuses, it does put your child in the minority. That's just the simple truth. I'm sure a bunch of people will chime in and argue with this, but most of them will be parents of toddlers and infants who are absolutely certain how they will parent a decade from now.

Do what we did: Draft a contract with your kid and make it a teaching moment. And buy the insurance.

They don't ALL have phones. But very few of them don't have phones.

parent of 8th grader and 5th grader

+1
The kids who don't have phones - if there even are any - are very, very, VERY few. A friend of my daughter's always asks to use hers (my daughter's) when they're on the bus because the girl doesn't have one of her own. So even if parents decide not to buy their kids a phone, they're still going to use other kids'. It's incredibly naïve and silly to pretend otherwise.

pp here. I should have said "vast majority" instead of "all." And, of course, yeah, it triggered the outlier posts from parents who are deluding themselves and whose children are probably too sweet to admit they are in the extreme minority and suffer socially for it.

In MS, suddenly the kids are coming from a larger area. They use the phone/messaging for school work and social purposes.

What I saw (in an UMC area) was the kids without phones were often excluded -- not out of malice, but because they are hard to reach.

(FWIW, we got DD her first phone in the 5th grade after a miscommunication between my wife and I left DD alone at school; I was at work, she was taking a nap. School called me after they could not reach DW -- I explained where I was and how long it would take to get there. Got yelled at by an admin. Wife eventually reacted to 5 or 6 phone calls, and got her.).