The study says wait until 14 for the phone. Isla's had hers three years.
One week into secondary. Isla's survived, the blazer's still too big, the tie is apparently "fine now", and her phone has gone from a thing that lived in a drawer to a thing that lives in the bottom of her school bag, switched off until finishing time, probably on 4%.
And the week she started, every paper in the country ran the same story. Delay the smartphone. Wait until 14. Parents who held off had happier kids. HuffPost went with "we wouldn't give an 11-year-old car keys". Cheers for that. We gave Isla hers about three years ago. She was in primary. I'm not going to pretend otherwise on my own blog.
So I've been reading the actual study instead of the headlines, which I'd recommend, and I thought I'd write down what it says, what three years with a phone in the house has actually looked like, what's changed now she's at secondary, and where the app fits, because it does, a bit. I'll say when it's the app.
What the study actually says
It's a working paper from an economist called Gregory Veramendi, put out through the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Not peer reviewed yet, worth knowing. He looked at more than 12,000 state primary schools in the UK and compared the ones where lots of parents had signed the Smartphone Free Childhood pact, that's the one where you agree to hold off until 14, against the ones where hardly anyone had.
In the schools where more than one in five parents signed up, the number of kids with recorded social, emotional and mental health needs was about 8% lower than the schools where almost nobody did. And the bit that surprised me: phone bans inside school on their own didn't do much. Isla's school bans them, so I'd assumed that was the job done. Apparently not. It was parents doing it together, outside school, that moved the number.
Two things I took from that. One, it's about the primary years, which is exactly when we gave Isla hers. So no, I don't get to wriggle out of this one. Two, the word that matters is "together". It's not one family being strict, it's enough of a year group holding off that the kid without a phone isn't the odd one out. Nobody was doing that three years ago. Nobody was even talking about it.
What the first three years actually looked like
Honestly? Not much. It was an old handset, no SIM for ages, and it was basically a games machine that could FaceTime her nan. It went in a drawer for weeks at a time. She'd lose it, not notice for a fortnight, find it flat under the bed. There was nothing on it to scroll because there was nothing on it. I'm not saying that makes it fine, the study's fairly clear it'd have been better to wait, but I think the thing people picture when they hear "eight-year-old with a smartphone" isn't what was happening in our house.
What I'd say to anyone with a younger one, looking back, is the phone itself did very little. It was what wasn't on it that mattered. The day we'd have put a social app on it, that's the day it would've become a different object. We never did, and I think that's most of why the first three years were boring.
What changed at secondary
This is the bit I didn't see coming. Phones are banned in school, so it's off and in her bag from the moment she walks through the gate, and I'm fine with that. But she gets a bus now, and finishing time is the bit that had me. New school, new route, half three comes round and I've got no idea if she's on the bus, still at the gate, or gone to a mate's. So the phone comes on at the bell, location's shared with us, and I can see the little dot moving. That's the actual reason it's in her bag. Not for lessons, not for lunch, for the twenty minutes between the bell and the front door.
And in the space of about a week the phone stopped being a toy and became a tool she actually needs. She charges it. She knows where it is. She switches it on at half three without being told, because she knows I'm looking.
And that's when the rules suddenly mattered, because for three years they hadn't really been tested. A drawer phone doesn't need rules. A phone that goes everywhere does.
The rules we went with
No social media. Still. That was the easy one, partly because the government's banning it for under 16s from next year anyway, so I got to say "it's the law" and sound like I'd thought about it. Phone lives downstairs on the kitchen side from eight o'clock. Not in the bedroom, ever, I don't care if the alarm's on it, we own a clock. Parental controls on, app downloads need my say so, and she knows I can see the screen time. She rolled her eyes so hard I heard it.
And the one I actually think matters most: the phone is a tool, not a feed. It's for finishing time, so we know where she is, the bus, texting us, and a couple of things that are useful. It's not a thing you sit and scroll. There's nothing on it to scroll. That was true by accident for three years. Now it's true on purpose.
The bit where it's the app
Right, warned you.
One of the "couple of useful things" is TaskAdoodles. Her quests turn up on her phone now instead of the kitchen tablet. Bag packed, homework before screens, walk Noodles, and this week, unpack the PE kit before it grows something. She ticks them off, takes a photo if it needs one, I approve it from wherever I am, points land. Same as before, just on the thing that's already in her pocket.
The reason I like it on the phone specifically: it's about the only notification she gets that's asking her to put the phone down and go and do something. Everything else on a phone wants you to stay on the phone. This one goes "walk the dog" and then she's out the door with Noodles and the phone's on the side. I didn't plan that. I'll take it.
Now the honest bit, because I don't want anyone reading this and thinking the app's a reason to get a kid a phone. It isn't. Addy and Betsy don't have phones. They use the tablet on the kitchen side and the whole thing works exactly the same, quests, photos, points, games, all of it. If you're one of the families holding off until 14, good, honestly, the study's on your side, and nothing in the app needs your kid to have a phone. If they've got one anyway, it's one of the better things to put on it.
Week one, honestly
Monday, the bad one, three kids in three places, and at twenty to four I'm stood outside dance with Betsy watching a dot go the wrong way down the high street. Rang her. She'd got on with a mate to go to the shop. Fine, but tell me. Three years of owning a phone and that's the first time it's ever actually done a job, and the job was letting me be annoyed in real time instead of at five o'clock.
Wednesday she was on it at the table and I did the thing, the "phone away" thing, and she said "I'm doing my quests" and turned the screen round to show me. She was. I didn't have a comeback for that. Charlotte thought it was very funny.
Thursday I caught myself checking the screen time report like it was the football scores. Forty minutes, most of it texting us at half three and, weirdly, the weather. So far, so boring, which is the point.
Anyway
I don't think there's a right answer here and I'm suspicious of anyone who says there is. If you can hold off, and enough of your kid's mates are holding off too, the numbers say do it, and I'd probably do it differently with the younger two. If you've already given them one, like us, then the phone with nothing on it to scroll, downstairs at night, with a few things on it that actually get them off it, that's where we've landed. Ask me again at Christmas.
If you want to try the app it's free for 14 days, on their phone or the family tablet, whichever your house is. Cancel whenever.
Right. Isla's phone is on the kitchen side. It's 8:04. I've just checked. Three years in and I'm only just starting to check, aren't I.