Yes, experts recommend waiting until your kids are at least 13 or 14 to give them a smartphone. . .but let’s be real for a moment.

If you have an 11 or 12-year-old right now, they probably feel like aaaaaaaaaall their friends have smartphones. And their feelings wouldn’t be too far from reality. The average age a kid gets a smartphone in the U.S. is 10-years-old, and by middle school kids feel a little bit dejected if they don’t have a phone.

So what should you do?

My friend Adam, parent of three, decided he wouldn’t give in to the pressure to buy his kids smartphones, so he bought his tween son a flip phone instead. After all, most the mental health concerns are about kids spending too much time on social media.

A few days later his son came home with his head hanging low.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.

“They make fun of my phone, Dad.”

These are those tough moments as a parent. On one hand it’s pretty sobering when we really listen to what experts are saying about the dangers of handing kids smartphones too early, but on the other hand…we don’t want our kids to be ridiculed. Is there a chance this is a battle where we should give in?

Here’s three important tips to consider:

1. Remember to revere the relationship over the rules (nice use of alliteration, huh?)
You read that correct. Your response is key. Your conversations with your kids about screens will be far more impactful than your rules.

Please, don’t assume I’m saying, “rules are not important.” I think a few bare-minimum screen limits can save your kids a lot of struggles, especially in the area of mental health. But your conversations with your kids about becoming screen-wise will prove far more important than your screen limits in the long run.

With that in mind, if your kid comes to you with struggles or even to just asking for a phone, the first and most important principle to remember is empathizing with them and validating their feelings.

“Dad, kids make fun of my phone.”

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how that makes you feel.”

Don’t try to solve their problem at first. Just listen and make them feel heard and understood.

But eventually they’ll probably ask again. “Pleeeeeeeease can I have a phone?”

That’s when you can try to…

2. Give them options
Don’t just say, “No.” Give them a choice.

“I hear you saying that kids are making fun of you because you don’t have a phone, and that makes you feel awkward and a little rejected. I’m so sorry kids are doing that to you. That’s unfair. But at the same time, I’ve read research revealing the danger of giving kids phones too early, specifically social media. So this is a difficult choice for me, because I care about your well-being. I don’t want you to be made fun of, but I don’t want to be irresponsible either. So maybe I have a solution that will solve both problems…”

This should get their attention. You’ve done two things: you’ve shown that you listened to them and empathize their situation. Even better, you’re demonstrating a willingness to compromise a little on their behalf. Hopefully they’ll appreciate you for doing this.

And that’s when you give them a choice—the choice of learning how to become screen-wise before they get a phone, or waiting until they turn 13 or 14 as originally planned.

Sure, they might not like either option, but the first option is better than the second. So they’ll probably ask you immediately, “What do you mean ‘learning to become screen-wise.’ How?”

I like to compare this to learning to drive. Most parents don’t throw their kids the car keys at age 12. And they certainly don’t let them drive until they spend time learning how to maneuver a car safely. Typically, parents wait until their kids are at least 15-and-a-half, then the kids read a driving safety manual, take a written test and finally a behind the wheel test. Then when they actually get their license, they will have restrictions the first few years about when they can drive, who they can have in the car with them, etc.

A phone is very similar.

So give your kid the choice. “If you want a phone, you first need to learn how to become screen-wise.”

Offer to read a book with them about becoming screen-wise, like the upcoming book my daughter and I just wrote together about Face-to-Face Connections in a Screen-to-Screen World, or my original social media guide about wise posting in an insecure world. Both of these resources provide discussion questions at the end of each chapter so you can engage them in meaningful conversation. They can do this at their own pace, however fast or slow they want, but just require discussing each chapter with them so you can talk about the important issues addressed in the books, issues like what they’re posting, who they’re friending, recognizing predatory behaviors, and the impact social media tends to have on self-esteem. 

But some parents really want their kids to have some kind of phone for safety. If this is the case, then I recommend you…

3. Consider the non-smartphone
Let’s back up for a minute. What is the problem with handing your 11-year-old child a smartphone?

I see several concerns. The first being social media. After years of debate, most experts agree that we are currently experiencing a mental health crisis (even before COVID), and too much social media is linked to many of these mental health issues—especially with our daughters.

Another concern is handing a child a device with such easy access to pornography only a click away, especially when 79% of teens bring their phone into their bedroom with them every night.

So what if we could hand our tweens a cool looking phone that doesn’t have access to the internet or social media, not a lame looking flip phone that looks like it somehow survived 2003?

Jonathan McKee is the author of over twenty books including the brand new The Guy’s Guide to FOUR BATTLES Every Young Man Must Face; The Teen’s Guide to Social Media & Mobile Devices; If I Had a Parenting Do Over; and the Amazon Best Seller – The Guy’s Guide to God, Girls and the Phone in Your Pocket. He speaks to parents and leaders worldwide, all while providing free resources for parents on his website TheSource4Parents.com. Jonathan, his wife Lori, and their three kids live in California.

For example, Gabb wireless recently introduced a really cool phone that’s just $99, and then just $20 a month for service (in fact if you use the promo code SCREENWISE you’ll get $10 off the phone). It looks like a smartphone, but it doesn’t download traditional apps or have internet access. It just has a phone, text messaging, a camera, and a few other safe options.

The Gabb phone is a great “no-tease” option for the tween before they get the full-blown smartphone.

Or, if you really want to drop $600 to 1,000 on an iPhone, then you can, but I recommend lobotomizing it. Literally block everything, and then just allow a few things like texting, a few safe apps. Then as they get older you can slowly introduce more apps, because only Mom and Dad have the password.

It’s natural for your young kids to want a smartphone. All their friends have one, and many of the role models kids idolize today are on social media (in fact, 9 out of 10 teenagers today actually want to be a social media influencer). Phones are almost an extension of kid’s identity today (which has hurt the self-esteem of this generation big time).

This doesn’t mean we should just hand them one…. far from it. But we should empathize their situation, open up doors of dialogue about becoming screen-wise, and consider some safe options to give them a phone that doesn’t put their safety at risk.

Are you engaging your kids in these kinds of conversations?