Not Yet! How to Set Your Kids Up for Smartphone Success
This is PART 2 of our parents guide to smart phones. This week I’m sharing the essential groundwork every parent should lay before handing over a smartphone. The conversations and the rules needed.
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This is Part 2 of a special series for parents navigating the tricky terrain of smartphones, social media, and digital life with 8–15-year-olds.
You’ll get a new instalment each week—practical, research-backed, and written by a fellow parent who's in the thick of it too. Expect checklists, templates, conversation scripts, and real-world strategies to help you protect your child without losing connection or your sanity.
Paid subscribers will get bonus downloads and private Q&As. Free subscribers get all the core posts in the series.
Let’s do this together.
You will also find downloadable tools to accompany this series here.
Before They Get a Phone — How to Set Your Kids Up for Smartphone Success
This week, we’re talking about the part no one really talks about.
What to do before they get a phone.
The truth is, by the time your child is asking for a smartphone, the battle has already started. And whether we like it or not, those days come around much faster than you think.
You might hope you can kick the can down the road—tell yourself you’ll deal with it when they’re 13 or 14. But the reality is, by age 11, 91% of kids in the UK already own a smartphone. Some children in primary school are walking around with the latest iPhone and full social media access.
Even if you plan to delay, you won’t be able to avoid the influence of other parents who don’t. Their decisions become your problem. Because the more kids in your child’s class who have access to this tech, the more pressure you’ll feel. And the more likely your child will get left out, or worse, stumble into something they’re not ready for.
That’s why this moment - the before phase - is so important.
This is your golden window.
You will also find downloadable tools to accompany this series here.
Why This is Your Golden Window
The research is clear: early exposure to smartphones, unfiltered internet, and social media can have serious impacts on kids’ development.
But here’s the part parents often miss:
The way you shape tech habits before they own a phone will massively influence how they use it when they do.
Think of this stage as your child’s “training ground”:
You can normalise screen-free family time.
You can teach them to self-regulate.
You can encourage them to be bored (a lost skill in the age of dopamine hits).
You can agree house rules now, before it becomes a daily argument.
This is not about banning technology.
It’s about teaching them how to live alongside it — without being owned by it.
One parent told me recently: "We didn’t give our son a phone until he walked home from school alone. Until then, it wasn’t a need — just a want."
How to Delay — And Why It’s Worth It
The first thing to say here is: you don’t need to rush.
Your 8-, 9-, even 10-year-old doesn’t need a smartphone.
Yes, some of their friends might have one. But that’s not a good reason to hand them a device that gives them unfettered access to the entire internet.
Instead, you can:
Have honest conversations early — explain why you’re holding off
Talk to other parents — create a little alliance to delay together
Give access without ownership — shared family devices, used in communal spaces
Here’s a simple script you can use when your child says, "Everyone else has one!":
"I understand it feels like everyone else has one, but every family makes their own choices. In our family, we believe a phone is something you earn when you’re ready to handle it responsibly—not just because other kids have one."
In our house, our 11-year-old only recently got a very old smartphone. It barely qualifies as a smartphone. She has WhatsApp to keep in touch with friends and a digital bus pass app. That’s it. No browser. No Snapchat. No TikTok.
And even that came with clear boundaries and time limits.
It’s not about total restriction — it’s about controlled, gradual exposure.
Just like you wouldn’t hand them car keys without lessons, you don’t need to hand them the entire digital world before they’re ready.
Common Parenting Traps to Watch Out For
1. Handing down your old phone without controls
It’s so easy to pass on an old device, but unless you lock it down properly, you’re effectively giving them unfiltered internet access.
2. Giving in to peer pressure because "everyone else has one"
This leads to reactive parenting instead of intentional decisions.
3. Not talking to other parents
You’re not alone in trying to delay—many parents feel the same but no one wants to be the strict one.
4. Not modelling good behaviour
If you’re scrolling at dinner or taking your phone to bed, it’s hard to expect them to behave differently.
Building Your Family Tech Values Early
Before the phone arrives, this is the time to set your house norms and live them out.
What are your values around technology?
This is worth sitting down with your partner and actually writing down.
For us, a few key rules emerged early on:
No devices at family meals — for adults or kids
No technology in bedrooms
Limited, agreed daily screen time (we set ours at around an hour and a quarter per day, a bit more at weekends)
Screens put away when time is up — no debate
It sounds simple. But it’s not easy.
There’s moaning. Negotiation. Pushback.
But we’ve learned: when the time is up, they will quickly find something else to do.
And we model this ourselves — I don’t take my phone into the bedroom. We all charge devices downstairs at night.
(Except my wife keeps hers in the bedroom… in case I have a heart attack, apparently.)
What are the Training Wheel Options?
If you’re thinking about how to give your child independence without handing them the whole digital world, here are some middle-ground options:
Dumb Phones:
There are plenty of basic phones (like Nokia brick phones) that allow calls and texts only. Some brands, like Gabb, have phones designed specifically for kids with no internet or social media access.
Smart Watches:
Useful for location tracking and messaging, but worth checking your child’s school policy — many ban smartwatches.
Locked-Down Smartphones:
You can buy a standard smartphone and use built-in parental controls (Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link) to lock it down:
No browser
Limited apps
Screen time restrictions
Location tracking enabled
Shared Family Devices:
Instead of giving them their own iPad or laptop, have a family device in a communal space. When it’s shared, it feels less like “ownership” and is easier to supervise.
The Phone Readiness Ladder
The key principle is this: access, but not ownership.
You’re slowly teaching them how to use tech responsibly before they have full control.
Play the Long Game
This stage isn’t about total control.
It’s about building trust, resilience, and maturity — little by little.
There will be arguments.
There will be moaning.
But this is your window to shape the relationship your child will have with technology for years to come.
What you model now — how you talk about tech, how you use your own phone, how you hold the line on screen limits — will shape the habits they carry into adolescence.
The phone is coming.
But you can start laying the foundation now, on your terms.
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Family Tech Guides: Downloadable Tools and Templates
As I’ve been researching, writing, and wrestling with the world of smartphones and social media alongside my own kids, one thing has become clear: parents need practical tools as much as thoughtful advice. So I’m pulling together everything I’ve created — worksheets, checklists, contracts, conversation starters — into one place for paid subscribers. This post will grow over the next few weeks as I finish each guide.
The Series
✅ Part 1: Why This Feels So Hard — and How to Start Getting it Right (Free)
✅ Part 2: Before They Get a Phone — How to Lay the Groundwork for Tech Maturity (This post)
🔒 Part 3: First Phone Rules — Contracts, Controls, and Building Trust
🔒 Part 4: Social Media — When to Allow It and How to Guide Their Use
🔒 Part 5: When Things Go Wrong — Handling Mistakes, Meltdowns, and Misuse
🔒 Part 6: The Big Picture — Grace, Growth, and the Long Game of Digital Parenting
Very good advice. My wife and I are lucky because we homeschool so... no need for phones. Our kids are 12,10, and 8. They have tablets with kids messenger app but that really hasn't kicked off. We allow them regulated free screens but never in their rooms and never before bed. I've been following the Jonathan Haid "After Babel" work here on Substack and that's great.
I'm also seeing my friends dealing with this, like you, and they're all of a similar mind to you. It's just not worth it at this age. Let them be kids.