Ep 24: Before You Hand Your Child a Cell Phone or Open a Social Media Account
The latest studies reveal that the average age for a child to get his first smartphone is 10.3 years old. And by the time children are 11 ½ years old, almost 40% of them will have a social media account. Listen, mom…Before you hand your child a smartphone or allow him access to social media you must have a conversation with that child, many conversations, actually. Today, I’m giving you Part One of a list of talking points to get that ball rolling.
In this episode, I’m going to talk about
- Rules for Phone Usage
In EP25, I’m going to talk about
- Guidelines for content and behavior in texting and posting
- Rules about sending and posting pictures
- Guidelines specifically for social media
- And finally, a discussion about your child’s identity
Rules for Phone Usage:
- As a foundation, be sure you tell them
- How much you love them
- Who owns the phone (that would be YOU)
- That someday they will make all their own rules
- Decide time-of-day limits
- Where the phone will charge and what time it needs to be there
- Don’t ignore their calls and texts (especially from you)
- What they can expect with responses from you
- Dinner table rules
- Using the Internet behind closed doors
- How to handle the phone when they are with other people in the same room
- Can they text members of the opposite sex?
- Nothing is private on the Internet
And remember, the goal here is to establish these rules when you first hand them a phone and eventually, give them more and more freedom as they show maturity and responsible behavior.
Links and Such
Download a customizable phone contract
Glennon Doyle’s blog post about privacy on the Internet
KidBridge will allow you to monitor your child’s text on a smartphone remotely
The prayer I prayed is from the book Prayers That Avail Much (affiliate link)
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