I am against giving phones as gifts because a gift signifies ownership. It has been made clear in our household that when he does receive a smartphone, it will be a privilege, not a gift, and the phone will belong to me and his mother, on our plan, paid for by family funds. Before we go further, please understand that my wife has a Juris Doctorate and was a practicing attorney prior to having children. So, my kids are well versed in making sound arguments.

With this in mind, he did come at us with a well thought out argument. He expressed his understanding of certain rules we have shared with him from previous queries, listing would-be imposed limits and other restrictions. He eloquently delivered his argument with style and grace – and then my wife and I used even more eloquence to deny his request with mutual style and grace. Although we have shared our age restriction with him in the past, I suppose he didn’t see any harm in trying. Our agreed upon age for his first phone is 12.

Giving him a bit of credit for his argument, I decided to do a little more research from angles outside of my expertise. I found several articles on the subject. A new report from Influence Central’s 2016 Digital Trends Study titled, “Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today’s Digital Natives”  found the average now for getting a first phone is 10.3 years old.

With what I do for a living, and as a parent, I found information from the report interesting:

• Twenty-seven percent of parents now use online programs to control and filter sites or platforms, compared to 23 percent four years earlier. Parents, I highly recommend doing this. Click here and see the helpful links to learn more on my thoughts on this topic.
• Not enough parents are using smartphones’ GPS to track down their kids, but parents are catching on – the number increased to 15 percent in 2016, compared to only 7 in 2012.
• Fifty percent of kids have social media accounts by age 12 and 11 percent got a social media account when they were younger than 10. If I’m not ready to let my son have a smartphone at 10, I’m sure not ready for him to dive into social media.

I understand it’s beneficial for some parents to allow access to a mobile phone at a younger age than others – if the phone is limited. In our situation, we really don’t need our boys to have phones. My wife homeschools our kids, we live out in the country and use two-way radios on property. We don’t drop them off at places such as malls or theme parks on their own. Sure, those days will come, but not just yet. Families will differ greatly. Both parents may work, the kids may ride the bus home after school, etc.

Allowing a young child to have full use of a smartphone can lead to trouble. I am a little leery about 12 years old, so I would definitely not recommend it for a child under that age without heavy restrictions. Free apps that can be easily downloaded can allow the child to meet total strangers online. A child that young simply doesn’t have the maturity level to deal with the types of situations they are likely to encounter.

If you do find yourself in a situation where your younger child having a cell phone would bring peace of mind and make your life easier, go basic. Get the cheapest, most basic phone offered, do not allow data usage, and limit the phones ability to call other phone numbers. Once you have the phone, you can log onto your providers website (Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) and set restrictions on the phone. And, yes, you can limit the phone’s ability to only be able to call you and your spouse’s numbers, grandparents, neighbors, etc.

For my wife and I, we have the luxury of waiting until we are reasonably sure he is mature enough to handle the responsibility. But, if we did have a need for him to have a phone now, it would be very limited.

Rest assured, once that day comes, I will be monitoring his activity closely.

Related links

• To Spy Or Not To Spy?
• Want to protect your kids from online predators? Be a snoop.
• 7 dangerous Apps that parents need to know
• 7 things that make an App dangerous
• Uncovering the risks of cell phones

The summer is coming to an end and so is our time blogging about reducing our household media time. To finish up the series, I thought I would interview the kids and ask them what they thought about our summer experiment. The answers are very real and brutally honest. .

What was the best part of our screen free experiment this summer?

Max, age 11.5 years – “Hanging out with my friends at the pool more.”

Morgan, age 10 years – “In Michigan, it was like fun because we weren’t always on the screen and stuff, and we had more things to do with the world.”

Matthew, age 6 years – “Nothing at all.”

What was the worst part of being screen free?

Maxwell – “I couldn’t catch up on all the things I was missing on my games and less time playing with my friends (online).”

Morgan – “When I wanted the electronics because there was literally nothing to do, you wouldn’t let me have them, and that really annoyed me.”

Matthew – “I couldn’t play with anybody (online).”

What can we learn from our screen free summer?

Maxwell – “I learned that I play with my friends more online than I do in real life during the summer, not during the school year, but during the summer.”

Morgan – “Video games aren’t the answer to happiness.There are other things you can do besides electronics.”

Matt – “It (the computer) will make you mad if you watch it too long.”

Would you do this screen free experiment again?

Maxwell  - “No.”

Morgan - “I don’t know, maybe, if we go to Michigan, or a different state.”

Matthew – “Um, no.”

What should our family work on next?

Maxwell – “Playing more sports. That would be so much easier.”

Morgan – “Manners. Our family should work on being nicer to each other (siblings fighting). Being more serious about the screen free thing because we still played it a lot.”

Matthew – “Clean the house.”

The answers made me pause and think that while we actually had some pretty great screen free moments this summer, we still have some work to do (and we need to clean the house).

I am so incredibly grateful to Dr. Mangham and to Cook Children’s for this unusual summer experiment! Although we were not “screen free” and did not manage to “go dark” very often, being asked to write about our efforts really opened my eyes to just how much time we do spend on the screen, how much we depend on it and just how capable we are of living without it. We are a family that is “off” more than we are “on” now, and will continue to strive to use it less and less every day.

Thanks so much everyone!

Previous media free stories:

• 'TV head' - Could you unplug?
• Going media free - part 1
• Breaking it to the crew - part 2
• 'Operation Unplug' - part 3
• We far from nailed it - part 4
• Screen free for 20 days - part 5

About the author

Aubrey Conklin, moved to Texas from Michigan via Chicago almost 10 years ago. She’s been married for 14 years and is the  mom to three kids ages 11,10 and 6. A huge sports fan who not only loves all things Detroit sports but spends her own free time playing soccer, volleyball and softball. Aubrey is a part time preschool teacher as well, a volunteer for her kid's school.