(I wrote this post in January of 2023, but I forgot to hit post! So, a throwback from years gone by to start this year of 2025!)
Last Saturday night, my husband and I hosted a dinner party. Not any ordinary dinner party. A dinner party where the topic of conversation was limited to one category: The intersection of parenting and technology.
Nine amazing friends showed up to share their ideas, their worries, and their philosophies. Not everyone knew each other, but name tags and a funny ice breaker about the year of our first texting phone and our first video games got us bonded quickly.
Ultimately, after two and a half hours of deep, thoughtful, and vulnerable conversation, we came away with a few take-aways. Below find the recap.
1) Get a landline!
Our children (all of whom are under 12 at the time of writing this post) will eventually be asking for cell phones. Why? They want to connect to their friends. They want the freedom of being able to talk on the phone, make their own plans, and start to guide their own social calendar. We are all for that, but we also were in consensus that getting a smart phone in elementary school was not going to happen. So the compromise? Get a land line!
Yes, we may have to put up with lots of robo-calls and spammers, but the benefits may outweigh the positives. Our kids will have the freedom to call their friends and receive calls. They will also be able to start practicing speaking with adults who are not close to them. The training I got as a young child to answer our home phone politely and be able to take a message or ask the person to hold was invaluable practice for initiating and responding to contact with strangers politely as an adult.
2) Before play dates and sleepovers, ask about internet, screens, and content expectations in the household. And share your philosophy with those you invite.
I just had a friend who brought her son over for a playdate ask me if I had any guns in our home. At first I was a bit surprised, but after about one second I felt a rush of respect for this friend. It can be an awkward question to ask, but I had not felt offended at all. Instead, I admired her sticking to her values and being brave enough to potentially rock a boat in order to protect her child.
I shared this story at the dinner, and in our conversation, we discovered that we all really thought it was important to know the internet/screen/content policy of the homes where our children spend any time.
Some questions we thought we might ask:
- Does your child have a screen in the bedroom?
- Will they be watching any TV or movies? What are they and what are they rated?
- What other screen time will they have? Will it be supervised?
- Does your child have internet access on any device?
- Would it be ok if while my child was over, they didn’t have any screen time other than one movie?
We also thought it would be awesome if, when making plans for a playdate or a spend the night when we are the hosts, that we would volunteer that information for the parent. For example:
“Thanks for letting Jasmine come over tonight to spend the night. Just so you know, we don’t have any devices in the children’s bedrooms, they will not have access to the internet, we don’t play video games, but I do plan to let them watch the Netflix show “Bad Guys” tonight. Is that ok with you?”
3) Talk to your child about good/bad pictures and strangers.
If your child does have access to the internet (and one day they will!) it’s so important to start talking to him/her about strangers and good/bad pictures. One good rule of thumb that was shared during this dinner: “If you’ve never been face to face with this person, don’t talk to them. If you or your mom and dad has never given them a hug/high five, then don’t talk to them online.”
We worried about helping our children understand the difference between good and bad pictures, but we all agreed that we wanted to have conversations with our children about what to do if they ever saw a picture they felt uncomfortable with.
4) WAIT to give your child a smart phone
We had all read enough literature about the destructive and addictive power of a smart phone that we came to consensus quickly around limiting access to the internet and to particular apps while our children are young. The Wait Till 8th campaign is one that got going a while ago, and we were all on board with the thought behind it!
We agreed that we wanted to be able to contact our children for safety. Technology like the Gizmo watch, the Light Phone, or other devices that they could have on them in an emergency to make a call for help or even to make our lives easier with pick up and drop off would be desirable.
But we wanted to avoid group chats, apps like snap chat, tiktok, instagram, etc.
5) Shoo them outside!
Whenever we host friends, we will try to limit screen time and get the children outside. We all mused about how wonderful our children were when they returned from the screen-free haven of summer camp, and what a difference being outside made in their moods. Whenever possible, we will be screen-free!
6) Model screen free time for your kids.
It’s no secret we’re addicted. But whatever we want our kids to do, we should make sure we model for them, too.
No screens at the dinner table? That means you start now mom and dad! Cause if you do it their whole lives and then tell them they can’t when they’re 16, you don’t have a leg to stand on.
7) Ages 5-12 are the training years. Let’s train them how to do all this stuff now!
Between the ages of 5-12, our children have open ears and are wired to learn how the world works. By the time they turn 12, they think they know it already. 🙂 Let’s use these training years to teach them, explicitly and intentionally, about how to live in this digital world.
I’m so glad we hosted this dinner party, and I’m looking forward to our next one on Behavior in March.
Other Resources We Shared
* Technology Pledge and Digital Bill of Rights from Savvy Cyber Kids
* Wait till 8th’s reasons why we should wait to give our children smart phones until 8th grade.
* https://savvycyberkids.org/families/sck_fr_pgs/
* Social Media guide article from AXIS
Peyten Williams 