Recently with a group of 18-30 year olds we had the opportunity to share our family's mobile phone contract for their feedback and critique. Honestly I expected their feedback to highly critical that it was overbearing, outdated, and unnecessary. This was written 10 years ago and it's in need of an update. On the contrary I was surprised at how positively they responded. Overwhelmingly positive. "This is excellent!" and "I wish I had this before I got my first phone." Now as adults, they seemed to grok the value of this guidance better than ever. Occasionally we underestimate the importance of our role as parents and technologists in transitioning children into phone ownership — and all of the goodness and malice that comes with this — erring on their right to choose over our responsibility to gently, carefully, and intentionally set them up for greater success. We may underestimate how much they actually need and want our guidance despite what they say otherwise. Here are 10 principles from our contract summarized. Our 5th son will be the next and last in our family to sign this contract when he turns 14 in a few years. And hopefully we've updated it by then!
If it's a smartphone, you already lost the battle. BTW, how do you enforce points 4 and 6? Because you know, paper bears anything, but enforcing what's written is another story. So? :)
I LOVE this Cameron. We’re just getting into teenage land so I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic. So far just my oldest (13) has a phone with parental controls (Troomi). But my daughter is chomping at the bit for a phone as nearly all her friends have a phone of some kind. I’m curious to get your take on a couple questions: 1. You mentioned wanting to update the contract. What would you update or add? 2. When your kids signed this contract, did they get a full unrestricted smartphone? Or was there an intermediate step with a phone with parental controls? (Gabb, Troomi, Bark, etc). I’ve been going back and forth constantly between the desire to train responsible phone use and the desire to not give them too much too soon. Curious on your reflections on the topic. Thanks so much for sharing!
I love the assertions here, but my concern is that there are only a few that aren't anything more than value statements. 1, 5, 6, and 8 work ok. How do you know when they have "breached"? I think this is how we end up with the whole family having phones out at important events - we all may agree on these things conceptually, but behavior is a different story.
I know I've talked to you about this before, but I bring your phone contract up a whole lot. It was very prescient!
With the exception of the first point, adults should use these same guidelines.
#5, #9 and #10 are rules that many adults I know need to embrace.
I used this with all my kids! It provided us with some great conversations and helped them. Of course we had a couple of challenges with it, but you did such a great job putting this together! I’ve repeatedly recommended it to friends over the years. And still will!
There's a lot of call for the banning phones for children under 16. Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle. They're going to have a smart phone at some point in their lives. They are far more likely to abide by the rules and view the phone as a privilege that can be withdrawn when younger than at 16. At least start them off on the right track. I believe this approach (similar to the one we've taken with our 11 year old) is the right one. 👍
That is great micro-social contract. I loved it. A suggestion: I would change the principle 4 into a less idealistic and more realistic one: You should always remember that technology has control over you in some aspects, so it's important to be aware and able to take back control when needed. I'm not a native English speaker and I'm sure it can be phrased a lot better. 🙏
What are those immediate items you know you are going to be updating, Cameron Moll? Also interested in how you counted infractions and followed up about compliance as Jerzy asked earlier.