Our daughter is 11 and most of her friends have iPhones. We've held out but she's starting to get left out of group chats and stuff. What's the right age? What did you do? We're thinking about getting her a used iPhone 12 with pretty strict rules but wondering if we're crazy or just being reasonable parents.
We went with 12 for our oldest and honestly it felt like the right window. The group chat thing is real though - maybe there's a middle ground like a basic phone first?
We navigated this with all three of ours and it never feels like there's a perfect answer. Every kid is different but waiting until 12 or 13 gave us time to talk about responsibility first.
This is the exact conversation happening in our house right now. We've built in some guardrails with screen time and what apps are allowed, but yeah the social pressure is real at that age.
We gave our oldest a basic phone at 12, not a smartphone. Just for calling and texting. Waited until 14 for the iPhone. The peer pressure is real though - I feel you on this one.
What helped us was setting it up with limits first - screen time caps, app restrictions, all that. Made the conversation less about 'no' and more about 'here's how we'll do this safely.' Might ease your mind a little?
11 is tough. My daughter's 10 and we're already getting the same pushback. I think the key is having a plan for what she actually needs it for - is it safety, social connection, or just keeping up? That helped us have the conversation without it being a total power struggle.
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Honestly just rip the band-aid off at some point. My son's 12 now and has one, and yeah it sucks sometimes but the alternative is him being the only kid without one and that creates its own problems.