Are Children Getting Younger When They Get Their First Smart Phone?

When I shared my story of how I felt my smart phone was becoming far too dominating in my life because of what my seven year old twin daughter said to my wife about my phone usage, it obviously woke me up to the fact that I was addicted to my phone. As such I decided to do something about it and now I find it very easy to #putyourphoneaway when I’m around my children and I absolutely refuse to allow it to impact upon my time with them.

Strangely though it has actually created a slightly different obsession. People watching and if they are on smart phones, and in particular children. I would like to think it’s only my imagination, but it seems to me that children are getting younger and younger when it comes to having a smart phones. It really is not that unusual now to see eight or nine year olds using smart phones, which is totally mad to me.

I asked my seven year old twin girls the other day if anybody in their class had mobile phones and apparently some children do, not many I might add but some. This leads me to believe that by the time the girls enter juniors in September an even larger proportion of children aged just eight years old will have smart phones, which they will most likely have been given through the summer holidays.

My question is why?

Where is the need for children to have a smart phone and as parents are we doing our children an injustice giving them a phone because peer pressure is so great nowadays that we feel we should?

Do some parents just rollover and say yes you can have a smart phone to shut them up and think well it’s the perfect babysitter while they do something so much more important such as go on their phone? You make think it’s a strange thought that but there is a lot of truth in it. Parents nowadays in my opinion are interacting less and less with their children, and by that I mean they are talking less and less by just chatting or going to the park and god forbid just having fun!

What’s the fun in having children glued to a screen and turning ultimately into screen zombies and who will also lose the ability to communicate in “I know” a very old fashioned way by chatting face to face around a table as a family at say tea-time. Yes this will feel like a revolutionary way to parent for some of us, but it’s been tried and tested for many years and teaches our children to be sociable, and will without doubt improve development as they grow up.

I for one am all about embracing technology especially for my twin girls because it is without question going to play an important part in their lives as they head to adulthood, but as parents should we not be the role models that teach our children core values of life that are not technology related such as enjoying the simpler pleasures of life by getting outdoors and communicating with friends without a smart phone involved. If we’re not careful we will have a generation of children that have no interpersonal skills and will be more concerned about how many likes they have and will live out their lives in a fake world that is in truth only a small snippet of anybody’s life with very little reality or reflection on real life. We as parents are our children’s major role models so we need to teach the real values of life to them such as talking and communication with our fellow human beings and teach them respect for others. These values will not be taught online. It’s our responsibility as parents to raise well rounded children that can respect everything around them which of course includes technology, but teach them to know when to put technology to one side and just enjoy life.

I’m in no rush to give my seven year old twin girls a smart phone and I will hold out for as long as I can, but sadly because more and more parents give their children smart phones at younger ages it will become more difficult to keep saying no, but that won’t stop me. Why would any child need a phone before high school? Our twins don’t because they are with us all the time other than when they are in school or a friends party or at an after school club so why would they need a phone?

I can’t think of one reason why? other than maybe parents are being lazy and using it as a babysitter for kids to turn into screen zombies because they can’t be bothered to talk to them about their day. Why give them a phone to use every app ever invented and end up becoming addicted to social media.

When I walk to school with the girls It staggers me how many year 4, 5 and 6 children are on their phones. The other day I saw a 4/5 year old child on a phone which was obviously his mum’s in a pushchair scrolling through her apps. My immediate thought was what possible inappropriate app are they looking that? Surely parents should be more aware of the dangers of doing this and letting kids access material that is not suitable for children. She was taking no notice of what he was doing and he could have easily been watching all sorts on YouTube or Instagram. Also just last week we were in town shopping and I was waiting for my wife with my twin girls while she tried some clothes on, and I spotted in front of me about four 9 or 10 year old girls posing in the mirrors with that typical Instagram pose, pouting lips etc and I thought I hope my twin girls don’t do that, there was something very sad about it.

For me the way things are going we will have children walking into nursery holding a smart phone and checking out their emails or talking to their friends. You may laugh and think this will never happen, but kids are getting younger and younger. When they have a smart phone, peer pressure is a very strong persuasion which as parents we must resist.

We as parents need to set out the parameters of what is acceptable use of a smart phone to our children by how we use our phones. If they see us scrolling through social media constantly, to them as they grow older that will be normal behaviour and the generation after them will be even more addicted. It is now when we need to make changes before the use of the smart phone becomes a runaway problem that we won’t be able to stop!

#putyourphonesaway

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.