When should we give our kids a phone?

This is a question we’ve grappled with for years. When our kids have asked for phones, we just say… “when you’re 16 and have a drivers license”. But what we really mean is… “I don’t know! Stop asking! We’re figuring out how to be a parent as we go!”

If you’re new here, we have twin 13-year-old girls.

Meet Paisley and Della

*This post is sponsored by Pinwheel. All opinions are absolutely our own,. Thank you for supporting the fabulous brands that make Reality Daydream possible.*

They had GREAT reasons for wanting a phone. They wanted to be able to chat with their friends, and reach us when they need a ride, and take pictures of our cute pets and each other. It’s not that we didn’t trust THEM, it’s that we don’t trust other people (who might get their phone number?) and all the apps they would have access to (even very innocent-seeming apps can have some pretty sketchy advertisements on them. Things our kids can never un-see). Not to mention the world wide web.

Why we decided to get them phones NOW

There are several reasons, and we’re at a point where they outweigh the reasons not to. You’ll KNOW when it’s time.

1. I’ve started noticing myself texting my kid’s friends to relay messages to my kids when they’re at an event or need to be picked up from youth group, etc. Seeing the hypocrisy in that is humbling!
2. I remember being 13 and talking to my friends on the phone for hourrrrrs, with the phone cord stretched as far as it would go to get away from my family and have some giggly privacy and independence. Communicating with friends is pivotal at this age! And we’re so lucky that our girls have amazing friends that we know and trust.
3. I normally don’t care at all what other parents choose to do with their kiddos, so when my kids say “but Mommmm, all of my friends have phones.” I just say, THAT’S NICE for them! But I slowly realized that my girls were being left out of a lot of things with their friends because they were missing those conversations.
4. One of my 13-year-olds has ADHD and really struggles with executive functioning, specifically time management, organizing tasks, and remembering details and expectations. If I tell her, “remember to take the dog out at 4:00”, there is a 0% chance she will remember. I knew having a phone with an organizational app with reminder notifications would enhance her life (and mine) dramatically.
5. Both of my kids are creative and love photography. They have an eye for taking artsy photos, and love using editing software to make the images look amazing. Frankly I’m tired of giving up my phone to them to take photos! 😉 But I do want to encourage this creative outlet for them.

Should we get SMARTPHONES for our teenagers?

For us, this was a hard no… simply because of the access to the internet. At least for now, at age 13. But our kids had already told us that they would “rather have no phone than a flip-phone”. LOL! Well ok then! That simply made our decision easier for many years.

But now, for the reasons above, we began considering phones for our kids and started down the path of researching phones for kids and teens that have safety measures in place to promote a healthy relationship with tech.

We landed on Pinwheel phones, and I’m going to share all the reasons why!

Let me count the ways that I love Pinwheel phones:

1) they have a “graduation path” that allows you to transition them slowly to having more access to things on their phones over time, as they grow and mature. It’s not like going from a Fisher Price phone to *SURPRISE!* access to the world wide web and the entire app store overnight.

2) The parent gets to approve every single contact in their phone, and there’s no limit to contacts. (zero spam or messages from strangers). You can even customize the permissions for each contact. For example, when the time comes that we allow them to have boys’ phone numbers, we will toggle OFF the permissions for photo sharing.

3) GPS is always active, so you can easily see where they are, and where they’ve been.

4) Parents can monitor texts and call history from on app on their phone, if they choose to do so.

5) Pinwheel has a team of people that research apps and create a list of thousands of vetted apps and corresponding in-depth safety ratings. They have done the work for us! And these are real apps that are available on any Apple or Android phone. The apps that we have allowed (for now) on our kids’ phones are: Weather, Lightroom photo editing app, calculator, Blue Letter Bible, Brili Routines (Habit Tracker and Reminder), Flo period tracker, Skylight (our family calendar app), and Bitmoji.

6) No social media, and no web browser.

7) you can create ‘schedules’ where only certain apps or contacts are available to them during certain periods of the day. For example, while they’re at school, you could have their phone in a mode where they can only communicate with you.

8) Pinwheel phones are actual android phones that you can buy phone cases for anywhere. For a teenager, getting a new $10 phone case from time to time is a big deal (especially for girls), and makes them feel like they have a whole new phone! Sometimes it’s the little things in life. Guess who is getting a couple phone cases in their stocking this year! 😉

As parents, it’s our job to help them build healthy habits, and sometimes that can feel so hard! But Pinwheel takes such a burden off our shoulders and gives us so much peace of mind. And our kids are happy too. 😉