I gave my child a smartphone too early. What do I do?

I really resonate with this question, and I think most parents do, because navigating technology and decisions to make in regards to our kids is such a huge question. If you have reached the conclusion though that the smartphone is not serving your child well, then I think you have two paths forward. You could either downgrade to a basic phone that allows for talking and texting, but presumably will not have Internet apps or social media. There are many newer companies that have emerged with these types of options and some that specifically have kids and their developmental readiness in mind. Or the second path would be to remove the phone altogether. With either path you choose, the challenge of course will be how do you remove it well? How do you communicate well with your child? And how do you support your child through the transition, assuming that the child will not find this a welcome change?

So we will consider how to do that. But this parent who's asking sounds sure that they gave the smartphone too early. So I just want to first validate that conclusion and encourage you to act decisively. Again, assuming this is not going to be a change that the kid asks for, then carrying out the decision will be a hard thing to do, and you might encounter pushback, resistance, or anger from your child, which will be hard on you as the parent and hard for them. The past couple of years, there has been a lot of helpful conversation and literature and a lot of data that has come out on the impacts of smartphones on kids. And what it shows is that there are real consequences and serious considerations to make on the question of what age to entrust a smartphone to a child. And as parents, we might not have been aware of those risks and concerns at the time we gave a smartphone to a child, but if you're seeing the harmful impacts now or have learned more since, then I want parents to hear that it is okay to change your mind. It is okay to make a different choice now. Sometimes parents might feel like, ugh, that ship has sailed. It's too late. But I don't think that has to be the case, and instead, I want parents to feel ready and confident to make a different decision. You can reroute the ship. The opportunity to reroute has not passed. Pretty much all of parenting is learning and redirecting and rerouting. It's on-the-job training for us. So I just want to normalize that along with our God-given responsibility as parents to train, disciple, shepherd, and protect our kids on paths of wisdom. And the question of smartphones and when to give one and what to have access to, those are all matters of wisdom. So how do we act wisely on our child's behalf for their good and for their flourishing? And I do think wisdom must include the options of taking back the smartphone or downgrading it.

So how can you do that well? Prepare to have conversations with your child. Come to these humbly and take ownership for the decision you made that you have had to reconsider. You can offer your child your rationale. Offer observations, what you're seeing in your child and the habits that are of concern to you. Observations about how the phone has impacted them, their schoolwork, or their sleep, what concerns you have about what they are or have been exposed to. So offer these observations as part of the conversation. Then engage your child with any age-appropriate information or data that you think could be helpful to them so that they can understand your decision. Perhaps you read together an article on this subject and discuss it together. Help them see you are not being arbitrary, but wrestling with what is best for them in light of such things. Help them understand that to pursue wisdom, we have to keep wrestling with what we come to know. This is just a solid opportunity to model to your kids that part of growing in wisdom is taking new information into account and adjusting to it and changing our behaviors. This is what we constantly must do in life and in our Christian walk as we seek to live faithfully and honorably in a world that has many snares and temptations.

What else? In these conversations, offer reassurances of your love and commitment to doing what is best for them and that protects them. We of course have the authority to act on their behalf. And it's also true we care about how they feel and want to be sensitive and know them in their experience. So also in these conversations you can acknowledge their experience and that it will be hard for them to lose their phone. You can acknowledge smartphones are wildly amazing in what they can do. They're fun, they're engaging, they offer connection points with others, and we can acknowledge honestly that there are losses that will come with this decision. You can commit to walking with them through the hardness of that loss, if there are ways you can help mitigate some of the losses. For example, if they're worried they're going to miss out on communication with friends, how can you help procure connection points? This might mean opening up your home more often to having their friends over or being available more often to drive to outings for your child and their friends. As time goes on, continue to check in with them, how they're processing the change, what has been hard, what has been good.

Changing course won't be easy, but it is doable. And I trust you will find that it will be worth it. When we act with love and wisdom and reckon well with our missteps, we provide our kids a vivid example of growing in grace and truth.