How do I delay getting my kid a smartphone? Doctor behind ‘Screenagers’ films offers advice

I’m lucky to be here writing this. If it’s possible to be eye-rolled off the planet, I nearly suffered that fate this week, when I mentioned to my 11-year-old daughter that I was consulting with a doctor/filmmaker for a story on whether my kids spend too much time on screens.

I didn’t really need a doctor to tell me what I already knew. But I wanted some validation for the resistance I’ve been putting up as Kate, now in sixth grade, has begun mounting what is sure to be a sustained pressure campaign for her own smartphone.

I’ve already been down this parenting road with Kate’s now-17-year-old brother. Admittedly, mistakes were made. A global pandemic that cut off Henry’s in-person social ties at a pivotal age helped open the floodgates to unending video-game play and constant digital contact with his peers. Now he knows his way around an iPhone and the internet better than I do, and I know that’s not exactly a good thing.

Kate’s pretty much reached the end of her digital wits with an Apple Watch and a hand-me-down iPad as her middle school friends start to go the phone route.

“It’s not fairrrrrrrr,” she said to me this week when presented with my most recent “let’s just wait” response on the iPhone ask. “Henry didn’t have to wait! I’m responsible!”

It was time to call a professional.

Delaney Ruston is a longtime Seattle-based documentary filmmaker and nationally recognized physician who specializes in mental health and the effects of screen time on young people. She’s released several titles under the “Screenagers” banner, and her latest, “Screenagers: Elementary School Age Edition,” deals with the pressures kids of that age — and their parents and educators — are facing around healthy amounts of screen time.

Ruston, who is an expert in human communication, was quick to first advise me that I should let Kate know that she’s being heard. And that this will be an ongoing conversation.

“Psychology tells us that people want to be heard as much as they want what they think that they want,” Ruston said. “So I would really start over time letting her know that you understand how important this is.”

This is clearly where things get a little tricky in our house. Three people on iPhones way too much of the time are telling a fourth person, “You don’t need one of these.” Obviously age is the key factor at play here with Kate, but the behavior we are modeling — how much time and what we’re doing on phones — is critical to keep in mind.

Ruston refers to this tech time as “tool” or “treat” usage. If Kate sees me sitting on my phone for an extended period of time, it might look like I’m wasting the day away watching videos on Instagram — which I do plenty of. Gosh, they’re addictive! But what if I’m reading the day’s news, watching a video on how to change my car’s headlight, or I’m processing some photos that I took while on a walk? Those are all tool-related functions that my phone is vital for.

Ruston suggests having a conversation with Kate in real time about how I’m using my phone so that Kate can reflect on whether the majority of her time spent on a screen is for treat or tool purposes.

“Most of what young people are doing is they’re consuming. There’s so much unhealthy stuff that our society has poured onto them,” Ruston said. “Our jobs as parents isn’t to make our kids happy, but to make them well rounded and emotionally able to regulate and deal with disappointments, and feel incredibly loved.”

Beyond open communication, Ruston had a few other recommendations for dealing with screen time in our family and managing Kate’s expectations for when she might get a smartphone:

• No screens in the bedroom. My kids both spend plenty of time socializing away from home and outdoors with friends. But they also regularly retreat to their rooms after dinner to their devices. When they were little, I would follow them to read bedtime stories. Now I practically go to bed before they do and I’m often too tired to argue about shutting down screens. “For a family to be healthy, it really is a disservice to have people going for long periods of time into their sanctioned area of screen time,” Ruston said.
• Talk tech. Ruston advises families to have a short, 20-minute weekly meeting in which they talk about the current tech revolution. Keep it fun and start with something positive — how you’re loving a new app, or show, or game. But also get into how this is the biggest issue we have as a society, and how young people, at the forefront of this revolution, can be critical thinkers about how they’re being targeted.
• Keep waiting. Ruston said to consider taking the Wait Until 8th pledge, in which parents rally with other families to delay giving children a smartphone until at least the end of 8th grade. I can only imagine the eye roll from Kate when I show her that website. But Ruston said showing her real data about depression related to social media use by young people can help with the conversation.

It’s important not to take all the blame, as a parent, for the way my kids have gravitated toward these devices and the services on them. Ruston said the lack of regulation on tech companies has been no help to parents.

She said that someday she hopes we can look back on this time, whether it’s unchecked social media or phones in schools, and say, “Wow. What were we thinking?” as a new, better way forward emerges.

“It takes families coming together and having these critical, ongoing conversations with our kids, who will be the leaders of this,” Ruston said.

The “Screenagers” films are available for viewing through events at schools, workplaces and elsewhere. Learn more about how to screen a movie here.