By Amy Byrnes
As elementary school children across the Two River area head back into the classroom this September, many will be sporting backpacks filled with binders, pencil cases and – for an increasing number of students – smartphones.
And it’s not just happening here in New Jersey; it’s a national trend. According to a 2016 report, the average age for getting a smartphone is 10.3 years and 39 percent of kids get their first social media account at 11.4 years old.
While local school districts adjust to this technological shift, a growing number of parents are just saying “No” to giving their children smartphones until they are in eighth grade.
“It’s a freight train moving down the tracks, and it’s really hard to hit the brakes,” said Chrissy Marcoullier, Rumson parent of two boys who’s committed to waiting as long as she can before buying them smartphones.
Little Silver mom Pam Perskie, who spearheaded the Wait Until 8th movement in her town, agreed. “There’s so much pressure to get them a phone and then you feel like you have to, even though you feel it’s not right for your family,” she said.
Both women have rallied parents in their community to consider holding off giving their kids smartphones until eighth grade and many are signing pledges to commit to the delay.
For Perskie, whose two daughters are entering sixth and third grades, the idea bloomed two years ago from conversations with many of the moms of her older daughter’s friends, who were concerned about the effects of smartphones and social media on their daughters. “We said, ‘Why don’t we just not do it?’ and the girls will be supported because they won’t be alone,” she said. “If their best friends don’t have it, then maybe it will be easier.”
They stumbled across the Wait Until 8th movement, which was started by a group of moms in Austin, Texas in 2017 who were concerned about the mounting pressure to give their young children smartphones. “It was exactly what we’d been talking about,” said Perskie. Wait Until 8th targets smartphones in particular and has had close to 20,000 families sign the pledge as of March, according to its website.
Perskie decided to create a closed Facebook group and invited a few friends who’d been talking about it to join, who in turn invited a few other moms, and in short time they had well over 200 members. As of last February, about 70 families had signed the pledge and 260 Facebook members, said Perskie.
In the meantime, Marcoullier, whose sons are now entering fourth and sixth grades, was struggling with the proliferation of smartphones among her older son’s group of friends when a friend told her about Perskie’s efforts with Wait Until 8th. Marcoullier began talking to other Rumson parents and organized a gathering through word of mouth and said she got a great turnout. “I think a lot of people are thinking the same way, that these phones are taking over our kids’ childhoods, and it’s a force that can’t be stopped.”
Unlike Perskie, Marcoullier’s core group of mom friends were not as committed to delaying giving their kids smartphones. Now, most of her oldest son’s friends have phones – which creates its own challenges, like her son getting left out of things because he’s not in group chats. In fact, this summer he got a “dumb” phone (a mobile phone with little-to-no computing or internet capacity) before he left for camp. “I came around to the fact that sometimes he would need to be able to get in touch with me or a few of his friends,” she explained.
Perskie said the catalyst was never about convincing other parents not to give their kids smartphones or to judge those who did, but to support those who wanted to wait and give them the network and resources to make it a little bit easier to resist their kids’ pleas for a smartphone.
Marcoullier said her efforts have been less focused on getting fellow Rumson parents to sign the pledge and instead, asking them to commit to holding off buying their younger children smartphones a little bit longer. “We’re still trying to figure out what this movement looks like.”
The Rumson School District has been supportive of Marcoullier’s efforts and in May hosted a panel discussion for parents that addressed concerns about the proliferation of smartphones and how it’s impacting the social, emotional and physiological development of young children.
According to John Bormann, Ed.D., the Rumson School District’s superintendent, the district had already organized evenings that it calls “Parent Academies,” to address issues like how to monitor kids’ phones and the danger of certain apps. But last spring’s parent academy – which Marcoullier said was “standing room only” – was geared toward parents who had yet to give their younger children smartphones “to provide information to parents so they can make informed decisions for themselves,” said Bormann.
One of the panelists was Pauline Nelson, Psy.D. a clinical psychologist who works with mostly school-aged kids in her Red Bank practice. She said she shared with parents that one of the most troubling aspects of younger children using smartphones was that they are designed to be addictive, and she likened it to sugar in your diet.
“It’s OK to have dessert sometimes,” she said. “It becomes a problem when you have dessert 20 times aday.”
As for her own 9-year-old daughter, who is already asking for a phone, Nelson said she won’t even consider having the conversation with her until middle school and then, it will depend of her “maturation, behavior, emotional state and functioning.” When the time comes, Nelson said she would make sure to set good boundaries from the star t and make her expectations clear to her daughter.
Little Silver School District Superintendent Carolyn Kossack, Ed.D. said she sees younger and younger students coming to school with smartphones and even a second grader with an Apple Watch that rang during class.
In the past, Little Silver has held programs for parents to keep them up to date on technology, including one that featured someone from the prosecutor’s office sharing internet dangers. The district has a number of systems in place to monitor the sites they visit on their school-issued Chromebooks, but it remains a slippery slope from an educational standpoint.
“We’re not trying to have a total lockdown on what kids can access because this is their world and they need to learn how to appropriately navigate the World Wide Web in a safe way.
“But because they’re children, we have to make sure we’re providing the appropriate parameters,” she said.
As for Marcoullier, she admits that she’s still trying to figure it all out and that she just hopes to keep the dialogue open among other parents and the school district. “You just hope that people make good decisions for the wellness of their kids,” she said.
Thinking about giving your child a smartphone?
Is your fourth grader begging for an iPhone? While it may be tempting to succumb so you can be better connected, it’s a lot of responsibility – for both of you.
Pauline Nelson, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist in Red Bank, compares it to giving your teenager the keys to the car before learning the rules of the road. She sees many parents in her office who are backpedaling after just handing their children smartphones without giving clear expectations about when, where and how it would be used.
If you are considering giving your child a smartphone this school year, here are Nelson’s suggestions to lessen surprises down the road:
Give clear expectations: Everybody needs rules, especially adolescents whose brains are still developing and might find it difficult at times separating themselves from their phones. Parents need to make clear how they expect their children to use their smartphones.
Consider having them sign a contract: Some families benefit from having kids sign a pledge prior to getting smartphones, said Nelson. The website Connect Safely has a contract itemizing everything from promising not to use apps that share locations to respecting others’ privacy with online posts.
Educate them about the potential dangers: Nelson believes that parents aren’t the only ones who should know all about the pitfalls of smartphones. “Parents can’t just be the bad cops trying to take away the social media apps and smartphones,” she said. “I think the kids need to be educated consumers and they have a right to know that they are being manipulated by technology.”
Practice what you preach: In the end, it’s up to parents to model good smartphone behavior, said Nelson. “If you’re saying ‘no phones at the dinner table,’ you just can’t sit there on the phone at the dinner table.”
If you would prefer delaying all of this until well into middle school, you can learn more about the Wait Until 8th program by visiting waituntil8th.org.
