When Should Your Child First Get a Smartphone?

“But Mom, everyone else has one!”

If you’ve heard that line before as a parent, odds are good you aren’t constantly spoiling your child. In an age of instant gratification, fewer children are learning first-hand the adage that “good things come to those who wait,” especially when it comes to the age children are getting their first smartphone.

According to the research firm Influence Central, the average child receives a cell phone at 10.3 years old, down from 12 in 2012. For Brooke Shannon, an Austin, Texas, resident and mother of three daughters, that’s too soon. That’s why she launched the website WaitUntil8th.org, which has grown to a network of over 2,000 families in only half a year.

“There are a lot of families out there that wanted to wait but felt isolated because everyone else was doing it,” Shannon said in an interview with USA Today.

Overall, Shannon said that the goal of her campaign is not to criticize those who give their child a cell phone earlier than 8th grade; rather, she simply wants to provide support and a network of accountability for those who choose to make a noble, yet unpopular decision in this age of technology.

“Kids can wait on this,” Shannon said. “They have their whole life ahead of them to use this technology responsibly.”

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