Recently I sat in a talk by Allison Ochs on TikTok, smartphones and the like, and I was pretty surprised. Even though I’ve read so many studies and written about so many smartphone rules, I heard three tips for the very first time. My first lesson of the evening: when it comes to smartphones, there’s always something new for a parent to learn.
Say what you’re doing on your phone.
Kids under 10 in particular use screens almost exclusively for playing. Intuitively they assume that we parents are having fun on our phones the whole time too. It helps them if, every single time we pick up the smartphone, we tell the child out loud what we’re about to do with it:
“I’m opening the weather app to see which shoes to send you in tomorrow.”
“I’m quickly texting Aunt Jojo that we’re running late.”
“I’m checking how the soccer game ended last night.”
Important: save doomscrolling on social media for the moments when no child is around.
Make phone calls again.
Kids learn by watching and copying. Yes, I knew that. What I hadn’t realized: as kids, we listened in on our mothers’ phone calls a lot, and in the process we learned a great deal about life, about how people treat each other, about quick comebacks and so on. If we settle everything by text or voice message, we take away an opportunity for our kids to learn how to communicate with others.
The phone stays the parents’ property. So do the passwords.
This was the tip I had never heard put this way, and the one that made me think the most. After Gen Z grew up as an entire generation with practically no smartphone rules, parents are rowing back, and this tip shows how consistent that can look: until age 18, the phone remains on loan from the parents. It causes far less arguing to confiscate a phone after misuse or a broken rule if it never belonged to the child in the first place.
If it’s up to Ochs, you also reserve the right to have access to all of your child’s passwords. Non-negotiable. Why? For protection, and so we can adequately guide our kids as they navigate the digital world. The internet has become a much darker place than it was 15 years ago. Parents can promise the child to let them know before logging in anywhere. The youth police officers present at the talk made it very clear that parents don’t just have the right to raise their children, they have the duty to.
An astonishing side note from the police: according to classroom surveys, most parents don’t know their kids’ passwords, but 80% of kids know their parents’. What’s more, the current generation will raise their own children much more strictly when it comes to the digital world. Because they know what junk their clueless parents’ laissez-faire washed into their brains, junk they can barely get rid of. And because they know how badly the internet distracted them from learning.
Maybe our kids accuse us of too much strictness today, but with too few rules it is very likely that they will later accuse us of negligence and a lack of love.
The following four tips weren’t new to me, but Ochs put them so concisely that they deserve to be written down once more.
Rules as clear as in soccer.
A few clear rules give better guidance than a constant tug-of-war over the right amount. Kids tend to excuse their excessive smartphone use with good reasons.
Just like soccer players who serve the referee their passionate and outrageous stories to excuse a foul. Even if the referee isn’t perfect, his yellow and red cards are binding and his role in the game is clearly defined.
In the same way, parents have the duty to guide their kids, for example by taking away the smartphone and the school iPad for 24 hours if the child “forgot” to hand in the devices to the parents in the evening.
Rules also let kids say, “I can’t stay on any longer. My parents don’t allow it after 9 p.m.” instead of compulsively cutting into their sleep so they don’t miss anything in the group chat. The goal is:
“Thanks, Mom, you were really annoying. But wow, what would I have gotten up to if you hadn’t given me rules.”
According to the latest research, some of these rules could be:
- No smartphone before age 15.
- Never use the phone as an alarm clock! The virtual world shouldn’t be the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see when you wake up.
- Set a specific time when the whole family puts their phones away.
Relationship while you parent.
If you follow our articles, you already know how we think about relationships. Without relationship, our parenting has no effect, but good relationships don’t grow on trees. We have to invest!
After several years the mother simply couldn’t go on and wanted to give her daughter her own smartphone. The daughter said, totally cool: Oh, she didn’t need that anymore, she had realized that half an hour a day was completely enough to keep up with her digital contacts.
Kids need close guidance. That costs us parents a lot of time and also money. You use Apple’s Screen Time limits and have long known they don’t work as well as other apps? You accept the many loopholes your teenager exploits? On missing rules and missing support, Allison Ochs says drily:
“We would never send our kids alone on the train to Zurich and let them wander around the red-light district there.” (Allison Ochs)
The many developmental rule-breaks of the teen years cost us parents time and imagination to get our child back on the right track, and sometimes an expensive dinner out to show our offspring that we love them just as much in this turbulent time as before.
The time we invest in the relationship is extremely valuable. It creates the foundation of trust that lets a child turn to their parents in tricky situations. And it’s up to the parents, in turn, to keep initiating conversations and, when the moment is right, to ask whether the kids have ever seen something weird on the internet. Which brings us to the next tip.
Don’t freak out over internet junk
Your child suddenly uses strange words with others? Your child “accidentally” signed up for an adult subscription and wants out? Your child helped the whole class use an AI cheating tool? Think about whether you’ve ever messed up in your life. The odds are high. Good thing it’s over and somehow got sorted out.
If parents don’t freak out as soon as their child or their child’s teacher comes to them with something embarrassing, Ochs says there’s a good chance the kid will trustingly turn to their parents again with something much worse. As parents we have the wonderful opportunity to iron out our kids’ mistakes together with them before they go completely off the rails.
To me it’s also a beautiful picture of the relationship with God. What he has already ironed out so that we can live as his children, my goodness.
Foster belonging
Family time without screens. Sports club. Cooking club. Church. Wherever kids feel they belong and are part of a community, the addictive effects of the internet have less power. So the rule always is: don’t just implement rules, but also foster a surrounding that gives our kids stability from the inside and the outside. A lot of work for us parents, but worth it!
Seven tips that together actually send a single message:
Smartphone parenting is relationship work. Rules without connection fizzle out; connection without rules leaves kids alone with their decisions.
Both together cost time, nerves and sometimes an expensive dinner, but it’s worth it. What are you taking with you?
