By Ellen Lee
There is no “right” or “perfect” time to give a smartphone to a child. Only one thing is for certain: Getting one is a significant, defining, watershed moment for kids.
Having a smartphone opens the door to a new world of independence. Even with restrictions in place, kids can go places, access and share information, and socialize in ways they couldn’t before. And it’s all at their fingertips, wherever they are.
The struggle
Like a growing number of parents, I opted to wait until eighth grade before giving my daughters a smartphone. I felt trepidation, fearing what they might encounter through their phone. Bullies? Strangers? Stuff meant for adults? And I felt resignation, knowing that they needed one as they prepared for high school and developed their independence.
The Wait Until 8th movement has gained steam recently: More than 155,000 parents have now signed the pledge, up from 100,000 a year ago. But many factors affect when a child gets a phone, such as family circumstances, medical needs, and whether the kid is ready — or not. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the organization of pediatricians that sets guidelines for child health, doesn’t list a recommended age.
More than half of kids have their own smartphone by the time they turn 11, according to a Pew Research Center report. In our Wirecutter survey of hundreds of parents, more than half of those with a 13-year-old said their child had a smartphone, and nearly all parents of 15-year-olds said their child had one.
But as more studies sound the alarm on kids’ smartphone use, parents of younger kids are thinking twice about giving one to their child. In our survey, 25% of parents with kids ages 11 and under said they planned to wait until their kids were 16 (or older) to give them a smartphone. More than half of parents with kids under age 8 said they planned to use a flip phone in lieu of a smartphone.
Several years ago, Ashley Zwick, a parent in Westport, Connecticut, gave her older son a basic phone in middle school since he had to travel on his own after school. But she held out with her younger son, who won’t be getting a phone of any kind until he starts high school this fall.
“We’ve tried to tell him that we’ve learned more,” she said. “Sometimes it looks like it might be unfair, but it really is just getting smarter and making new and different decisions based on new information.”
The advice
Ask yourself if they’re ready. Before you hand your child a smartphone, look for signs of maturity: Are they responsible with their belongings? A smartphone is an expensive item to lose or break. Are they able to follow rules (yours and their school’s)? Do they make good decisions on their own?
Set clear expectations and rules. Consider having your child sign a contract or create a plan that outlines basic rules and responsibilities for using their phone. Let them know if you’ll be monitoring or spot-checking it.
Help them secure their phone. Teach them about their digital footprint, passwords, the importance of keeping personal information private, and the risks of interacting with strangers online. Turn on the phone’s safety features, including those that protect the phone if it gets lost or stolen.
Coach them on phone and text messaging etiquette. Before your kids text, post, or share something, remind them to ask themselves: Would you say this to someone’s face? Do you have permission to share that conversation or picture? And if they receive or see a harmful or hateful message, how will they respond?
Keep an eye on group chats. As fun as group chats can be, they can also be fraught: A 2026 UK survey of tweens and teens found that group chats are a common place for bullying. In a study focused on cyberbullying, more than half of surveyed students reported that they had deliberately been left out of a group text. Large group threads, meanwhile, can become spammy and distracting. Kids may feel the pressure to pile on, or to be funny or edgy and take it too far. Talk through these scenarios with your child, including when and how to slow things down, mute, block, or leave a group chat, and when and how to report cyberbullying.
Encourage healthy digital habits. Show them how to turn off notifications and enable features such as the iPhone’s Do Not Disturb and Focus. Have them try different strategies to resist the temptation of mindless scrolling or playing around on their phone. They’re likely already aware of brain rot, but it helps if they understand exactly how screen time affects their brain. Keep in mind that not all games and apps are problematic: Consider downloading kid-friendly apps that make the phone useful, helpful, and a way to engage with the world.
Protect your child’s sleep. Consider setting up a place to charge the phone overnight that’s outside their bedroom. Research has found that smartphones interfere with sleep, with more than half of teens using their phones between midnight and 4 a.m., according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2026.
“It’s a slippery slope,” said Jason Nagata, MD, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent health at University of California San Francisco and lead author of the study. “Many kids are not trying to stay up late, but if they get a notification, or if they’re waiting to hear back from someone, that anticipation can impair sleep.”
Use parental controls, but know their limits. Through parental controls such as Apple’s Screen Time and Google Family Link, you can set screen-time limits; block apps, web browsers, and social media; and manage who can contact your child.
But experts say it’s one thing to supervise and another to surveil. “Constant surveillance is not developmentally healthy, especially as they move into their teenage years,” said University of California Irvine’s Ito. Kids need to learn independence, and constant surveillance hinders that growth. Instead, offer feedback and guidance. “It’s like, ‘Ooh, that was an icky video. What did you think about that? That wasn’t so cool,’” Ito said.
Parental controls also have technical limits: For instance, Apple’s Screen Time can’t filter or monitor what your child sees on YouTube. And kids are notorious for circumventing parental controls or finding loopholes, such as watching explicit videos on Spotify, or surreptitiously buying themselves a cheap burner phone.
In more than five years of testing parental controls and having conversations about them with parents, I’ve heard time and again that they’re glitchy and tricky to navigate, and sometimes they just don’t work. More than 60% of the 750-plus parents we surveyed said that they used parental controls — but most found them lacking. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being terrible and ineffective and 5 being great, 75% ranked the parental controls they used at 3 or lower.
Be ready to spend time managing and coaching your child. As your child gets older, the conversations will become more nuanced and complicated. You’ll help them figure out how to navigate concerns such as peer pressure to follow online trends. Look for teachable moments. “There’s no such thing as one big talk,” said Linda Charmaraman, PhD, a senior research scientist and director of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab at Wellesley College. “They’re going to be faced with different dilemmas at different junctures.”
The takeaway
Before giving your child a smartphone, make sure they’re prepared and ready for the responsibility. Parental controls can help, especially in the early days, but they aren’t set-and-forget: Kids can find ways around such controls, and the features don’t often work the way you want them to. Instead, use them as a jumping-off point and plan on regular check-ins and conversations about healthy phone use with your child.
