My nine-year-old daughter recently made her top 10 Christmas wish list. There were Barbie dolls, a Yoto Mini adventure, Hello Kitty goodies and, somewhere among those childhood treasures, a phone number. She already has my old cellphone, which she uses to play age-appropriate games.
No Roblox or anything of the sort. She just can’t call anyone. Now she wants to talk to her friends.
And I'm wondering whether that's a reasonable request or a parenting headache I'm not ready for. Growing up, I'd drag our house phone's ridiculously long cord down the hallway for privacy and spend hours talking to friends about absolutely nothing. We'd giggle, gossip about school and eventually get yelled at to get off the phone.
But at least we had that option. Today, cellphones have practically made house phones extinct. My daughter mostly communicates with friends at school through supervised Messenger Kids or during the occasional playdate.
Are we protecting children by keeping phones away, or limiting their opportunities to develop friendships and communication skills? And what about their mental health? There's a difference between laughing with a friend and mindlessly scrolling through social media.
Perhaps that's the distinction parents need to make. I took my dilemma to Facebook for one of my unscientific questions of the day: When did you give your child a phone number, and why? The answers were all over the place.
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