A Cell Phone-Free Childhood

Lorelei Savaryn encourages others by sharing what has worked for her family in delaying giving her now-teenage daughter a cell phone.

As we approached the pre-teen years, and saw more and more of our daughter’s peers with a cell phone in their hands, we knew that we were embarking on a journey that would set both her and our family apart. Based on the research and what I was seeing as an educator in the students I work with; I knew we would delay giving our kids a cell phone long past when most of their peers had one. I worried about how much resistance we’d get from our kids, how much pressure they would feel, and how much resentment would grow as we held steady to our commitment to delay.

Now that our oldest is thirteen, I feel like I can speak to the approach that we’ve taken, in the hopes that it will be an encouragement to parents who may also want to delay getting their children a phone, but wonder how they’re going to do it. This isn’t a prescription for the only way to accomplish a cell phone-free childhood. It is an example of how it has worked for our family — and perhaps contains some ideas that might work for others who hope to tread a similar path.

Begin the conversation early and share the science

Our daughter knew from her middle elementary years that it would be a long while before we gave her a phone of her own. These conversations arose naturally as she would share that this friend or that got a cell. We talked in an age-appropriate way about how young brains (and often even grown-up brains) aren’t ready to handle social media. How the prevalence of “likes” can negatively impact the wiring in young brains in ways that increase anxiety and lower self-esteem. We shared the near-inevitability of seeing inappropriate pictures, and the increased chances of being bullied.

For us, at least with our oldest, this resulted in an unexpected early buy-in from our daughter. Especially now that she’s in middle school, she’s seen how her peers have been negatively influenced by social media and unsupervised group texts, and she doesn’t have an interest in joining that world. I believe those early and consistent conversations on the matter helped.

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Supported introduction to technology through limits and modeling

We have not given our kids an entirely screen-free childhood. On school days and weekends, the kids have screen time limits. They can choose to play an approved game or watch a show, but when their timer goes off, it’s time to engage in a different activity. In terms of using a phone, only very recently has our daughter been allowed to add a couple of close friends whose families have similar values as ours to a messenger app on my phone.

We’ve found that she chooses to send her friends a message fairly rarely. She’s begun to use the phone to call those friends as well and have a conversation (which makes my "child of the '90s" heart wildly happy). Some of this is due to the fact that we’re intentionally modeling responsible use on our own devices. We call people when possible. I use my phone with intention: perhaps to make plans, or to look up a recipe, or listen to music. I try to tell my kids what I’m doing on my phone when they see me use it, and I intentionally put it face down and away when we’re talking with each other. Over the years, I have had to build those skills in myself, but the investment has been worth it so far; our kids can see a path forward for responsible use.

Tie it into our faith

One of the beautiful truths about our Catholic faith is the fact that we are both soul and body. We are meant to experience the world with and through our body. To feel a gentle breeze on our face, or the warmth of the sun on our shoulders, or the comfort of a hug. It is very easy for the world inside our phones to pull us away from this beautiful world that we live in, and to in a very real sense separate us from living fully in this world as we were meant to. While technology can be used for good and can make our lives easier in many ways, we are meant to be mostly here, in creation.

Delaying giving our daughter a phone has allowed her to root herself deeply in the joys of reading wonderful books, playing with her siblings after school, taking her dog for a walk, crocheting, and more. There is a special way that the soul-body composite that is us can thrive when creating with our hands, and giving our daughter ample time to see the good in these things will hopefully help her when the time comes to discern how to use a cell phone wisely.

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I don’t think there is one perfect path in terms of managing technology and our children, but I do think that there are ways that as Catholic parents we can help our kids and responsibly navigate this world. Whatever we decide, we can let our knowledge of our children, the research, and our faith light our path as we help our kids grow into who God made them to be.