Addison (at 11.5 Years Old) Signs Her 9 Page Cell Phone Contract

If it was up to me, no one under 16, would be allowed to have a smart phone but it isn’t. Welcome to parenting this generation and since my generation didn’t get cell phones until we were 20, it has taken a lot of research, deep thought, proactive planning, countless conversations about setting expectations and making decisions based on knowledge and a whole lot of gut feeling.

At the end of the day, we are so crazy proud of this girl and how hard she works every single day in everything she does, how hard she tries to be her best, what a great little and big sister she is. We are impressed by her overall heart to do good, her passion for God, her friends and her family.

Addison has hardly asked for a phone in the last year. Honesty, I can’t remember her once complaining about it. Probably because we talked about it so opening for so many years. We gave her access to a flip phone since she was 10 to meet the basic communication needs we had. We have been proactive in talking to the kids about how we feel about smart phones, so her being in the 20% that didn't have a phone, starting 6th grade, was truly no surprise. By Thanksgiving, Blake and I felt confident that she had demonstrated organization in her first half of 6th grade, stellar grades and even leadership from her teacher’s point of view. She had set a baseline so before she got a phone, we were all clear on what she is capable of. That's when even more proactive, what if, setting expectations in the real road, when you, maybe, get a phone really picked up.

With lots of automated guardrails, helping us manage the technology, automatically, regarding turning it off, limiting access to most apps, limiting ability to download new apps, all these things proactively put in place so she isn't tempted at 11.5 years old, and so that we don't have to think about it or nag her about it 10X day, along with an iron clad, extremely detailed contract, which hangs in our kitchen, Addison got to take a phone to school on the first school day of 2020.

Although it's been early, it's been just what we experienced with Carter, actually even easier, compared to his first 30 days, managing his large boy's group texts. Time will tell and we fully expect her to mess up and honestly look forward to it, because she is at an age where she truly is influenced by us, what we think and believe and I know this is the ideal time in life to learn to navigate it, together.