Parents and Schools Put Limits on Phone Use 

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Your 12-year-old is asking for a smartphone, saying all her friends have one. How should you respond? If you're struggling with this question and looking for some strategies, you're not alone.

Figuring out whether, when and how to give kids access to digital devices is a uniquely contemporary challenge. Your pre-internet parents never confronted this question, and there are no official rules, regulations or even commonly accepted best practices around these digital decisions.

That's starting to change, though. In the spring, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, in which he argues that the rise in smartphone use among kids is responsible for increased rates of depression, anxiety and self-harming behavior. Critics have quibbled over some of the data he cites, but the book has sparked conversations among parents — and policy makers. Haidt is now an adviser to a group that calls itself the Phone-Free Schools Movement, which aims to help parents, educators and administrators create phone-free policies for K-12 schools.

Some schools and districts in Vermont have announced that they'll be phone-free during the academic day this year, including Harwood Union High School, Thetford Academy and the Lamoille South Supervisory Union district.

Lamoille South surveyed parents and caregivers last spring to gauge support for a phone-free policy. In an August 5 letter to families, superintendent Ryan Heraty noted that parents and caregivers were "overwhelmingly" in support of the measure. And they weren't the only ones: "Students also recognize the impact and distraction that devices are having on their school experience and many of our harassment and bullying complaints can be traced back to cell phone and social media use," he wrote.

Learn more about the case for phone-free schools at anxiousgeneration.com and phonefreeschoolsmovement.org.

As for when to give kids a smartphone, the group Wait Until 8th urges parents to hold off until at least the end of eighth grade, and it offers resources and strategies for approaching the dilemma. Find them at waituntil8th.org.