Parents weigh in on age for a child to get a cellphone

Should you give your six-year-old a smartphone? That was the question Microsoft put to Canadians in a survey it commissioned on children and cellphone use.

The answer, from close to twothirds of those surveyed, was a resounding No.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the people most inclined to ease the age restrictions on cellphone use were parents of young children.

But for the rest, including both parents and people who don’t have children, the advice was: Don’t give children a cellphone before they’re 15.

Kathy Buckworth, an author and commentator on family issues who was involved in the creation of the survey, said she was surprised at the recommended age.

“You’re into Grade 10 at that point, and many senior (elementary) or early high school kids would have phones, that’s my observance of my kids and what their friends have,” she said.

Buckworth, whose four children range in age from 12 to 23, gave her youngest child a cellphone in Grade 7.

“Grade 7 for me is when my kids started ... having a lot more autonomy, in terms of getting themselves to school, coming home from school, taking the bus, etc.,” Buckworth said. “It was a way for me to be able to stay in touch with them and for them to be able to update me on what they were doing after school.”

Would she consider giving a sixyear-old a cellphone? No.

“Chances are there (are) very few places they would be allowed to use it. I’m pretty sure Grade 1 teachers are not going to be allowing six-year-olds to use their phone,” she said.

Andrea Berry gave both her children smartphones when they started Grade 6. She sees them as safety items. Her daughter walks home from school with a friend and recently a bunch of guys have been shouting comments from a car, “hooting and harassing as they drive by.

“So I said have your phones ready and take a picture of the licence plate,” Berry said. They can also call 911 from their cells if they are followed.

“I feel comfortable knowing they have the phone,” she said. “As much as people say kids have too many gadgets, I feel like it is safer. I feel like I am more in touch with them when I need to be.”

Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit’s daughter, Madeline, is 11 and she has had an iPod, which allows her to post and text with her friends via Wi-Fi, since she was nine. Her eight-year-old sister, Lucy, is expecting to get an iPhone for her coming ninth birthday.

“To me, the right age would be when they are doing things on their own, like taking the bus,” said the Vancouver mom and creator of parenting blog yoyomama.ca.

Buckworth suggested a first cellphone could be a basic one with limitations — such as not having a data plan, or only being good for talk and text. Or it could be a hand-me-down from a parent.

No matter what age a child gets his or her first cellphone, Buckworth said it is important to establish rules.

“I don’t subscribe to the idea that every child needs a cellphone, but we do have to acknowledge this is very much a way that kids communicate with each other. This is very much a part of their lifestyle and the way they are growing up now,” she said.

“(But) we still have to be their parents. We still have to have rules around these things.”