Embed from Getty Images
Well, fellow parents of school-aged children, summer vacation is officially in full-swing. Raise a glass for a toast that we all get through it with our sanity intact! I think for many parents, the real challenge each summer is figuring out a way to keep their kids off of screens as much as possible. And when I say “many parents,” I’m including myself! The definitely struggle with it during the year, but the summertime brings a whole different set of rules.
Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelly have two teenage daughters, Naleigh, 16, and Adalaide, 13, as well as an eight-year-old son, Joshua. They are currently in the thick of the battle of raising children in The Screen Age. For their family, it got to the point where it was actively affecting their grades. Last September, they decided to implement new rules to combat their kids’ screen addictions. These rules include parental restrictions, scheduling screen time, and limiting usage.
Katherine Heigl says she knew she and husband, singer Josh Kelley, needed to make some changes at home when they realized that their kids were becoming “little addicts” with their phones.
“We started back in September because grades were slipping,” says Heigl, 46, who shares three children with Kelley: daughters Naleigh, 16, and Adalaide, 13, and son Joshua, 8. “We always said no phones at bedtime, but there was sneaking devices and staying up really late and not getting good sleep and being unbearably cranky the next day. And it was just like, this isn’t healthy.”
The Grey’s Anatomy alum says she and Kelley held out on giving their eldest a phone until she was 12.
“I was going to try to wait until 16, and I realized it’s not possible. Not in the world we live in right now,” she says. “She was just taking friends’ phones and they were letting her use their phones. And then I have no idea what she’s up to. And then if she wasn’t on at all, couldn’t participate in cafeteria conversation and didn’t have any idea what other kids were talking about. So I was like, “Okay, let’s find a balance.”
The Firefly Lane actress says a friend helped her put strict restrictions on Naleigh’s phone, “and it made me feel a little bit safer.” But, she admits it was a slippery slope with her other kids: “When Adalaide was like nine or 10 and I was like, ‘Fine, I’ll get you a phone.’ And Joshua has had a phone since he was like three,” she says. “it’s ridiculous.”
It got to the point where “they were little addicts” with the devices, she says.
So several months ago, she and Kelley got tough. “They don’t get their devices at all on Tuesday, Thursdays or Sundays. Saturday they get it after lunch. And they would only get them Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school, after homework, until bedtime — we start that process at 8 p.m. And they cannot take them to their rooms ever at night. They have to put their phones in our bedroom to charge.”
The new rules weren’t immediately welcome.
“It was like withdrawal for the first couple of weeks,” she says. “There was a lot of anger and boredom and frustration. We just had to get through it. Josh and I would just give each other a pep talk, like, ‘It’s going to get better.'”
And over time, “it did. And they started developing other interests. I felt so much relief,” she says. “Kids have not yet learned how to self regulate and self discipline, so we have to teach them.”
I found myself nodding perfusing with everything Katherine said here. The struggle is real. It’s difficult when their friends have phones and are willing to give them access when you’re not around, and it’s difficult to keep them off screens without physically taking them away. Neither of my kids have phones, but they do have iPads. We’ve set up strict parental controls, including only being able to use them between certain hours, but they find ways around the usage restrictions, like watching YouTube through the web browser instead of the deleted app. It got to the point where we just took them away. As of right now, they can only use their iPads while we are traveling. The withdrawal that Katherine mentions is also 100% real. But, so is the eventual acceptance and ability to develop other interests.
While we are on this topic, my older son just turned 11 and will be starting middle school soon. A lot of his friends already have phones, but like I said, we have held out so far. We’re at a crossroads, though. There are very real safety concerns in American schools, and while we don’t want him to have a full-fledged phone, we also want him to be able to contact us in case of emergency. We looked at some flip phones, but they have Internet and app-access, too! Fellow parents who are in my shoes, what do you do? Is the easiest route to get them the phone but take it away from them while they are at home?
I’ve been through it both ways–my stepson got a phone way too young, and my 10-year-old daughter is still phone free. What makes the situation more complicated is, there are no more landlines or phone booths! So once she starts babysitting or going places with her friends, she won’t have a reliable way to contact me. I keep hearing a watch can be a good compromise, but an Apple watch needs an iPhone and she’s simply not getting that before she’s 16 at least.
It doesn’t need an iPhone! You can do the Apple Watch and pay for cellular without tying it to a phone. It will just get its own unique number.
There are kid safe/kid centric phones out there- the first one that comes to mind is the Bark phone.
My kids are all in their 20s; they started with flip phones in middle school, but if I had young ones now, I would use Bark. Built in protections and parental controls. Do check them out!!
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-smartphone-for-kids/
Thank you!!
We use Gabb phone and watches. They look like smart watches and phones but no internet access. Highly recommend it.
Rosie – check out the Gizmo. A smart watch specifically for pre teens and teens. Your child can only text or call numbers on a pre approved list, it’s peace of mind and safety without the complications of social media!