Back to school sometimes means first phone, but also worries for parents. Here are some tips to help your child use this device.
A first phone for the start of the school year. A few days before the start of the school year, many children are equipped for the first time. A way for parents to stay in touch with them, but which also comes with fears of cyberbullying and other dangers. Model to choose, parental control…. Here are three tips to help your child use their first phone.
A basic phone instead of a smartphone
What first phone should you give your child? The choice can be difficult. For the first one, it is better not to opt for a smartphone, but to choose a feature phone, i.e. a phone with basic features (without internet and without applications).
In its report on the impact of young people’s exposure to screens, the commission of experts mandated by Emmanuel Macron recommends not equipping a child before the age of 11 and offering them a “basic” telephone until the age of 13.
An opinion also shared by Justine Atlan, director of the e-Enfance association. “When a parent wants to give their child a phone, it very often comes from the need to stay in touch with them, or to be able to call them and send them messages,” she explains to Tech&Co.
According to her, giving your child “a phone in the literal sense of a phone” is a way for the parent to “have control over what they want to give them”, whereas a smartphone would allow the child to go on social networks and other applications. In other words, equipping your child with a feature phone is a way to “delay registration and use of social networks”, assures Justine Atlan.
Enable parental controls
To properly support your child in using their first smartphone from the age of 13, it is also advisable to use a parental control tool, such as that of Apple or Google. These tools allow you to limit their screen time, the applications they can download or the content they can view.
Social networks like Tiktok, Snapchat or Instagram, which are supposed to be prohibited for children under 13, also have parental control tools. However, these social networks are strongly discouraged for children under 15 by the expert committee. Their parental control tools allow parents to configure their child’s account with, depending on their age, limited access to publications or contacts.
However, we should not “rely on parental control”, a tool which “can deceive us”, indicates the committee of experts in its report.
Talking with your child
Talking to your child when they get their first phone is very important. Not only does it allow you to set rules with them regarding the use of this device, it is also a way to expose them to the dangers they may face, such as cyberbullying or shocking content.
Using only parental controls “often deprives children of a more substantial dialogue with their parents, which is nevertheless necessary regarding their uses and practices,” the committee of experts emphasizes. Especially since “children quickly learn to circumvent the blockages that are thus imposed on them on their own device.”
“It is up to each person to set their own rules when giving the smartphone. Otherwise, the child will use it quite excessively and the parent will find themselves in a very defensive position, constantly forbidding it,” also insists Justine Atlan.
Rules that need to be changed. “This gradual approach aims to support the child, then the adolescent, from a situation in which he is, at the start of his life, strongly protected from exposure to screens to a gradual conquest of his autonomy in uses and in terms of equipment”, assures the commission.
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