Is My Child Ready for a Smartphone? | Adam Pletter, PsyD

Studies mentioned in this episode, in order of mention: 

McClain, C., Sidoti, O., Faverio, M., & Lama, S. (2025). How Parents Manage Screen Time for Kids. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/10/08/how-parents-manage-screen-time-for-kids/

Related Resource: Dr. Pletter’s iOS Grow initiative outlines a developmentally-informed iPhone experience which unlocks features as children demonstrate readiness. Explore the public campaign.

[Kris Perry]: Welcome to Screen Deep, where we go on deep dives with experts in the field to decode young brains and behavior in a digital world. I’m Kris Perry, Executive Director of Children and Screens. Today I’m joined by Dr. Adam Pletter, a child and adolescent psychologist and founder of iParent 101, where he helps families build healthy digital habits and parent with purpose. He brings clinical work and the classroom together, translating day-to-day challenges into clear, evidence-based strategies families can use right away. In this episode, we’ll explore smartphone readiness: how to tell when a child is ready for a smartphone, and what to do if they’re not. We’ll examine the role of family media plans and how to make them work. We’ll discuss the promise and limits of parental controls. And finally, we’ll unpack key individual child factors that might affect this important family decision. Welcome, Adam.

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Thank you so much for having me.

[Kris Perry]: We’re so happy you’re here. Adam, I think it’s fair to say you’re a pioneer in the family digital wellness field. You’ve engineered a blended approach of behavior modification and parental support that we’ve featured on our webinars. In fact, the last one was this year on digital parenting. How did you land on this unique combination of therapeutic techniques in reaction to experiences you were having with families and patients in your clinical psychology practice?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Where I began is I graduated with my doctorate in 2001. And if you think about what was going on in the world in 2001, as I was starting my clinical practice, the digital world was starting to emerge and inundate families all over the world. So I began my practice in 2001. And in 2004, I became a parent myself. And the convergence of those two very overwhelming factors as a young clinician really set me on this stage. Everything, all the computers, all the video games that kids were playing became much smaller and portable and pocket-sized and changed parenting forever.

[Kris Perry]: One of the main topics I really want to unpack with you about today is the decision every parent must face, which is when and how to allow children access or ownership to their first smartphone. I’m sure you’ve been asked this question by families in your practice dozens, if not hundreds, of times. In the interest of full disclosure,  we’re purposely recording this episode near the holidays when we know our parent listeners are considering whether or not to buy their child a smartphone. At Children and Screens, we often discuss developmental readiness. So I’d like to have you start your answer there. What are the signs that a child is ready for a phone versus needing more time to have a phone, especially given the rapid deployment of AI-generated content.

[Dr. Adam Pletter] Yeah, it’s a really important question and I would guess – I’ve been asked that thousands of times as I do these presentations around the country. I start by stating the obvious and that is this “first phone,” as we’re referring to it – pocket-sized computer – is really more than a device. This is a milestone for the family and for this young individual child, teenager, whatever age. And I see it as a training ground for life. We’re talking basic life skills that are going to come together in this pocket-sized computer. Judgment, self-control, resiliency, being able to handle frustrations in this overwhelmingly noisy world.

I often talk about this three-step recipe for young children and families and really about how the parents are struggling to decide when this particular child is ready. So the three-step recipe that I often refer to is step one, that the child has an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, which is the front part of our brains that is really this judgment center, the emotional center, the thinking part of our brains. It’s underdeveloped. Most people listening to this probably have heard this at some point where it’s not developed. 25 to 30 is when that part of the brain under normal human development develops. So that’s the judgment center. 

The second part of the recipe is that the child at these young ages, even through middle school, even through late into high school, have an overactive emotional part of their brain, where by design – and this is important – by design, young children are more emotional. And that’s – the reason that we as humans are designed that way is that the young child is more apt to go out and learn about their world, trial and error thinking, and be more excited and eager to take risks through that overactive emotional part of the brain. 

And then the third part of the recipe, which is obvious but important here to this exact conversation, is the internet is never ending and a never ending supply of amazing, individually-tailored, based on the child’s interest – the user’s interest – to feed those curiosities. 

And so you put all those three together, and it’s a recipe for parents to take pause and to be the prefrontal cortex in lieu of their child’s weak braking system and try to help the child try, it’s not so easy, to make better judgments. 

[Kris Perry]: You mentioned earlier – and you’ve brought it up a couple of times already, so I really want to lean into this – not minimizing the device itself. It’s not just a phone. It is a pocket-sized computer that is super powered and can do all kinds of amazing things. Therefore, to introduce it into your child’s life may even propel them toward a milestone, even if they haven’t hit that milestone organically yet. So tell us a little bit more about the kinds of factors, developmental factors, that parents should be on the lookout for before they make this big decision that pushes the child towards this big milestone.

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Right, so it’s a portal to everything in positive ways and that’s what I would emphasize first. In terms of readiness, what is the child getting? What is the good compromise? What is the – on the positive side of the compromise? Because there will be a trade off pretty quickly. What is the positive side of the compromise? Are they getting more academic skills? Are they able to then be picked up when they’re coming home from a late practice so that you guys can communicate? Are they connecting with Grandma who lives in California? I would really start to look at what are the positives and how are they handling their current devices? Most kids, in the US at least, have access and are on some sort of computer, whether it’s pocket-sized or hand-sized or on a desk, all day long at school, even in preschool. They’re managing things. How do they get off of it? How do they manage it? Are they talking about the same thing over and over again? Are they late to dinner? I would be looking at how are they managing their emotions around the digital stimulation that is truly amazing and with great benefit?

[Kris Perry]: What else should parents be on the lookout for in terms of the positive ways of handling, say, existing technology that would maybe give them an indication of whether or not the child’s ready for their own device?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Well, I would look at how, for example, when they’re going to bed – and we’ll get into the media plans in a few minutes, I’m sure – but where does the phone go? I would have a discussion around that. I would have a plan like any other parenting decision that is set up in a staged way with different levels. Can the child know going in that at bedtime, “This is where the phone goes. It’s gonna go into the kitchen or into the parents’ bedroom and get plugged in, and I’ll see it again in the morning and I’m excited to wake up.” But I would be looking for in terms of readiness: How does the child go to bed? Does he sleep or she sleep or are they up sneaking out? Are they challenging the parents’ basic rules? Because then I pull back and I say, just like any other parenting decision, in terms of readiness, it’s not about age, it’s about: how are they handling it?

[Kris Perry]: As somebody who’s a family psychologist – adolescent psychologist – you’re really tuned into behavioral manifestations of readiness, what’s observable. What else can the parent be looking for that has nothing to do with the child’s relationship to tech that might give them a sense of whether or not it’s the right time? 

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Well, I think peer pressure is a factor. Kids are gonna come home saying, “My friend – Jimmy, Sally, whatever – has a phone, has access to this.” And parents are going to feel pressure – the kids feel pressure, and the parents are going to feel pressure to respond in kind with: “Oh, we should keep up.” And I start there because depending on what’s going on in that community, often what I get asked about and what I hear about is that there’s some concern, that there’s some safety reason that justifies having the phone. It’s not about whether or not the child necessarily needs the phone to communicate or to have a portal into some special interest of theirs, but it’s more about, “They’re waiting for the bus early in the morning and we want to be able to track them,” or from the parents’ point of view, it gives the parents some peace of mind knowing in this crazy, somewhat scary world that they have access to their child, at least to their child’s phone. And it brings a level of security – maybe false security, which we could talk about – but it brings some level of peace of mind to parents that that becomes the driving force. “We don’t want to be behind. We don’t want our child to be left out. And we certainly don’t want our child to be in any kind of jeopardy that we, in theory, can’t help them with.”

[Kris Perry]: You know, as somebody who leads a research institute that studies this topic every day, all day long, it is very nuanced. And I appreciate that you’re talking about stages of development and things that you can observe that are going on in your child’s life to make sure that you don’t give them something too soon. But at the same time, we live in a world where we often assign an age of readiness to something a child can do: “Now they’re 13, now they’re 16, now they’re 18, now they can vote, now they can drive.” We know parents are looking for a number at the same time we’re trying to tell them to be on the lookout for more subtle cues. If you had to give a number, if you had to say there’s an age by which really you should try not to, up to this point, or here’s a range of ages that it’s gonna be a more manageable experience for your family, what is that range?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Obviously, the more you could delay – I’m gonna give you the common answer first. The more you could delay, deep into elementary school, even through middle school, for their personal device, the better. That being said, the data shows around 11 in the US is the most common age for a personal smartphone. Yet I have concerns around that that we can talk about.

[Kris Perry]: Well, isn’t 11 sixth grade? Isn’t this before many children have even started middle school? That is very young. And I understand that the age is ticking downward in terms of younger and younger children. But I think it’s important to stop and let our listeners really think about that. How young you are in sixth grade. You’re still, in many cases, attending school with kindergartners or first graders. You’re in a setting with younger children and you’re about to embark on a time in your life where you’re gonna be with children that are older for a while, which is additional pressure. 

You brought up peer pressure. Thank you for doing that because I think that is one of the major reasons kids start asking. But in addition to being too young, what are some of the other risks that are introduced by giving a child a smartphone, whether they’re developmentally ready or not?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Well, you mentioned the sixth graders being in schools potentially, depending on the community, even fifth grade could be 11. I was 11 in fifth grade, for sure. So that is lower schools or elementary school. And again, you think about who’s riding the bus and I hear young kids talking about, “Oh, there was an older kid – fourth grader, fifth grader with a phone.” And they’re being exposed to all of the internet. 

The adult device, which is the phone, has access to all of the internet and as your imagination goes sideways in very dark corners, that’s often what children – and I’m not a fear mongerer, but that’s often what is out there. It is a portal to everything, both really, really positive things and enhancements in our lives – true enhancements, that’s why we love it so and we benefit from it as humans on this planet – and, very, very specific concerns that in terms of exposure to adult content, exposure to other creepy, weirdo adults – I call them weirdos for lack of a better term – people who are potentially dangerous on lots of different platforms, not just Snapchat – we can get into specific apps later if you’d like – but pretty much on all corners of the internet. And so with these adult devices, young children, even if it’s not their own device, it’s something they see on the bus, can be exposed. 

And so that’s why I go back to: it’s not about the age, it’s not about the specific date on the calendar. To the extent that it’s up to the parents, judging the child, judging your child and thinking through, not just for safety concerns, but what are the benefits of handing your child this really powerful, pocket-sized computer?

[Kris Perry]: I want to get to those benefits in just a second, but I want to lean into the risks a little bit longer, particularly because you brought up how young children are that are starting to get their own device. And you also touched on apps. And I think it’s important for us to talk about the apps for a second, because they are designed to capture the child’s attention, capture their data, make them want to stay on the platform. And everything from YouTube to Snapchat to TikTok, these are all competing for the child’s attention as soon as they turn on the device. What are some of the risks that can happen by opening one of these apps at any age? And we wanna highlight them so that parents who are in this mode of considering whether or not to do this are more familiar with what some of that content might be.

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: So I want to be careful here because I don’t want – I’m a full-time clinician, and I don’t want to sound like I am a fear-mongering, scary, you know – so I want to be careful here. But to answer your question, there’s, you know, Roblox, Discord. When these young children in elementary school in particular, but even middle school, are handed these devices and then they enter into their own private worlds. Parents may do their best to supervise – they might check their phones and they’re doing everything they can as well-intentioned, worried, concerned parents who didn’t grow up with this level of the internet – none of us did. Even if you’re a young parent, you didn’t grow up with this version of the internet and these phones. Even if you had an iPhone 10 years ago, it’s not like it is now. And so, you know, I don’t want to throw any particular company under the bus, but there are kid-focused platforms that they’ve gotten slightly better, where there is some parental controls, but you’re inviting your young child into the adult world that is private, and they have their own world, and that is very difficult, if not impossible, to really monitor at the level that parents think they will be able to. And I’m talking young kids. 

So yes, they’re being exposed to potential perpetrators. You hear about these awful headlines of drugs being delivered through Snapchat and all these tragic – every one, every single family that’s impacted. It’s tragic. I hear about a lot of this in my practice and it’s, you know, it’s very scary and very real. However, there is a reason, and a positive reason why families continue to lean and go towards trying to create these positive compromises where they’re leaning on the positives part and telling themselves that this is a good idea. Otherwise, caring parents would not do this.

[Kris Perry]: Well, as somebody who’s an adolescent psychologist and is working with families and helping them build skills around communication for the most part, I imagine, and unpacking what some of these frustrations can be or what some of the barriers are to communication, you’re really hearing what ensues once the device has entered into the family and how it puts a lot of pressure on everyone to keep tabs and also protect the child, but also support them if something goes wrong unexpectedly, and I really want to applaud you for being in this field because I think parents are looking for all the solutions they can find and what we’re doing on this podcast is trying to say, “Consider postponement, consider waiting because once you start, it’s hard to stop.”

One way to limit access to this full blown world of adult content that’s often part of having access to popular apps is to start out by giving kids a dumb device that does not have a full internet connection, may have lots of parental controls – something like a smart watch or a flip phone. Is that something that you’ve asked parents to consider?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Yes, so because the parent is there in lieu of the fully-developed front part of the child’s brain,  the judgment center, having an earlier device, a starter device – we can call it a “dumb phone,” watches are increasingly popular. There’s a whole industry of new phones. I won’t mention brands here, but phones that are paired down. Most of them are built on Android, because that’s an open-source type of setup, technically. So yes, some of that can be incredibly helpful, and I’m always recommending that. 

The problem is that most families want to skip that step. Most families feel the pressure to jump to the latest and greatest, the easiest. They might have an old phone in their house, an iPhone or whatever, that they could just easily hand down, it’s connected to the WiFi, and even though it’s an adult device that they used to use as an adult, it’s handed over and it’s just simple. And so that three-step recipe, that three-part recipe that I mentioned, comes to play because then the child is off and running, even just on WiFi. Even if they don’t have a data plan, a phone number, they’re off and running with the full-on access, the same as basically the adult had when the adult was using that phone. 

But yes, I definitely recommend starting in a staged way. This isn’t just about technology. This is how our society has been built. From learner’s permit, to driving cars, to going to an amusement park – you have to be this tall to ride this ride. Deep end of the pool, there’s often a test you have to take in order to get access to the deep water. What I’m suggesting in this more staged access is not new. And I don’t think it is so groundbreaking for me to suggest this based on my 25 years of clinical practice. I think this is basic, obvious suggestions.

[Kris Perry]: All right, so now we’re gonna bring your two worlds together. You’re someone who specializes in adolescence, but then you’re also working closely with families. And I wager to say that as a result, you have been confronted with families that are having a conflict. The child has said, “I want something,” and the parents are saying, “You can’t have it,” so there’s conflict. Or they have given them something, and it isn’t turning out the way they want it. And now they’re saying, “I either want it back or I want to put controls on it,” or something that’s putting pressure on the child. So you’ve had to bring your skills to bear on these family conversations and conflicts. And it’s important for our listeners who have made this jump already to hear from you about how can they communicate with their child? What’s the best way to either help them understand that they can’t have it or if they have it and it’s not going well, how to modify the child’s access to the device.

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Right, so I’m gonna give you two words and then I’ll go into as much detail as you want. The two words are, “Not yet.” And so we’re gonna focus on instead of this polarized world of yes or no, all or nothing, you said the word nuanced before, I say that all day long to families. This is nuanced. This is not an on-and-off switch. This is a dimmer switch. This is an old school volume knob where we’re gonna turn it a little bit up and then we could always turn it a little bit down. And so my iParent 101 program really from the start has been built from my clinical office on level systems: trying to create even a two- or three-level system where parents can offer some access, even with the devices they have current access to. It doesn’t have to be a phone. It could be their Chromebook. It could be an Xbox. And it could be anything that the child wants to spend time on and is benefiting from spending time on. 

Let’s be clear about there’s a benefit here. It’s not just danger. And then dialing it up or down based on how the child handles both the time on the device and getting off the device. And so the child earns more access, not in a transactional way, necessarily, but the child earns more access as they change their behavior over time. That’s where the behavior modification comes in, modifying behavior. Child changes their behavior to get what they want. They work for more access over time. If a child watched a PG-13 movie and then spent the next two weeks cursing and saying all kinds of profane things, chances are most well-intentioned parents might pull back: “Okay, we’re gonna take a break from watching those kinds of movies. We’re going to dial it back down. Not forever.” That’s where I come back to the, “not yet.” It’s not no. It’s, “Sure. You want to drive a car? Absolutely you’re going to drive a car. I’m excited to teach you to drive this car slowly with practice and supervision.” 

[Kris Perry]: Great answer. Beyond developmental readiness, which you just did a really great job of talking about, there might be other challenges in individual families and considerations that impact this decision around allowing the first smartphone, and I’d like to spend a little bit of time talking about these unique features that some families are managing. One is there are families that have two households and the parents may not be on the same page in terms of what’s allowed or not allowed with device use. What’s your advice for families where there are two households?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Yeah, so this is one of the key features that I spoke to Apple about this summer. I had the opportunity to talk with them directly about their iPhone experience for families. And this is one of the glaring openings that I was trying to collaborate. I’m still trying to collaborate with tech companies to provide some consistency. 

So a basic framework to minimize – it won’t eliminate. Most two household families, they’re not going to be on the same page because it’s literally two households. And so often the smartphones become a battleground, both in terms of what the rules are. It becomes where the child – more so than ever, it becomes the go-between between the parents. Sometimes that the phone is used – the child’s phone is used as the communicator between families. Mom’s basically talking to the kid about what the dad’s doing through the phone, when the child’s at the other parent’s house, back and forth, and the child is increasingly in the middle and the tension goes up, the conflict goes up. 

My suggestion, as much as possible, is using – if in fact there is no co-parent mode, which is what I am advocating for, where they could be built in to certain types of phones where at minimum alerts are given to each parent when the settings are changed, where it can be talked about, not necessarily with the child, but parent-to-parent, just like they would have when they were married or in the same household. Having an ability to have these dialogues between parents and then with the child is really what I’m always going for. That’s the premise of all of the parental controls that I use. 

So specifically for co-parent mode, that is what I would recommend. Lining up, what are the basic rules? And since there’s one child going back and forth between the households, trying to keep it as consistent as possible, instead of one parent has really strict rules and one parent has no rules, which is pretty common, trying to make it as consistent as possible across both households.

[Kris Perry]: Do you have experience working with families with neurodiverse children? And if so, are there specific considerations for tech readiness for neurodiverse children that you could share with our audience?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: Yeah, so neurodiverse means that – it’s a very wide spectrum. It’s a term that basically means that the child or individual is thinking differently, you know, diverse – thinking differently. And often in my clinical practice, what that translates to is more of a vulnerability to anxiety, feeling a little bit overwhelmed by situations. Could be different types of stimulation: audio stimulation. Auditory stimulation, visual stimulation, tactile stimulation – all five senses come to bear here with how they’re processing the information they’re more vulnerable to being overwhelmed by. Often they miss or misread social cues, which then in a social world, can be also overwhelming to them. The digital world creates both a positive for them – and I’m being very general by saying “them,” but a typical neurodiverse child or individual. It can be both sanctuary – they feel safe and they find their interests and specific other people who have those interests in communities, connection – and also a trap as those interests can be so overly stimulating that it’s difficult for that individual at any age, not just child, to get off of the device, to be able to regulate down and to regulate themselves, managing themselves. And I don’t think I’ve said that word enough in our talks yet today that this really is about regulation, that often what leads to the child and the parent’s judgment on whether the child is ready is: how is the child regulating their emotions?

[Kris Perry]: I’m so glad you just brought that up because I was about to ask you more about the structures and supports that families should institute before and after introducing the first device. So, we’ve heard from other experts on this podcast about family media plans or phone-free zones, family behavior that they can document so everybody can point to it and say, “We agreed to do this.” Do you have anything to add to that? Are there specific recommendations that you give families about how to support their media use?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: I do recommend using a media plan. It’s not a contract. I used to use that term when I first started this. It’s an agreement, but it’s a basic, evolving, whether document, if it’s ideally written down, but it’s an understanding that could change next week. What I would add here is that it evolves quickly and up and down that ladder system that I’ve described. 

And I would start with really basic conflict points. Where does it go at bedtime? Where does it go at mealtime? As the kids get older and what the parents are modeling is very important. In the car. Is it out at traffic lights, even for the parent? What are we modeling? Where are the phones going at night? Where are the phones going at any time that it’s actively not being used? And ultimately, all of the media plans – and by the way, I recommend healthychildren.org as the one that I use the most because parents can easily just kind of pull it up and you can kind of change it as you go and it populates different things to consider, so it’s an easy one. 

But, ultimately, it’s about the child and the parent having a reason to talk. Parental controls really are set up in a way and I recommend setting them up, even those that don’t work that well, because it forces the dialogue, it encourages the dialogue between parent and child. Even when the app limit doesn’t work, you could then have a talk about how the app limit doesn’t work. And the child could be part of that conversation, not in trouble, but that they’re aware and the parent’s aware and we got to now regulate even more. We have to build in some other structure so the child is learning and benefiting from that increased regulation.

[Kris Perry]: I’m glad you mentioned that the parents and their media use are part of the family media plan. Children learn from parents behavior and are highly aware when parents are not practicing what they preach. So this was a key point, I think, in your last answer because so much of the time we’re trying to figure out how to get the kids to do what we want. And one of the ways to get them to do what we want is to do what we want them to do. So that was a really great extra point that I hope our listeners can take in. 

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: They learned it by watching us.

[Kris Perry]: They do, they absolutely do. 

All right, so now we’re gonna make another pivot and we’re gonna talk a little bit about parental controls. A Pew survey came out this month that showed about half of parents of children eight to 12 years old feel they could be better at managing their child’s screen time and over 80% of parents with kids under 12 are worried about letting their child use a smartphone because of fears about safety or inappropriate content. Using parental controls is one strategy available to set limits around screen time and content. While parental controls can be helpful, research shows there are pros and cons to controls, that parents may be putting too much trust in them as the only solution. What is your stance on the use of parental controls on kids’ devices and when they can either be used or changed by the parent if needed?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: So parental controls are often used as magic. Like we’re just – we set it and we’re just gonna cross our fingers now that we’re done. And that’s a major mistake because I don’t think I’ve seen any parental controls – and I’ve been doing this a long time and I test them often and I’ve worked with tech companies developing different types of controls. I’ve never seen any that work consistently. And that’s a big statement, but I stand by that. 

But that’s okay, because as I said earlier, the parental controls are there to encourage, if not force, the dialogue between the parent and child. So I encourage families to talk about them and build them into the media plan and then test them out. How is this working? Involve the child. Does this work? Are you able to get on? And then give them more access as they’re being honest and showing regulation through that process. 

So it’s collaborative. It’s not down from top where the parents are in charge and you’re not allowed to use this. Because if they’re not allowed to use it, they probably shouldn’t have access to the device at all. So again, that’s just not reality. The reality is they do have access. And now how do we help and teach this child just like in a couple of years when they’re grabbing your car keys, you’re gonna go through a painstaking – I’ve done it twice – painstaking process of teaching your child, your teenager, how to drive a car. It’s really difficult and anxiety-provoking, but worth it. And so going through that and setting up the controls, and adjusting them, and readjusting them to me is the strategy. The parental control is, it’s not an illusion of it’s just gonna work. 

The two that I would recommend first for younger families would be router-based controls that even for a smartphone if you have whatever your service provider is – Xfinity, Verizon, whoever – in your community, most of them have apps now where you can create a profile and I actually have a whole YouTube video on my channel where I show how to set it up. And this way the parent in their pocket on their phone basically has a remote control where the child can come talk to the parent, because the Xbox, for example, or Chromebook is paused. The child comes to the parent, says, “Hey, I want to get on and play, but whatever, I need to do my homework, or whatever.” And the parent then hits unpause and the child can go play or do whatever it is and it’s time limited and depending on the age, that’s an easy way to check back in: “Oh, great job checking in with me. Here’s another half an hour.” Not every time, but on occasion where they can get more and more access as they’re changing their behavior.

[Kris Perry]: What a great example. As you described, parental controls, I’m thinking to myself, these are really more like parental preferences. “Control,” even that term gives everyone a sense that this is more likely to work than not. When should parents consider removing parental controls?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: My premise is that it’s really not about the control, as you just said. It’s care. That these tools, tech-based tools that are referred to as parental controls collectively, are really an effort to have parental care part of the process of the child learning to manage, the teenage learning to manage themselves. 

So generally speaking, depending on the child – judging the child, not just the age, not just the calendar, if you will – we’re talking about through high school, having some sets of controls still in place, being talked about all the time, just like in real life, IRL, there’s rules too. It’s not just parental control rules, but that media plan is evolving as you’re moving up and down the ladder. More and more access is being included. And then eventually later in high school, it’s less and less and less. And then hopefully the 16-, 17-, 18-year-old teenager still in high school is increasingly in charge of their phone and managing even their own parental controls. There’s still screen time that the child, the teenager can set or not, or there’s all kind of other apps that are based and designed for older teenagers that they can use to increase their regulation skills, their executive functioning skills. 

And then to state the obvious, know, obviously, often, you know, by 18, 19, they’re off, you know, not living at home very often – not always, but often – and then it really is go-time because, even at night, the phone is going to be either on their nightstand or in their bed where it dropped as they fell asleep. So I usually protect sleep above all else. So even late into high school, I recommend to parents, with few exceptions, that the phone comes out at night so we are protecting and encouraging good sleep, even for high school seniors. I know that sounds crazy, but that is my recommendation based on years of watching lots of seniors struggle with sleep deprivation. And again, as I said, I’m aware that in a couple of months, they’re gonna be off and on a college campus where they’re gonna have to manage it themselves. 

So again, maybe the summer before they leave, maybe on the weekends they have it on their own, but again, it’s a gradient, staged process that is talked about and the child is leading it as much as possible. The teenager is leading it as much as possible in those later years.

[Kris Perry]: Last night we had our kids over and they were all leaving high school when the smartphone and social media were being fully deployed and we were musing about how we all got along so much better in those years. We didn’t know it, because it didn’t seem like we were getting along that well, but we didn’t have to contend with this debate about whether or not to have it and for how long and who was in charge and when were they going to stop being in charge and the fact that we just evaded the full deployment, I think it allowed us all to have a better experience without this additional conflict. 

A few times you’ve mentioned the importance of dialogue between parents and children, whether about the decision to have or not to have a device, setting up a media plan or putting on parental controls. Are there conversation starters you might have to share or other tips for how to structure those conversations?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: I wouldn’t overthink it. I would be really basic. Lots of families around the country, you know, they have the TV on at night, maybe they’re watching the football game last night, and parents and often children have their own personal device either in their lap or in their hand. They’re all scrolling in their own personal world. So I wouldn’t overthink it, I wouldn’t overreach, but having conversations about what they’re up to. “Who are you talking to?” Is that a conversation starter? Pretty basic, but it looks like you’re like – “What was so funny?” Or trying to get some, like, just like any other parenting conversation with your child, you see your child reacting to something, I would ask. And if the child gets protective and, “Nobody,” or like, you know, I wouldn’t be overbearing about it, but I would lean in a little bit along the lines of, “What do you mean you’re talking to nobody? You were just laughing. Like, I’m not trying to grill you here, but like, who are you talking to? Like, what’s the big deal?” Because often it becomes something that the child feels they need to protect their own private world. 

And the sooner we can sort of pop that and just – it’s okay that they’re talking to someone on Snapchat or whatever, or even Roblox or whatever it is. Just like, you know, in the 1980s, when I was a teenager, or in the 1990s, you know, people had phones in their rooms and the teenagers may not have come out for several hours as they were talking on the phone. We didn’t quite have the setup we have now, but this need to talk with your peers and hang out and connect is not new and it’s not bad. For sure, it is absolutely healthy. 

So my conversation starters are kinda lame and basic but it’s more just being honest and real and talking with your children about what they’re doing and what they want to do and maybe once in a while – and this is where you gotta be careful here – what they’re not doing. Because if they’re spending so much time on Roblox or down in the basement playing Xbox, are they practicing their instrument? Do they even have an instrument, a musical instrument? Are they going out for that sport? Are they doing other things throughout middle school and high school, or is the digital devices really the primary focus of their recreational life?

[Kris Perry]: I really love the way you reframed asking them about their friendships, asking them about who they’re interacting with in a curious, caring way, because that is such an important part of adolescence, or even early or middle childhood, is building those friendships. And I think that can be a way to do it, is by asking who they’re interacting with and how’s that going? 

You’ve been advocating for safer digital devices for children, which is also a passion of mine, you can probably tell. Can you describe that work beyond the co-parent mode you talked about earlier? And include in that, if you could, what needs to be changed? What kinds of settings or tools do you think are most important that device and software designers should be including to better account for child safety and healthy digital media use?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: So let me start by saying that this isn’t just about parenting, that this is a public health issue – public health moment where I’m not the first or last, I hope, to say this, but the setup of these phones, these adult devices that we are handing to our children – young children and older children alike – are designed for adults. And so the defaults for most of these devices – not all of them, some of the “dumb,” quote-unquote, “dumb” phones that you referenced earlier, already are doing aspects of this. Not the phones that most people have, but there is an industry that I’m not the first to suggest this. But basically the default setup of, “Parents have to figure out, scratch their head and dig into the settings to scramble to turn features off,” is completely backwards. No other setup is that way in our world. As I mentioned, driving a car, swimming in the deep end, you know, the default is you start with something much more basic, much more manageable, and then you go up from there. And so my recommendation, my advocacy really centers around flipping that script very specifically for the phones that most people have, because 90%, 88% of teenagers have iPhones. And yet that default is an adult device and parents have to scramble to turn the features off. 

So my recommendation, my starter iPhone, I call it “iOS Grow,” because really what needs to happen in my non-tech opinion is that there needs to be a different, basic iOS operating system for phones – iPhones in particular, because that’s what most families that I know want and kids want – where the features are turned on by the caring parent, not out-of-the-box on. And so therefore the parent, in stages, can turn more and more features on. Some of that is built in now, but it’s so glitchy and flawed in my opinion and can be relatively, easily fixed. And I had a very good conversations with Apple this summer and I thought we were collaborating well. And unfortunately they have encouraged me to get people to give feedback to them. That they want to hear from their customers – Apple customers, iPhone families – “Is this important to families?” is basically what they said to me, even though I think it’s pretty obvious that it is.

[Kris Perry]: The world of parenting is changing so quickly with the pace of tech development today as we’ve been talking about in so many ways. What is the one thing or piece of advice you wish all parents knew that would help children lead healthy lives in a digital world?

[Dr. Adam Pletter]: I’ll start by reminding parents that the staged approach is true for most aspects of family life. And that the digital world, even though it feels so very intense and different, is not. That we still have as parents the same goal as 50 years ago, 100 years ago – I don’t know, 500 years ago, I would imagine – for parents to raise healthy, functioning, safe as long as possible, future adults. That we are raising future adults in whatever world our children are going to be in. So with that as the basic premise, I’m reminding parents not to overthink this. When there’s a concern – and there could be, very likely in many, many families – this setup is concerning because our world is really concerning. It feels very concerning, at least to me, in these last several years in particular. And our kids are growing up in this, what feels like, very overwhelming, scary world. And so I’m reminding parents that the basic setup of offering your child access to more of the adult world in stages like every other parenting decision is the way to go.

[Kris Perry]: Back to basics. We love our kids. We want them to be happy and healthy adults, and we are gonna do everything we can to invest in that future. 

Thank you so much to Dr. Adam Pletter for joining us and sharing his practical, clinic-informed guidance. As we heard today, phone readiness is about skills and support, not just age. Family media plans can set expectations that grow with kids, and parental controls work best as scaffolding to the ongoing conversation parents and children have over long periods of time about media and phone use, not as complete solutions. If you enjoyed today’s episode, follow Screen Deep and visit ChildrenandScreens.org for resources and upcoming conversations. Until next time, I’m Kris Perry. Thanks for listening.