I don't think enough parents have internalized that if they're the "I don't let my teenager have a phone" parent in 2026, that also means they're the "I don't let my teenager have friends" parent.

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kraquepype 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's a line to toe - each kid is different, but with my daughter she went from a flip phone in middle school, to a smart phone in high school.

We didn't turn on mobile data for her smart phone (hand me down pixel) until about a year ago.

She is very responsible with it and it hasn't been much of an issue. She had no problems making friends, and if her phone was filtering shallow people out her friend pool a bit that probably wasn't a bad thing.

Now, my oldest son is dying to have a smartphone but really he just wants to use it as a tablet. I installed lineageOS on an old D821/Nexus5 and it can run some mobile games, and we have a chromebook.

We'll try the same flip phone in middle-school route for him. It fulfills the basic needs of emergency contact, and is a good test of responsibility with lower stakes.

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obviouslynotme 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a symptom of not encouraging children into extracurricular activities. If all you have to bond over is social media, your friendship is empty. That's how you create terminally-online, mentally ill people. Everyone needs third spaces like sports, scouts, music, church, clubs, and the like. They get you out of your house and head and surround you with people who share similar interests.

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john_strinlai 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

my kid's extracurricular activity groups like to chat outside of club-time, too. being the only one of the group not able to do so would be ostracizing.

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obviouslynotme 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I understand deeply. My parents delayed my driver's license until I was 17 because of financial tightness at the time, and that distanced me from some of my friends at the time. You know what I gained from that? I got to see who my real friends were, and even more importantly, I learned that not all friends are the same in a visceral way. I learned how to confront my parents in a way to communicate my viewpoint in a way they could understand. We learned together how to compromise and renegotiate our entire relationship, helping transition from child/parent to adult/parent.

You have two jobs as a parent: create a safe environment for your children and prepare them for the adult world that is wildly unsafe. Unfortunately, these two goals are both required and contradictory. A line must be walked. Too much deviation to one side or the other will cause severe problems.

That line cannot be prescribed. It's different for each child, but there's a big problem with how you put your point. You aren't trying to prepare the child for a dangerous and difficult world, you are trying to protect them in a different way, minimizing the other dangers. I completely understand. It hurts to see your child hurt. All you want to do is make the pain go away.

Instead of helping them avoid the pain of learning about relationships, you should guide them. Help them understand. They won't at first. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum that you won't let them stick objects in wall outlets, parents have to be the "bad guy" from time to time. Eventually, the toddler will grow up enough so that you can explain dangers to them and you won't have to do it for that thing anymore. The same applies here. They won't understand at first. Help them understand the dangers. When they do, you can teach them how to safely use the metaphorical wall outlet. Then you don't have to be the bad guy anymore.

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4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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john_strinlai 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

this comment has a lot of assumptions about me and my children, based off of two very short sentences.

	▲	obviouslynotme 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're right. If you think you are walking that line for each of your children, then you are the authority. It's just a common argument I hear from parents who want to avoid feeling bad, so I did make some assumptions.

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anthk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My extracurricular activities were full of nerds (martial arts) with Play Stations and internet at home. So, as an owner of no inet or a console at home was pretty much hell from 2001 to 2005. Oh, and no cell phone until ~18.

The outcome? Really shitty social skills until I hit 27 or so. My dad really regreted what it did, and my mom become aware on how utterly shitty was to let a nerdy kid disconnected from their peers.

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lukan 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If .. many parents would do this (like you imply), then there would be many kids without a phone who can be friends with each other?

Also I doubt the "not being able to have friend without a phone" in general. But surely harder in most areas.

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mystifyingpoi 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My gut reaction was "well, you can give them a phone, just lock down tiktok and other crap" but then I was thinking "well, in the end that doesn't matter in practice, they can buy a used device from a friend for pocket money and hiding it from me will be trivial", so... it all comes down to my relationship with the kid. Nothing else will work.