The pressure to have a smartphone is real – and that pressure is coming on our families with children at a younger and younger age.
Now two Forbes mums are starting the Phone Free Forbes Alliance so families can support each other in saying no – and in ensuring their kids still have a creative, play-based childhood.
They’re willing to sign a public pledge that they will hold off giving their kids smartphones until the end of at least Year 8 and welcoming other parents to join them.
Cherie Stitt and Wendy Baker have long been mindful of their own phone use, and their children are reaching ages where they’re becoming aware of the expectations kids have about access to technology.
They’re feeling the pressure.
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But the sisters have realised they don’t have to give into it – and they want other parents and young people to know they don’t have to either.
As a high school teacher, Wendy particularly has observed the rising number of young people with phones from Year 7 or even younger and the increasing attachment to them.
Cherie and Wendy both understand the motivation for parents to feel their children can contact them – to alert them that training’s cancelled and they need picking up, just as one example.
But they’re more concerned about the harm children are vulnerable to through their phones.
Reading Jonathon Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, which looks at the plunge in adolescent mental health in the early 2010s, crystallised their concerns.
They heard about America’s “Wait until 8th” and then found the Australian Heads Up Alliance.
They’re launching a Forbes alliance under that national banner and they would love to share the resources and information with more local families.
As Wendy and Cherie have raised the topic with other parents, they’ve found they’re not alone in their concerns, or in their reluctance to hand their child a smart phone with all it can do.
“Everyone has been really supportive of the idea, I don’t think anyone feels great about giving their 12-year-old a phone,” Wendy said.
“We brought it up at a school P and F meeting and that’s where we really committed,” Cherie said.
“We got an amazing response from parents with older kids, who have already given their kids devices.”
But Wendy and Cherie don’t just want to withhold phones, they want to provide families with resources and to provide spaces for connections.
“We don’t want our kids to miss out on social lives, so we’re saying it’s up to us to continue a social life for our kids that’s phone free,” Cherie said.
“We’re not giving the power over to the phone, we’ll have to keep parenting.”
The more children in their age group who don’t have a phone, the more they’ll be driven to find ways to continue to connect.
“We’re big on getting that support for us, for our kids,” Cherie said.
They know it won’t be easy, especially where kids have already had a lot of access to devices or even already had a smartphone.
“We’ve got to support each other,” Wendy said.
Wendy, who has just completed her Masters in Child Play Therapy, points out the ‘opportunity cost’ of screens and how they are interfering with richer childhood experiences.
“Play is essential in childhood for healthy social and emotional development,” she said.
“Phones are like a blocker to that experience.
“Every minute they spend scrolling, is a minute they’re not spending doing something else… they are not playing outside, they’re not making up a game, they’re not drawing or reading or chatting to their friends and family. And that’s what kids really need.”
The Phone Free Alliance wants to shift our local culture away from the expectation that kids will have smart phones.
“We’re getting back to a creative, play-based childhood with real life connections,” Cherie said.
The Heads Up Alliance presented to the 2024 Parliamentary Committee on Social Media earlier this year, and Danny Elachi painted a sobering picture of the impact of increasing technology use.
"We know that social media is distracting our children, addicting them, depressing them, exhausting them, inducing anxiety in them, isolating them, crushing their self-esteem, serving them x-rated content, facilitating predation, scandalising them, radicalising them, bullying them, sleep-depriving them, preying on their specific vulnerabilities, driving them to self-harm and in some cases even to suicide,” he said.
“Let's lift the minimum social media age, back it up by the force of law, put the onus back on the social media companies to ensure compliance.”
The organisation's submission to the committee stated parents couldn’t wait years for the perfect solution to materialize.
"Even if such a law were entirely unenforceable, it would still be worth having on the books,” he said of the social media ban to be considered by parliament.
“It would send an unmistakeable signal to parents and children: social media for tweens and young teens is hazardous.
“It would represent a new norm, a paradigm shift, and may be all the ammunition a parent needs to win this battle: “sorry Pete, don’t look at me, Albo called it, it’s against the law”.
“We can then work in real time to improve our enforcement mechanisms and address valid privacy concerns.”
Wendy and Cherie are ready to act, and to provide support for other families to do the same.
“We want to be clear it’s no judgement,” Wendy said.
“I don’t blame parents for giving their kids smartphones, I don’t blame kids for being addicted to them.
“But the tech companies aren’t going to do anything about it so we have to look after each other.”
For more information and to make the pledge, email forbesphonefreealliance@gmail.com (this is a social media free initiative!)
