My wife and I gave our daughter a phone for her 13th birthday. We want her to learn to use technology responsibly, and we decided the best way to do that was to let her start using it under our supervision. If we waited until she was much older, providing that supervision would be much harder—so we gave her the phone. We’re holding out on social media.
We try to be intentional about preparing our daughters to be out in the world on their own, but which lessons should we teach directly, and which should they discover through their own experience? What guardrails or safety mechanisms should we put in place so they can explore, learn, and grow while still staying safe? But not too safe? It’s tricky.
Giving my daughter a phone had an unintended consequence. I didn’t realize that my phone would never again be connected to the car when I was driving her around. No more of Dad’s Guided By Voices, Superchunk, Silkworm or other nostalgic ‘90s guitar bands.
On one multi-hour drive to a soccer to…
