iPad and Texting for kids
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What's your starting age for letting kids text? Our 9yo has an older ipad so she could facetime Grandparents and text cousins that live in another state. A few months ago she got a hold of her friends numbers and now they have a texting group of gals. It's innocent and harmless, but I can see it creating a jealousy in my daughter. They create videos (GRWM) and showing their skin care routines, etc. I can see she is struggling that some have nicer things or things she does not have or she didn't get invited to someone's house, etc. We're struggling as we know technology is a part of their future, but we weren't ready for her to be texting with friends yet. Curious to know other thougths! Thanks in advance!
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It’s so hard! My 10 year old got an iPad for Christmas and has some group chats with girlfriends. I didn’t allow anything this early for my older two. She has no access to safari or social media and I monitor it regularly. It’s a cute way for them to stay in touch but I can also see where it could hurt feelings if someone feels left out. Mine doesn’t do skincare yet, but I know a bunch of her friends do. Seems so early to me! All things on technology are always a great way to teach responsibility with it. I talk often with all of my kids about screenshots and gossip and things living forever. I don’t have the right answer for you, but just wanted to say I feel ya, bc it’s SO hard!
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Hey! It’s such a battle for us parents! I have 2 teenagers and I so wish I had waited longer to let them have phones and text. They both got phones when they turned 13 and even that felt too early. I’d try to hold off until high school honestly because my older daughter got herself into some trouble with her phone in middle school and now that she’s in high school I feel like she can better handle the phone and social media (although I wish none of it existed)
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It is hard! We don’t do phones until 8th grade but our oldest started texting on her iPad when she was in 4th or 5th. Sometimes it was hard to feel left out of group chats or hang outs. But she was getting such a large volume of texts and only was allowed on the iPad for short times that she started wildly deprioritizing reading and engaging in texts. Also she became really busy with dance and that helped too. I do know some parents adopted the rule of no group texts. Which I think eliminates a lot of the left out feelings
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@Green-Parrot I LOVE the no group texts rule!!! That feels like it eliminates a lot of issues. Just feels so noisy, it's hard enough getting left out of actual get togethers. Do we need to get left out of group chats in 4th grade too??
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WAIT WAIT WAIT. My older daughter got on a group text and her "need" to reply constantly created such angst in her. It was so odd. She felt like if she didn't reply or she was a horrible friend. We also experienced bullying and once it started, it was impossible to stop. UGH. I would avoid it if you can...and limit it to family only.
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I agree with many of the people who responded saying Wait, Wait, Wait as long as you can. There is so much research out there now on the long term addictive effects of cell phone, social media etc.
if you are feeling off about doubt about it follow your gut.
