What age should a kid have a phone? What about a smartphone? What if all their friends already have one? Are you going to hold them back if you don’t let them have one? Are you going to be the bad guy? Is it futile to resist getting one anyway?!
Welcome to our column, A Letter To… Some of our most well-known Kiwis and everyday heroes pen letters about a topic close to their hearts. Some of their names you will know very well, while other’s are kept anonymous to protect the privacy of the subjects. Whether it is a letter to a specific someone, or a group of people, or simply an open letter to broach a difficult subject, each letter is very different, but all will share one common thread; they will all be written from the heart. You can read our other letters here.
This month Katrina Colombié, co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood New Zealand, talks us through the tricky world of smartphones and children – and why you don’t have to just give in and get your kid one. Here’s how to go about doing it though…
Dear Parents,
If you’ve ever found yourself hesitating before handing over a smartphone, lain awake wondering whether you’re overreacting or felt that flicker of unease and then told yourself, “Maybe this is just how it is now” … I want you to know something.
You are not imagining it, and you are not alone.
For years, we’ve been told that smartphones are inevitable, and resisting them is futile. That it’s simply the price of raising children in a digital world. We were handed devices without a rulebook, without long-term research, and without the benefit of hindsight, but now we have it.
New independent research has found that 22% of Kiwi teens now meet the criteria for problematic social media use, and more than a third are classified as “risky” users
That’s not a fringe issue, it’s not “just a few kids who can’t cope.” That is one in five.
Half of the teens surveyed said they were given access to social media too young, and nearly four in ten said they wished social media had never been invented.
Read that again.
For so long, the narrative has been that young people don’t want limits, and that they’d revolt if we dared to draw a line. But what this research shows is something far more human, that many of them feel caught too and many of them feel it happened too fast.
Perhaps most importantly, 61 percent said stepping back from social media would be easier if their friends did too.
That one statistic holds so much of the answer, because if we’re honest, part of the fear isn’t the device itself, it’s the isolation. You worry that saying no will mean your child is left out. That they’ll be the only one and that you’ll be “that parent.”
We understand that fear because we’ve felt it too.
That’s why the Parent Pact exists. Not as a rejection of technology, not as a moral panic, not as an attempt to rewind the world …but as an intentional pause. A voluntary move to consciously decide not to use smartphones until the age of 16 for your child’s short and long term benefit.
Childhood is a window. The developing brain is still wiring itself well into the mid-twenties. Impulse control, emotional regulation, sleep patterns, social confidence – these aren’t fixed traits; they’re still forming and smartphones, with their constant notifications, algorithmic pulls and exposure to adult content, interact directly with those developing systems.
We would never put a child behind the wheel of a car at ten. We wouldn’t hand them alcohol at twelve. Not because we reject driving or drinking, but because we recognise developmental readiness matters. But with smartphones, we’ve drifted into assuming earlier is better, or at least inevitable.
The truth is, many families who sign the Parent Pact describe something unexpected: relief.
Relief that they no longer have to argue alone. Relief that they can say, “We’re doing this together.” Relief that childhood can stretch a little longer – filled with space to breathe, reflect and create, time for real-world friendships, face-to-face awkwardness and proper sleep.
Since launching, more than 1,400 children across 221 schools have been signed onto the Pact and our new goal is 10,000 families shifting the norm collectively. Not through shame, not through force, but through solidarity.
This isn’t about perfect parenting, it’s about listening to the quiet voice inside you that says, “Something feels off.”
It’s about acknowledging that problematic smartphone and social media use is affecting a significant number of young people in this country and deciding we don’t have to wait for legislation to act, because this is affecting our kids today.
Yes, legislative change matters and stronger age limits are part of the broader conversation, but parents don’t have to sit on their hands while policy debates unfold.
You can choose to pause.
You can choose to delay.
You can choose to say, “Yes. But not yet.”
And when you do it alongside other families, you’re not isolating your child, you’re creating a new social norm. It’s one where childhood isn’t mediated through a screen, friendships form in real time, sleep isn’t interrupted by 2am notifications and mental health has breathing space.
If you are tired of being told this is just the way it is now, I gently offer you another possibility.
Maybe this is just the way it has been, and maybe, together, we can shift it together.
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About the Author:
Katrina Colombié is co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood New Zealand and who oversees SCFNZ’s Parent Pact – giving families a choice of delaying smartphone ownership to 14, 15 or 16 years of age.
You can read the full research commissioned by SFCNZ here or, find out more and sign onto SFCNZ’s Parent Pact here.
