My five-year-old daughter asked me last week when she could have her own phone. It was a question posed with a quiet confidence, as if requesting a new colouring book.
My wife and I, like many parents, use our phones far too much. Whilst we have banned them from the dining table and the bedroom, the reality is that the rest of the waking day, they are ever-present.
Lighting up throughout the evening, interrupting conversations and distracting us from whatever task is at hand. Our daughter has simply noticed what adults do and assumed it must be something worth doing.
When I was her age, the family phone was just that, a phone. It was plugged into a wall at home in our hallway, and that was about as exciting as it got. Today, phones are everywhere and everything: an alarm clock, a camera, a diary, a newspaper, and an entertainment system. They are both our link to the world and, increasingly, the wall between us and it.
So, when my daughter asks for a phone, she is not craving the technology. She is craving participation. She sees adults absorbed by their screens and senses that is where life happens. She wants to belong.
Cllr Geoff Cooper (Image: Supplied)
It is easy to sigh about "kids today", but the truth is they are learning from us. We fret about social media and its effect on young minds, but it is our habits, the half-attentive nods, the quick glances at incoming messages and emails that are setting the example.
That is partly why I recently signed the Smartphone-Free Childhood Parent Pact, a campaign encouraging parents to delay giving their children a basic phone until secondary school, a smartphone until they are at least 14, and to keep them off social media until they are 16.
The pact is not about banning tech or turning back time; it's about giving children more of what really matters: time, connection, and freedom to be kids. The hope is that if more parents stand together, fewer children will feel left out, as they will not be the only ones without a phone.
Studies are clear enough on the subject; excessive screen time correlates with anxiety, poor sleep, and diminished attention spans. Yet the greater cost is harder to quantify. The sense of being present in the moment, the loss of boredom, the ability to entertain oneself and the quiet times in which imagination once flourished.
Saying no to a five-year-old when she asks for a phone was relatively easy. For now, at least, she accepted the answer graciously. However, those conversations will become more difficult as she gets older.
Perhaps the most responsible thing I can do for her now is not just to delay her first phone, but to change how I use mine. To look up more often, to listen fully, and to ensure that I show her that the world beyond the screen is richer, livelier, and infinitely more interesting than the one inside it.
If we want our children to rediscover the value of being present, we will all need to lead by example, because signing up to the Smartphone-Free Childhood Parent Pact is not just about adding your email address to the list; it is about setting an example for our children to follow.
By Geoff Cooper