[richrichardsson]

> With the social pressure going on, I expect she'll get a smartphone earlier that I'd honestly prefer (not that we are there any time soon), and quite a bit before she's a teenager.

Our kids (8 & 10) keep telling us nearly every kid in their class has a smartphone, but we're still not letting them have one. Fuck social pressure; that's an important lesson to be learned in itself.

[v-erne]

I do not understand how anyone can be so categoric about this - it should not depend on peer pressure but also it should not be dictated by some ideologies. Phones (instant communication actually) is part of modern world and is here to stay and children should learn it as fast as they are able to handle it. Otherwise there is a danger of being left out for them. And at their age there is few other equal things that can make or break their future as being accepted by their peers. And of course not all children are the same so you need to know yours and decide on case by case basis (my dauther got her first phone when she was 9, my son on the other hand will have to wait)

[lolinder]

> And at their age there is few other equal things that can make or break their future as being accepted by their peers.

Hard disagree to this idea as justification for purchasing something for a kid.

The most useful gift that my parents gave me is a cultivated disregard for what is popular. It's not that I go out of my way to alienate my peers—I try to get along well with everyone and it mostly works—but the habit of wanting to participate with the crowd is one that I've watched hamper many a life, and the lack of that habit has allowed me to get a lot further in my career and in my personal and social life than most of my peers.

[v-erne]

I'm guessing you are in software dev or something auxiliary to it? And probably you were passable in STEM topics at school?

Then maybe, just maybe, your whole career is just happy accident of right time (software eating world) and right predispositions (STEM). I know mine is.

And if I would not have that I would be earning what 85% of my peers here in Poland do (barely enough to pay bills).

The only ones that are doing ok without this are the ones that invested everything in social skills (by happy accident of not having socially akward parents or by themselfs intuitively knowing that your group is everything).

So this is just implementation of my deepest believe that the best what we can do for our children is to make them as socially sklled as possibile. And limiting channels of communication does not look like a good way to this.

Of course Im not advocating unlimited access to everything for everyone - it depends on emotional development and predispositions.