It’s too easy for our children of any age to open a social media account.  While all social platforms have an age restriction, there’s no requirement to provide proof of age.  So, let’s change that by making the social media companies responsible for policing their age restrictions.  Recently Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that will ban under-14s from social media  – and will remove any existing under-14 accounts from social media platforms.  Any platform violating these rules will have to pay a fine of up to $50,000 – a great way to put pressure on these companies, hit them where it hurts. 

Locally, what can we do? Daisy Greenwell co-founded Smartphone Free Childhood in the UK, which exploded in February 2024 with over 10,000 new members and counting, in regional groups across the UK.  Daisy was inspired by a phone call from a teacher who plans to turn his network of 25 primary schools across the South West into smartphone-free schools by only allowing retro-style phones, no smartphones, and to make it a part of the uniform policy.

Author and Rites for Girls founder, Kim McCabe says: “It is possible to create a smartphone-free culture and to hold firm despite pushback from our youngsters.  Now that smartphones have become such a generally accepted feature of our children’s lives, this will certainly take resolve, but parents are uniting as recognition is growing for the need to protect our children better.  Parents and teachers can take a stand and lead the way.   First, we check our own smartphone use.  We cannot ask children not to do what we are doing.  For the adults: no phones at mealtimes, or in classrooms, phones left downstairs at bedtime, apps installed to limit social media use.  First, we reduce our addiction; we model healthy phone use, and only then can we insist that our children follow our lead.   ’Social media breaks’ and ’digital detoxes’ have been on the rise in recent years, as we all recognise how rarely we find our mood improved by time spent on social media and yet how hard it is to put down.”

“In addition to reducing time online, we also need to teach our children how to be healthy online.  Just as we taught our children road safety, we must walk alongside them in the digital world too.  So, again, first we need to learn how to do this ourselves.  Preparing our children for a digital world has become part of our parenting job.  While we want to keep them away from the destructive effects of social media for as long as possible while they’re young, we also need to prepare them for living with it as they grow up.  It’s not all bad.  We want them to have access, in as healthy a way possible, to the huge potential for learning, connection, and power to effect change.  This is the adult’s role, to figure this out and be involved.  Luckily there’s lots of free guidance online for how.  Together we can do this.”

“Then look out for smartphone-free zones for your children.  You can’t play football and scroll, you can’t be at drama club, or play in the garden or park, or ride your bike and scroll.  At Rites for Girls our Girls Journeying Together groups are phone-free, and offer a safe place for girls to make friends, and learn what they need to know as they grow up to take care of their social, emotional and physical well-being.”