The winter gift…

….that reclaims the right to a rich, active childhood.

You might have been intrigued this week by the news of a social media ban for under 16s in Australia. It’s made me wish this had happened a decade ago here in Europe.

We’ve been painfully slow to shake off the tech-optimism of the early 2000s and wake up to the dark side of a child or young adult having instant, unfiltered internet access - and to the fact that four tech giants (Tik Tok, Meta, Google and Snapchat) effectively own our children’s time, their minds and, by extension, their mental health. But now we know.

In some ways, we’re too late; the figures of child phone ownership are astonishing. In the UK, one in four children aged 3-4 now has their own mobile, many of them a smartphone. By the age of 12, mobile ownership is almost universal. Spain is thought to be similar.

Why do parents give children mobiles?

The reason most frequently quoted is safety; for parents to keep in touch when their child is out of the house. In the last two decades, we have been caught up in a transformative change in our attitude to society: strangers pose danger and children out alone are seconds away from disaster. Safer then, to keep them in their bedrooms, busy on a device.

So if safety is parents’ main requirement, what are our options?

A dumbphone for Christmas

As the season for winter gifts approaches, I've shelved my usual book suggestions. Instead, I've been inspired by a great video created by Smartphone Free Childhood, the growing parent-run organisation that campaigns for children to be protected from the premature use of smartphones. The video (see below) introduces us to some newly-launched mobile phones for children and young adults. 

None of them a smartphone; none of them has algorithms.

These ‘dumbphones’ are classified into starter phones for younger children and follow-on phones for older children and teens. What they all have in common is that they are safe by design; they all have in-built parental controls and no social media can be installed on them. However, their smartest move might be that they have been cannily designed to appeal to a child or teen; these mobiles don't shout ‘child device’ and might even be considered by young users to ‘vibe.’

Starter phones for children

The very simplest have no phone number associated with them but simply allow a child to make or receive calls, or to send or hear voice notes. Much like a 5G walkie-talkie, but one that will work wherever your child goes. More sophisticated starter phones might have a game or two pre-installed; they’re often brightly coloured; some have flip-lids, which children seem to like.

And to return to the main concern raised by parents, many of these mobiles have GPS so you can track your child when s/he is out of the house.

Follow-on phones

For older children, the phones are slimmer, may have an attractive metallic finish and even a camera. However, they continue to have in-built parental controls, no internet browser or access, no blue light to interfere with sleep patterns, and no access to social media. 

Respite for The Anxious Generation

Children as young as 4 are starting to see mobile ownership as their right. Are these dumbphones a good middle path? 

If they allow children to speak to friends and relatives, to play one or two safe games, and perhaps to listen to music, they could buy us back a precious few years of childhood. 

By removing the dark impact of internet exposure on a child, could dumbphones slow, and even reverse, the surge in anxiety and mental health issues in our young people?

A return to collective parenting

We’re all familiar with the pressures. As working parents, we often welcome the hand-held device as a saviour; it buys us a little time to finish work, then shop, travel home, quickly straighten a chaotic house, cook, feed the family, etc. A silent child after an exhausting working day can be irresistible. 

The reprieve provided by this brief pause in daily childcare coupled with our twenty-first century mistrust of strangers (Jonathan Haidt’s ‘decline of community’) has also pushed our children into the home and onto their phones. But together we can reclaim collective parenting. Not perhaps in the old village sense, or as in the extended family of the past. 

Instead, parents can consciously form small collectives, groups of adults bound together by their child’s class at school, for example, forming a pact with those parents: to delay smartphones for the children in our care until they are 16. 

I wish dumbphones had been around a decade ago, for my own children and for all the young adults I know who can’t now envisage life without the internet in their pocket, day and night. It's an addiction that impoverishes in so many ways. Perhaps owning a slightly dull phone will lure our children back to the wonder and spontaneity of outdoor play, or to the joy chance encounter with a friend in the street. 

But if you’re considering giving one to your child this Christmas, probably best not to call it a ‘dumbphone’ when s/he's around.

Watch the video with details of names and prices of each safety phone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF2LHiOPm7M

Find out more about Smartphone Free Childhood

https://www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/

Audrey Reeder, November 2025