The worst decision you can make for your young kids

A group of concerned parents have banded together to start a movement aimed at letting kids have a 'normal' childhood again.

Joel Erickson

5 min read

July 4, 2024 - 11:57AM

Growing online community of parents seeks to delay teenage access to social media

Family Life

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Jessica Mendoza-Roth was having dinner with friends during a trip to the United States when the topic of cell phones came up.

Jessica has three young children, and was already nervous about the potential impacts a smartphone could have on their developing brains.

It was during that conversation she heard about Wait Until 8th, an American-based movement encouraging parents to not give their children smartphones until the end of eighth grade, or the end of middle school.

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That movement has more than 60,000 parents involved, and is backed by Silicon Valley tech executives who don’t want their own kids accessing smartphones too early.

It piqued Jessica’s interest, and she went about asking how she could bring a similar movement to Australia.

“I asked them about opening up to Australia, but we ended up developing our own distinctively Australian pledge,” she said.

The amount of primary school students with smartphones continues to increase across the country. Picture: iStock

"It's important to delay smartphone use"

The pledge? Wait Mate, which had a soft launch last week and has already seen more than 1000 Aussie parents ‘sign up’.

It got off the ground thanks to the work of its five co-founders: The aforementioned Jessica and her husband Daniel Mendoza-Jones, Amy and Ricky Friedlander, and Davina Berger,

All five have primary-school aged children, and are united in wanting to let their kids have a ‘normal’ childhood.

“We’re all like-minded parents who all want to protect our children from the negative effects of smartphones while they’re still so young,” Jessica said.

“We banded together to establish the incorporated association Wait Mate, and we’ve had such amazing support so far.”

“The seed of this was sown about a year ago,” Amy said.

“In the past year the landscape has rapidly changed, and there’s been a huge amount of progress in these areas (smartphone use) that’s led to a perfect tipping point in the timing - everyone is incredibly receptive to these messages.

“We’re having to do a lot less convincing of people that it’s important to delay smartphone use for their kids.”

Jessica Mendoza-Roth and Amy Friedlander, two of the co-founders of Wait Mate. Picture: Supplied

"You're not the only one missing out"

Taking the pledge is simple. Parents can visit waitmate.org.au, click the black button that says ‘Take the Pledge’, fill in some details, and that’s it.

Once 10 parents from the same year at the same school have signed the pledge, they’ll be given the names of the other children whose parents have also signed.

“When your child asks you why can’t they have a smartphone, you can say to them, ‘well, you’re not the only one who doesn’t have one’,” Jessica said.

“We don’t want to give you a smartphone, but all of your friends also don’t have one, so you’re not the only one missing out.”

"This is peer pressure in one of its worst forms"

Amy said her oldest daughter had just gone into Year 4 at school, and smartphones were already becoming a “hot topic” of conversation.

“The first two or three kids in her friendship group got smartphones, and it’s starting to create this big discussion,” she said.

“The children who don’t yet have smartphones are using their parents' phones to chat with their friends, and it kind of feels unstoppable.

“Even for parents who want to delay, they’ve found it really hard particularly if their kid is the only one who doesn’t have a smartphone.

“You definitely get people online saying to ‘just parent them’, but we are good parents, and this is more about peer pressure in one of its worst forms.”

The Wait Mate movement is backed by Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who recently penned a book called The Anxious Generation linking alarming mental health trends in children with a phone-based childhood.

“The new phone-based childhood is making young people sick and blocking their progress from flourishing in adulthood,” he said.

“Delaying a child’s access to a smartphone is the single best parenting strategy in the modern age.

“We need a dramatic cultural correction, and we need it now.”

The co-founders were inspired by a similar movement in the US. Picture: Supplied

"Smartphone-free primary schools should be the norm"

Looking forward, the team isn’t aiming for a specific number of pledges by a certain date, they just hope to be at the forefront of a social change where kids are allowed to be kids again.

“We want primary schools to see the appetite from their parent body, and therefore change their policies to say they’re smartphone-free schools,” Amy said.

“Success will look like smartphone-free primary schools being the norm rather than the exception.

“As the landscape shifts, people will realise they can still make arrangements for their kids, they can still socialise, and they can still have a healthy life without a smartphone.”

“We want people to see that the cool thing to do is delay giving a child a smartphone,” Jessica said.

“We appreciate that up until now the easiest thing to do has been to give your kids the old smartphone in the bottom drawer, but we hope parents will think twice about doing that.

“Actually go out and buy a ‘dumbphone’ that doesn’t have all the addictive features and allow your child to have a play-based childhood they deserve.”

While Wait Mate is just the pledge at the moment, the team is also working on resources for parents who have given their children smartphones to help them limit their children’s usage.

“Because we’re at the beginning of change, we risk making parents feel ashamed or guilty if they’ve already given their kids a device, but that’s not our intention at all,” Amy said.

“We’re not here to judge parents or tell them they’ve done the wrong thing, because the reality is it’s been virtually impossible for school parents to hold off.”

To make the pledge, click here.