Caving To The In Crowd - Us. Not them.

MAKE PARENTING DECISIONS EASIER

At the end of the school year, several parents huddled around whispering (and not whispering) about their anxiety surrounding the next seemingly scary level: middle school.

My ears perked up because I hoped to quell any mean girl fears or help answer homework load questions as a middle school veteran. Except the topic wasn't about either of these things. It was about the dreaded smartphone.

Here's the twist. It wasn't about IF their child should have a phone but rather WHEN they should get one. As though it's a given that their 5th or 6th grader will get a phone, which, to be fair, seems to be the case. But it doesn't have to be this way.

I popped my head into the group and shared what I consider an excellent piece of advice a mom of high schoolers once gave me.

"Get them a phone when YOU need them to have a phone."

Brilliant, yes? Except I was met with looks of utter shock and with one of the worst arguments in the history of parenting a tween… "it'll be social suicide!" Quickly followed by other equally weak arguments of "they'll be the ONLY ones without a phone!"

Here's the deal, both of these arguments (plus 813 others) are all fair to point out, but the reason any of them exist today is that somewhere in the past, parents started saying yes. Sure, we didn't know about the addictive nature of smartphones, much less the apps that reinforce the addiction, but now we do, and it's time to shift gears.

I know. I get it. Saying no 67 times to the same question while deflecting the exasperated eye rolls and lumberjack-like stomping from your kid feels impossible. Caving is often so much easier!

Only we aren't merely caving into this demand at this moment; we're setting a precedent for future demands with the same child or a younger sibling. In short, the answer we give today affects our future sanity.

But most of us fail to see we are also setting the stage for other parents to cave.

Every time we decide it's easier to let our kids play first-person shooter games or watch 13 Reasons without trusting our gut (or the research), we are inadvertently giving into and giving strength to peer pressure — Ours, not theirs.

Parenting is crazy hard. Harder than any of us imagined. But these new "wants" aren't actually new. Just new to us. Our parents went through it by way of Guess jeans and Game Boys. Our parents said yes or no. There were tears (OMG. The purple Guess jeans were the ticket to the social elite!) and possibly some swearing (wait, just in our home? Have I mentioned I was a difficult child?), but somehow we made it through okay. We survived despite our parent's wicked ways.

Life is moving at breakneck speed, and there are a zillion decisions to make at any given moment. Being heckled by an 8-year-old or, worse, a 15-year-old only adds to the pressure to make choices on the fly, and often it's far easier to say yes than it is to try and justify a no, especially when they wear on you.

Here's a cheat sheet to help you navigate your children's future attempts to get you to cave.

Memorize a quick response designed to buy you time to research, discuss, and decide. For example, "Interesting idea, let's talk about it Saturday morning. I need to think about it."

Whether it's Fortnite, Instagram, or an iPhone, you know your values and your child. Don't make a decision based on what the rest of the parenting world is doing.

Remember, the hard part isn't the decision. The hard part is dealing with your child's reaction to the decision. Especially when we find ourselves swimming in more complex questions such as how am I going to pay for college or the less involved but more frequent, what am I going to make for dinner?

Don't cave. Do the work. Stay true to yourself and your family.

When you say yes, it'll be for the right reasons. And when you say no, you'll be helping other parents down the line, and we thank you.

P.S. We found a workaround to the smartphone and tween dilemma. We now have a cheapo phone designated as our "family phone" that our middle schooler can use as needed (text friends to set up his own playdates or bring to soccer practice to call when he's done). The rules around this phone are unambiguous. It is a family phone for calls and texts only. It. Is. Not. His. Phone. When he's older and has earned his own phone, we will gift it to him. This satisfied all of our needs, and so far, it's working!