Is my child ready for a phone?
Readiness is not one yes or no, and no quiz can score a child out of ten. A phone is a dozen separate things, and a child can be ready for some of them and not others on the same afternoon. So this asks eight questions and tells you three things instead: what is reasonable to open now, which conversation is missing, and what arrives next.
Why this isn't a score
A readiness score has to compress a dozen different decisions into one number, and the number then has to be wrong about most of them. A ten-year-old who can be trusted to tell you when something goes wrong, and who has never thought about what a sent photo does after it is sent, is ready for one thing and not the other. Both facts are useful. Their average is not.
So the unit here is the capability, not the child: texting people on their list, sending a photo, games with chat, open video, a social account. Each one opens on a date, each one has a reason you can say out loud, and some have a conversation to do first.
The conversations, and what each one covers
These are the nine in the plan. They are not tests, there is no score, and a child cannot fail one. Each one is attached to the thing it prepares for, which is why the order matters more than the timing.
Short
Whose phone is this?
- The phone is on loan and becomes yours in steps
- What the plan is and what it isn't
- What happens when something goes wrong: you say it, you're not in trouble for saying it
Comes before: Texting people on your list
Full conversation
Sending a photo
- A sent photo doesn't come back
- Photos of other people are their business too
- Photos of your body: who asks, why the answer is no, and that asking is the adult's fault not yours
- Screenshots exist
Comes before: Sending photos to your list
Full conversation
Someone you don't know
- How a stranger opens a conversation — in messages and in games
- Friendliness is not proof of anything
- Someone who asks you to keep a secret from your parents
- You can stop answering. You don't owe anyone a reply
- Telling an adult early is not snitching and not trouble
Comes before: Texting anyone who has your number, Games with chat and other players
Full conversation
Looking things up
- Content you didn't go looking for, and what to do with it
- Scams aimed at kids: free things, giveaways, game currency
- Why a filter isn't a promise
Comes before: Filtered web
Full conversation
How the feed decides
- Why the next video is always ready
- What the feed learns from you and what it does with it
- Comments: the room is bigger than it looks
- Noticing when you've been watching longer than you meant to
Comes before: Open video
Full conversation
Permissions and paying
- What an app is asking for when it asks for your camera, mic, contacts or location
- In-app purchases, game currency and how the price is hidden
- Free isn't free: what an app takes instead of money
Comes before: Installing your own apps
Full conversation
Groups
- Being added, being removed, and what both mean
- Screenshots leave the group
- Piling on: what it looks like from inside
- Leaving a group is allowed
Comes before: Group chats
Full conversation
Being visible to people you don't know
- Comparison: what a feed is selected for
- Permanence: what stays after you delete it
- Privacy settings you'll set together, and what each one actually does
- Who can message you, and turning that off
Comes before: One social platform, chosen together
Short
What follows you
- What a person can find out about you in ten minutes
- Old accounts you forgot about
Comes before: A second platform
The four house rules
Separate from the ladder, and they start on day one whatever the child's age. Three are about the phone; the fourth is what keeps the other three honest.
- The phone doesn't sleep in the bedroom
- Off during school hours
- No phones at the table (applies to the adults too)
- Telling us is never the thing that gets you in trouble (applies to the adults too)
Why these four and not fifteen: first phone rules.
What this does with your answers
Nothing leaves your browser. There is no account, no email box, and nothing is written into the web address or into your browser's storage — close the tab and the answers are gone. The result is worked out on your own device from the same plan data the agreement generator uses, so the two cannot disagree. How this site handles data.