Fill in four things and get an agreement you can both sign. Every rule comes with the reason behind it, every locked app has a date, and the supervision comes off on a schedule too.
Nothing is saved. Your child's name and birthday are used to draw the document in this browser and are not sent anywhere, not written into the address bar, and not stored on this device — close the tab and they are gone.
Check the law where you live before you sign the social media steps. Pick your country above and the plan will apply the legal minimum for you. In Australia a minimum age of 16 has been binding since 10 December 2025, and parental consent does not override it. The UK announced the same threshold in June 2026, expected in force Spring 2027.
Two copies is the usual thing: one for their room, one for the fridge.
Most phone contracts are a list of things a child may not do. This one has two halves, and the second half is the one that makes the first half bearable.
(Where familiar apps land on the ladder.) Every app and freedom that is currently locked has a date on it. Not "when you're older" — an actual date, in the document, signed by both of you. A child who knows group chats arrive on a specific birthday is in a different position from a child who has been told no indefinitely.
Each step carries the reason behind it, written to be read out loud. "Sending a photo is the first thing on this phone that can't be taken back" is an argument. "Because I said so" is not, and it is the thing that gets negotiated away at the kitchen table.
This is the half almost every other agreement leaves out. Checking contacts, approving apps, seeing group chats, the weekly summary, the night rule — each of those has an end date too. Supervision that never shrinks is the reason teenagers route around it.
The phone charging outside the bedroom is on the list, and where a rule applies to the adults as well, the document says so. A rule the grown-ups break in front of the child is not a rule. (Why these four rules and not fifteen.)
There is a section the child fills in: what they want from you about your own phone, about privacy, about how you ask. It is not decoration — an agreement only one side wrote is a notice.
Filters leak, other people's phones exist, and no plan survives contact with a determined eleven-year-old. Saying that inside the document is what makes the rest of it credible.
A written, discussed family media agreement is what paediatricians already recommend. The AAP publishes its own family media plan and tells parents to build one around their household's routines and talk it through with their kids. Common Sense Media says the same about first phones: "A family phone agreement helps set clear expectations."
What this generator adds is the half that is usually missing: dates on the things that are still locked, the reason next to each one, and an end date on the supervision.
You searched for a contract, so that is what this page is called — but the document says agreement, deliberately. A contract with a child is not legally binding anywhere, and language that implies otherwise ("you agree to indemnify…", "this may cause legal problems for your parents") is theatre at best.
What makes a family agreement work is not enforceability. It is that both sides signed something they actually read, and that the child got something in return for what they gave up.
Nobody knows, including us. The American Academy of Pediatrics says it plainly: "research doesn't point to one perfect age when kids are ready for a smart phone." On social media they suggest waiting until at least 13, then immediately add that "One 13-year-old may be ready for a social media account, but another 16-year-old may not be."
So the ladder is a starting point built to be argued with, not a standard to measure your family against. Change any date before you print. What matters more than the exact age is that the date exists, is written down, and does not move because of a good week or a bad one.
Not in the way most people think. Thirteen comes from COPPA, a US privacy rule that obliges operators to get parental consent before collecting data from under-13s — which is why platforms set 13 in their own terms rather than being ordered to. Common Sense Media puts it bluntly: "The age 13 rule isn't about online safety."
Two places have legislated a real minimum. Australia has required platforms to keep under-16s off since 10 December 2025, with no parental-consent exception. The UK announced the same in June 2026, expected in force Spring 2027 — announced, not yet law. Everything above those lines is judgement, including ours.
Yes, and that is the more common case. Tick the box above and the document opens by naming where you actually are instead of pretending it is day one. Nothing already given gets taken back in the process — that rule holds, because an agreement that starts by confiscating things does not get signed.
No. The document is assembled in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, nothing goes in the address bar, and nothing is stored — not even on this device. Close the tab and it is gone, which also means you should print or save before you do.
Print it and cross things out, or save as PDF and edit it. It is more useful as a starting point you argue with than as something handed down finished — and a clause your child watched you change is a clause they believe in.
Pages opened and checked on 20 September 2026. If one of these has changed, or we have read it wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
The agreement is the free half and it stays free. Rungs is the app that runs the plan afterwards: the child's phone only shows what has opened so far, locked apps sit in a slot that says what they are and when they arrive, and the dates arrive on their own rather than needing you to remember them.