The Playbook

You’re in. You’re tired of waiting for legislation to protect our kids, and you’re ready to start fighting BigTech on the only battlefield you can actually control: your home.

Friend, you’re in good company. Here’s your playbook:

1. Build family culture.
   We recommend, through these principles here, focusing your efforts not solely on saying no to devices, but saying yes to something better than devices. Give children regular access to healthy challenges, shared responsibilities, open communication, delightful ideas, free play, independent tasks, sensory experiences, and affirming presence to create a home environment that offers belonging to everyone under your roof.
   

2. Parents go first.
   We recommend at least one parent in the home regularly carries a flip phone or a dumbed-down smartphone. (Here’s how to remove Internet access and all apps from your smartphone.) Why? Because not only are you modeling the behavior you want to see, but you’re parenting from a place of empathetic action. By living life without a smartphone, you’re navigating the same friction your kids will be (or already are), and, together, you’ll be able to come up with creative solutions that work for the whole family. We do not recommend anyone participate in social media.
   

3. Families share tech.
   We recommend a shared desktop computer be made available in a public space (kitchen workstation, office, living room corner, etc) with individual logins for tiered tech usage that reflects personalized interests and/or needs for everyone in the home (i.e. an elementary-aged student might have access to a word processor to practice typing or create flyers, a middle schooler might have access to SketchUp to learn construction modeling, a high schooler might have access to a restricted Internet browser and email address for job applications and research papers, etc.). We do not recommend personal devices (iPads, e-Readers, Switches, Apple Watches, etc.).
   
   We recommend families share not only device use, but device experience. Talk openly about what you’re seeing/learning/observing on a device, and listen openly as your children do the same.
   

4. Community is freely given.
   We recommend that strong and continuous efforts are made to form an Opt Out circle (here’s how) and that your home is offered as a low-tech hangout for your childrens’ friends. We recommend open and ongoing access to a family landline or to a parent’s flip phone. We recommend that families participate, volunteer, and/or advocate alongside each other at tech-free events, rallies, and local digital literacy meetings.
   

5. Kids buy their own device.
   Once a child is exploring the world independently and can afford the ongoing cost and maintenance (financially and mentally) of their first device plan, they can choose - and pay for - their own device.* Why? Because when we give our child a smartphone, but then restrict/moderate/track/etc all usage on that smartphone, we’re creating a barrier in trust. Once they purchase their own device, it’s theirs to manage and you can parent from a place of mentorship, not content moderation. By placing a boundary around your child’s agency (i.e. when he/she decides to pay for one) rather than a hypothetical age-related milestone (i.e. 8th grade, 16, 18, etc), you’re placing the responsibility of ownership, maintenance, and usage squarely on your child’s shoulders, offering your own experience as a guide, not a law.
   
   *Because the child will be purchasing their own phone, cost will be a primary factor in the decision-making, creating a built-in barrier of entry to any child who does not possess the maturity level to maintain steady employment. As such, this step is not recommended if your child has access to a large amount of disposable income at a very young age, nor if they haven’t been observing healthy tech boundaries through Steps 1-4.

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Have specific questions, or struggling with a unique situation in your home? Read 1:1 advice from fellow Opt Out fams right here.