What the Tech: Greystones parents
In the United States, more than a third of children get their first smartphone by the time they’re nine years old. That number is trending younger every year. Parents often say they’d rather wait, but once a few kids have a phone, the pressure builds. Nobody wants their child to feel left out.
In Greystones, Ireland, parents came up with a solution. They call it It Takes a Village.
The idea is simple: parents of primary school children agree not to give their kids a smartphone until they reach secondary school, around age 13. The agreement began about three years ago, led by Principal Rachel Harper of St. Patrick’s National School. She says it gave parents something they were missing—support.
“I think it got conversation going,” Harper told me. “Parents were having coffee together, or they might be at the side of the football pitch or rugby pitch. And they were chatting, ‘are you signing up to this code?’”
Many parents admitted they were just waiting for someone else to take the first step. One parent explained, “Now at least when there’s other parents talking about not giving the phone straight away, it’s kind of taken the pressure off me a little bit. So he’s maybe not going to be the only one not having a phone.”
Mom, Kathy Sheehy agreed. “We’re not fighting ‘your child is the only child who doesn’t have it.’ If everybody doesn’t have it, then they can’t come to you and say, ‘Well, Holly has a phone,’ when I know she doesn’t.”
It isn’t just children who feel peer pressure. Parents do too. Nobody wants to be the only mom or dad saying no. But when everyone agrees together, saying no becomes easier.
Harper says the pact has taken away much of the burden parents once carried. “So they were able to play good cop, bad cop,” she explained. “You’ve signed up to this code in the school. We can’t go against what the school wants us to do. So it took the pressure off the parents a bit, I think.”
The result is a community of families who feel less isolated in their decisions. Instead of individual parents struggling with whether to hand over a phone, the community has created a new norm. Kids know they’ll have to wait, and parents know they’re not alone in enforcing the rule.
The It Takes a Village initiative is still young, but parents in Greystones say it has already reshaped family life. Children spend more time outside, families face fewer battles over screen time, and parents feel a sense of relief that they’re not the only ones saying “not yet.”
