Smart Phone Free Childhood

A MESSAGE FROM THE NB SMART PHONE FREE CHILDHOOD PARENT GROUP

Dear parents and carers

Following on from the smartphone survey we ran in the summer term (2024), which indicated that 81% of parent/carer respondents at Law Primary school (110 people) support the idea of a pact to delay giving our children smartphones, we are now sending out the sign up form for all those who’d like to take part.

The aim is to empower parents at Law primary school to unite and take collective action, based on the mounting evidence of harm to children from smartphones and social media. For more information on this, please see the attached document.

Taking the pact enables parents to feel the confidence to delay getting their child a smartphone, knowing that doing so won’t leave their child isolated from their peers. It also resets expectations amongst children about when they get smartphones, reducing peer pressure across the school. Whilst empowering parents to consider alternative devices to keep in contact with their children as they grow in independence, such as retro brick / flip phones or basic smart watches.

Rest assured, the pact is purely a voluntary (and anonymous!) social contract – nobody will be held to their decision if they later change their mind.

To join your school community in taking the parent pact, click here.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Dara Coward and Mike Lawrence

P.S. To see the full results of the survey that we ran in the summer term, click here

P.P.S. To join the North Berwick Smartphone Free Childhood WhatsApp group, click here