What to know about digital safety before handing a child their first phone

As students in Los Angeles are returning back to school, many families are preparing for a new milestone: purchasing their child’s very first phone, which can be exciting and also intimidating.

Cathy Pedrayes, known on social media as the “Mom Friend,” spoke with CALÓ News to break down digital safety and share practical advice that parents should know before handing the first device to their child.

Raising awareness on digital safety has become a personal mission for Pedrayes. She believes that everyone should have access to all the right information so that parents can make the right decisions for their children, especially for a generation surrounded by technology.

Pedrayes said that parents can start the conversation early about using technology before handing their child a phone. She recommends that parents first look into resources, pledges and online safety information to create a digital safety plan. That can range from making decisions about screen time limits, private accounts and restrictions. The earlier that families start, she says, the easier it gets. She also explained that every family is different and depending on their lifestyle, that can determine whether the child is ready for their first phone.

“I’ve seen a 13-year-old very responsibly manage their phone in a way that an older, young adult couldn’t,” she said. “A lot of kids right now are getting that first phone because they’re moving on to the next grade, and this is the perfect time to have that conversation.” Adding that even if they're not there yet, these are the best practices that can start from when a child is just two years old.

“We’re all online. We all need to know how to manage ourselves on the internet, and it’s something that has to be taught. So you want to teach them that skill so that when they go into adulthood, they’re ready and they're familiar with what scams are and other things [are] online,” Pedrayes said.

She also suggests that parents be consistent with those conversations. “Being consistent is the most important part because there could be all these parental controls and all of these monitoring tools and those things are great, but they’re just tools. They don't actually teach the judgment. That’s where the parent relationship comes in,” she said.

Pedrayes also recommends that families follow up with what she calls a “tech agreement” to make those conversations official. It doesn’t need to be complicated, just a shared understanding of the rules, the boundaries and what to do when something doesn’t feel right. “Make sure it feels more like a conversation other than just like a list of rules because that just invites pushback,” she said. 

Those conversations in the tech agreement can be about screen time limits, no phones at night in the bedroom and apps that are allowed and not allowed. She said that the restrictions on apps is a big one, that it’s very important to explain the reasoning behind not allowing them to have certain applications on their devices.

Pedrayes shared that although the child may be ready for their first phone, sometimes the parents can overlook digital safety risks. One of them is not setting up the device as a child’s phone. “A lot of times, they’ll put their own adult email address and their own adult birthday,” she said.

She emphasized that it’s crucial to set it up as a child’s phone, whether it’s on the device, any accounts, games or social media, as there are built-in protections to help get the right default setting for the appropriate age of the child.

AB 1709 is a bill that just passed the full California Assembly as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee which  prohibits children under age 16 from creating or maintaining accounts on social media platforms that use “addictive features,” such as algorithmic feeds.

The bill also requires platforms to implement age verification and established an e-Safety Advisory Commission to advise the attorney general on implementation and enforcement of the law. The bill is intended to reduce children’s use of social media due to concerns about student anxiety, depression and mental health issues.

Another digital safety risk parents often overlook, according to Padreyes, is scam calls. In order to help with that she recommends that parents who have Metro by T-Mobile set up the Scam Shield protection they offer, which can help block unknown callers and scam calls.

“It just helps your kid be able to avoid those situations but also not fall into a trap where they're clicking on links, and you know, giving away personal information because they misunderstood an incoming message or something like that. We have tools to help us, and so we should definitely use those,” Pedrayes said.

When it comes down to cyberbullying, Pedrayes recommends that parents prepare their kids for that conversation, ideally before they even go into school. “Let them know this is something that can happen and what it looks like,” she said.

According to the Pew Research Center survey, nearly half of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 (46%) report ever experiencing at least one of six cyberbullying behaviors.

Pedrayes suggests that parents also teach their children how to report cyberbullying in comments in group chats as well as inappropriate content online. She also recommends teaching them how to block and delete things that could also be inappropriate and for parents to familiarize themselves, along with their kids, with the apps they approve and supervise how the child is interacting with those apps from time to time.

Lastly, Pedrayes advises parents that if the child ever comes to them with a problem that is breaking one of the tech agreement rules, the child should not get in trouble, as that can build trust. 

“A lot of times kids are afraid to come to an authority figure because they think they’re going to get in trouble,” she said. “The most important thing that you want out of a relationship with a child is you want them to be able to come to you when they’re having a problem. You don’t want them hiding stuff or them trying to figure stuff out on their own. The best way to encourage that is to really work on a solution together as opposed to them getting in trouble.”