No, you don't. That need is artificial.

But: they have phones. Since they were about 12. But with screentime, with us controlling the apps, without tiktok, behind a pi-hole and pivpn. With the initial agreement that we - the grown ups - were _always_ allowed to open their phone and look at any content.

For the past year or so the eldest doesn't have any screentime limitations anymore, but she still does not use insta or tiktok.

What we did was constantly explain our decisions. And showed them how boundaries were there for protection, not holding back. And if they showed us that they could handle lifting of a boundary we would lift a boundary.

Other parents in our neighbourhood just gave phones to their kids at age 11 and never set boundaries. Those kids now take pictures of girls in their classroom, and turn them into nudes. And send them around large groups on snapchat. Police was involved. But I look at the parents. Kids _need_ boundaries.

We pointed out to ours the peers who watch shorts in a doom loop and how they are shaping up to be losers, that pretty much set them straight. But a lot depends on a person too, how competitive they are or how prone to addictive behaviors.

Raise hell with the school administration, school committee, mayor, etc. over this.

I don’t have kids myself this is just what my friends who do tell me