Ages 9 to 12
When should my child get their first phone?
In the UK, phone ownership jumps from 56 percent at ten to 83 percent at eleven, the same year as the move to secondary school. So when your child says everyone in the class has one, they are close to right. The question worth your time is what the phone arrives into.
Why it keeps happening
In the year the child says it, the line is close to true, and the same year bundles a new school, a new peer group, more independence and less sleep.
What works
A readiness pathway, not a date: decide together what the phone is for, where it charges at night, and say the no confiscation promise out loud before the box is opened.
If your child is younger
The Year 6 phone plan written in Year 5, while it is still a plan, so the phone lands on rules the child helped write.
The words to say, inside Guided Childhood
These are word for word scripts in the app for exactly this moment, matched to your child's stage.
- The Year 6 phone plan, before the box is opened
- Everyone Else Has It
- Too young for a first social media account
What stage is your child? Three questions, no sign up.
Start the stage checkSource: Ofcom, Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes 2026. Checked 2 November 2026.