You get one clean shot at the handover.

What went wrong at our house

I handed over a phone on a birthday with no settings changed and no conversation, and I told myself we’d “figure the rules out as we go.” What that actually meant was that every rule arrived as a reaction to something that had already happened. Every one of them landed as a punishment.

By the time I’d worked out what I wanted, I’d spent a year taking things away from a kid who had no idea the boundary existed until he crossed it. That’s the part I’d undo. Not the phone. The order.

• 1
  The setup walkthrough

  Every setting that matters on iPhone and Android, in the order to do them, with the ones people miss called out. Roughly 40 minutes with the phone in your hand, done before they ever see it.

• 2
  The family phone agreement

  Editable, written in language a twelve-year-old will read without their eyes glazing. Covers where it sleeps, who pays for what, what you can see, and what happens when it goes wrong — agreed before, not after.

• 3
  Seven conversation scripts

  Including the three nobody prepares you for: what you’ll see that you can’t unsee, what to do if someone asks for photos, and how to say no to an app without making it forbidden fruit.

• 4
  The first 30 days

  A day-by-day plan for the month that sets the pattern. Most of it is checking in on purpose rather than snooping by accident, which is a distinction your kid will notice.

• 5
  The first broken rule

  It will happen in the first six weeks. What you do that day decides whether they tell you about the next thing or hide it. This is the single most useful page in here.

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