Our first phone

The sheet

An agreement made with your child before their first phone arrives: what it’s for, where it sleeps, the apps, chats and photos, and what they tell you about. On the back, how to set it up together.

To fill in together · A4, two sides · Two pages · PDF, 61 KB

How it helps

The easiest time to agree how a phone is used is before it arrives. A child is more likely to keep an agreement they have helped to write, which the adults keep too, and the promise on it, that your child won’t be in trouble for telling you, makes it more likely that they’ll keep telling you when something online goes wrong.

How to use it

1. Before the phone arrives, fill in the front together. Ask what your child thinks is fair before you say what you think, and let them write some of it.
2. Set the phone up with them, using the back, so they know what each setting does and why: the controls, purchases, location sharing and the school’s rules.
3. Sign it, all of you, and keep your side: your phone out of the bedroom at night, and away at meals.
4. Look at it again on the date you wrote, and give your child more say each time. The back says what to do if they tell you about something that worries you.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with Your Child’s Online World and Screen Time.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.