06/12/2025
DON’T give a smartphone as a Christmas present this year.
Instead, hand it over on Boxing Day. Or Christmas Eve if you have to.
This isn’t an anti-smartphone post.
It’s a post about the psychology of children.
Because if you give a child a smartphone as a present, they’ll consider it theirs.
You may be paying the bill, but that won’t matter to them - that’s unseen.
And because the smartphone is ‘theirs’, they’ll feel they have a right to do it with as they please.
Be on it when they want.
Take it wherever they go.
Refuse to hand it over for checks.
“It’s MY phone,” they’ll say.
Which leaves parents in a difficult position... or with years of arguing ahead.
(And with a third of parents admitting they’ve cried over their child’s smartphone obsession, that’s worth thinking about.)
But if you own the phone – and you simply allow your child to use it – that’s entirely different.
It means you have the right to withdraw it.
You can make sure they follow your guidelines.
You can have open conversations about it.
Because when the phone isn’t your child’s possession, it reduces the hold it has over them.
And by giving them a phone on a day other than Christmas Day (‘a’ phone, not ‘their’ phone), it stops being a present and becomes more like a loan.
Meaning the peace we’re supposed to feel over Christmas is far more likely to continue long after the holidays.
(We run free webinars for parents with great advice like this - check out our Events if you want to know about our next session.)
