Kathy Buckworth counters the earnest teen phone contracts floating around the Internet with her version for managing appropriate smartphone usage:
The Smartphone Commandments
Thou Shalt Not:
Furiously text friends seconds after disagreeing with your parents. We know you’re trashing us. With a phone we paid for. Come on.
Ignore calls/texts/emails from Mom or Dad, while simultaneously posting on Instagram. It’s embarrassing to us that you think we don’t know.
Laugh at our choice of phone. We can swap it for yours anytime, my friend.
Force us to watch YouTube videos that are SO AWESOME. We don’t have time for that.
Download YouTube videos while we’re on vacation in Mexico. Are you paying for that data?
Be naïve enough to think we assume your lap is more interesting than dinner conversation. Stop. Texting.
Complain about your phone. Don’t make me say, “When I was your age we didn’t even have Palm Pilots!”
Kathy Buckworth is the author of I Am So The Boss Of You: An 8 Step Guide To Giving Your Family The Business, available at bookstores and as an ebook everywhere.
Originally published in ParentsCanada magazine, July/August 2015.