I wouldn’t give a kid a phone if they threw tantrums about giving up mine. That’s a recipe for disaster.
My 10yo has an Apple Watch - lets her text with friends and contact us or us contact her. That’s all she needs. I have no plans to get her a phone anytime soon.
Can I ask you questions about this? My 12yo middle schooler only has an iPad. For a lot of reasons (including mistakes I made with his brother!) I really didn’t want him to have a phone. It has come up a bunch of times that he needs to contact me and so I wanted to get him an Apple Watch. I went to Best Buy and they said the watch has to be tied to a phone. I thought the newer watches could function as a phone as long as you paid for a separate phone line. How do you handle this? My 14yo also wants an Apple Watch. He does have a phone. I don’t need to pay for the phone line for the watch do I?
FYI they sell two versions- GPS or GPS cellular. You need to purchase the GPS cellular watch in order to have its own phone line.