by Michelle Stein posted in Parenting

My 6-year-old son is fascinated with technology. That little bugger is always snatching my phone to watch music videos on YouTube, look at my photos, catch Pokémon, send dozens of poop emojis to everyone on my contact list, etc. And he wants nothing more than a smartphone of his very own.
Well, sorry to break it to you, kid. That's not happening anytime soon. Not until high school.
Thankfully, I'm not the only mean mom. A group of fed-up moms has banded together to create the "Wait Until 8th" pledge, which urges parents to delay giving children smartphones until at least eighth grade. More than 1,300 families from 42 states and over 400 schools have signed the pledge already, in just the first few months. "Several months ago a group of parents from my daughter's elementary school in Austin started to discuss the mounting pressure in our community to give children their own smartphones at an early age," Brooke Shannon, Wait Until 8th founder, told BabyCenter.
"We started seeing children as young as first and second grade coming to school, play dates, and birthday parties with the latest iPhone. We questioned why young children needed this technology. As we started to ask around, many parents said they eventually caved on the smartphone because 'everyone had them' and they did not want their child to feel left out."

The pledge's website offers a number of convincing reasons parents should get on board....