12/10/2025
🌟 Let’s Talk About the Wait Till 8th Initiative 🌟
At Life Balance Counseling, we see firsthand how early access to smartphones can impact kids’ mental health, focus, and self-esteem. The Wait Till 8th initiative encourages families to delay giving their child a smartphone until at least 8th grade — giving kids more time to grow, connect, and develop healthy habits without constant digital pressure.
If you’re curious about how screens are affecting your child, or you’re navigating the pressures of “everyone else has one,” we’re here to support your family with guidance, tools, and practical strategies.
💬 Want to talk more about screen time and child well-being? Reach out anytime. We’re here to help. 🌿
309-296-0078
No TikTok, no iPhones and retro landlines. These parents are raising kids like it’s 1995.
Special thanks to USA Today for sharing the pledge!
Walk into some homes in Oceanport, New Jersey, and you might think you’ve time traveled.
Landlines are tethered to playroom walls, and radios are playing music. The reading on-tap is Beverly Cleary's "Beezus and Ramona," and Friday nights are marked with TGIF TV — think "Full House" and "Family Matters" — with parents and kids sharing living room couches, watching together after dinner.
Blink, and you’ll think you’ve stepped into 1995.
But it’s about more than just nostalgia. On playgrounds in New Jersey, in living rooms in Seattle, and in text chains between moms across the country, a shift is unfolding. Some millennials parents want to raise their kids with the kind of carefree, phone-free, independent play they grew up with. And they’re doing it.
“We are in a sweet spot where we know life before, we know life after,” says millennial mom Holly Moscatiello. She’s the founder of The Balance Project, a non-profit that aims to help kids balance independence and mindful technology usage. “We had the ability to watch what happens if you go too far. Now we have the opportunity to take the step back, and we're taking it.”
It’s a shift psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been urging for years. He outlined it extensively in his book “The Anxious Generation,” where he advocates for curtailing smartphone use before 14.
These parents are listening.
In the suburbs of New Jersey, a cacophony of noises coming from a playground jungle gym leaves little doubt.
There are reasons to be hopeful, though. Policy changes are making an impact: as of November, 36 states and Washington D.C. had instituted policies on K-12 cellphone usage in schools. And more than 130,000 parents nationwide have signed the Wait Until 8th pledge, which commits to delaying giving kids smartphones until at least eight grade.
Real the full article @ USA Today.
Take the pledge 👇
✨ Wait until at least the end of 8th grade for a smartphone.
✨ Delay social media until 16+.
Small choice. Big impact. Childhood is worth protecting. 💛
