Wait Until 8th’s tabling event at Birchland Park Middle School on March 25.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
EAST LONGMEADOW — East Longmeadow’s chapter of the national “Wait Until 8th” movement is working hard to “let kids be kids a little longer,” according to Natalee Georgantas, the chapter’s leader.
The movement works to bring parents together to delay giving smartphones to their kids until the end of eighth grade.
This isn’t a complete ban on introducing kids to technology, only a delay of smartphones to allow kids to connect with one another again without the constant screentime.
Georgantas has been an emergency medicine physician assistant for 14 years and said she noticed how much smartphones have affected the mental health of both kids and adults.
She added she felt something needed to be done because “giving kids a smartphone has become commonplace” and “information out there is showing how detrimental smartphones are to the growing brain,” Georgantas said.
She said a friend had sent her Wait Until 8th’s information and found out how to open a local chapter. She started with a social media page to get the word out and then began creating flyers, which have been distributed to families with students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
“My goal is that we would come together as a community, you know, this would help our kids thrive,” Georgantas said. “I’m totally okay with like, okay give your kid a basic flip phone or a Gizmo watch. It’s really just the internet and social media that we’re trying to stay away from.”
The chapter’s parent resource guide states that smartphones can bring cyberbullying, are distracting and addicting, and increase risk for anxiety and depression. It is looking for parents to sign the Wait Until 8th East Longmeadow pledge, which intends to encourage more families to delay giving their child a smartphone.
She added that she has a friend who works at Mountain View School who sees how smartphones can cause bullying or impact focus each day, and that all of the district’s principals are on board.
The pledge can be found at waituntil8th.org and becomes active once 10 or more families from the grade and school sign.
Wait Until 8th also held its first tabling event at Birchland Park Middle School on March 25, which Georgantas said allowed families to connect, ask questions and begin signing the pledge. She added that one parent said that they wanted to wait on a smartphone but felt pressure because “everyone else has one.”
I got a really good response, like families across multiple grades,” Georgantas said. “I have already signed the pledge, and I feel like once one family commits, others feel more comfortable joining.”
This initiative would help remove that pressure with help and momentum from the community, while also helping to relieve the feeling of being left out some kids might feel if they don’t have a smartphone while all of their friends or classmates do.
“I just want to stress to the parents, it’s like, I’m not here to judge, I want to educate,” Georgantas said. “When your kids get a smartphone, you’re giving them access to more than you know. We tend to be overprotective in the real world and underprotective online.”
Georgantas added that “we as parents should also be conscious of their own uses of smartphones because children model our behavior.”
“If we say ‘don’t be on a phone,’ but we’re sitting there scrolling, that’s what they see and that’s what they’re gonna want to do,” Georgantas said. “We need to be models, you know, good role models for them, even myself.”
She added that she would love to give her kids the same childhood she grew up in, even if it isn’t feasible with existing technology.
“I recently got the kids a landline and am trying to teach them basic things, like ‘oh you can call granny or if you need to get a hold of mom, you can call me here,’” Georgantas said. “It’s just teaching them that kind of, what we had in the 90’s and early 2000’s that doesn’t even exist anymore, but my son is so excited because it’s still access, he can still call.”
Georgantas is looking to get the word out more on Wait Until 8th and is having families who sign the pledge put magnets on their car with the chapter’s logo. She added that any local businesses are welcome to help by putting the flyer up, as well.
