“Every kid at school has a smartphone except me!”
Sound familiar?
As parents, the hardest part of setting boundaries around our kids’ tech use might be the feeling that we're the only ones.
On paper, we know what’s best for our kids. We want to protect their innocence — and their mental health. We know a smartphone means opening the door to everything from cyberbullying to “adult” content to social media-fueled anxiety and depression.
But what happens when “all the other kids at school” are sending TikToks and Snapchats, and your child feels left out?
Peer pressure can start to wear us down, no matter how confident we are in our parenting decisions.
But what if, instead, your community came together to support and encourage responsible tech use?
What if you knew for sure you weren’t the only one — because the other parents at school were right there with you?
That’s the premise behind the St. Carlo Parent Network (SCPN), an organization that’s spreading quickly across the U.S., with 14 chapters and counting.
Parents band together to help kids
When Indiana parent Phil Funk heard about the Wait Until 8th pledge — in which at least 10 parents from the same school agree to delay giving children a smartphone until at least the end of 8th grade — he knew he wanted to bring it to his children’s school.
With his principal’s blessing, he sent out a letter about the pledge to other school parents and got “tremendous feedback and support,” he told Aleteia. “So, so many parents were interested in pledging, and wanted to volunteer and be involved.”
But as a Catholic, he saw something deeper in the pledge. He thought of St. Carlo Acutis, the teenage saint who enjoyed technology but limited his use of it to protect against its dangers.
He worked with Lauren Clark, a SCPN chapter leader and former high school teacher, to build the network’s incredibly helpful website with ample resources for parents.
Clark explained why St. Carlo is their patron:
St. Carlo is really at the heart of everything that we do. We are trying to spread his story and his attitude toward technology, because he really liked video games and working with computers, but recognized that you have to be careful. He used to limit himself to one hour per week of video games. He knew moderation was needed.
And the key to his story is his deep devotion to the Eucharist. He understood that the digital world can tend to fragment our experience and isolate us. It can be a distraction from what's important.
And the Eucharist really is the necessary corrective that we need, because it’s personal, it's relational, it's Presence, and it's a reality that calls for full attention.
At schools in both Indiana and Washington, DC, Clark noticed that her students did not want to be on their phones all the time, but felt helpless to fight it. She knew there had to be a better way, a way to empower parents to help their children. She said:
Part of SCPN is about bringing a sense of power and agency back to parents. There are so many things that are challenging about the digital environment, and when you're raising kids, it's really hard to stay on top of it.
SCPN brings parents together so that we don't have to handle it by ourselves. We don't have to do it alone. We can learn from each other.
The world is big, but our community is small, and we can start there. We can make a change for our own families and schools.
Getting started with SCPN
As a mom, I’m feeling very motivated to bring St. Carlo Parent Network to my own school and parish.
You, too? Check out the quick-start guide and other great resources on their website.
Besides the steps outlined there, Clark said her chapter has found some incredibly fun and creative ways to bring alive St. Carlo’s message for the children:
Some of our chapters even had high school students dress up as St. Carlo and come into the elementary schools and visit the classrooms as him. They’re cracking jokes, totally in character, in their red polos with their backpacks, and the kids just love it.
We also share lesson plans with teachers so that they can have the option of integrating his story into their classes as well. We really try to make it easy to “plug and play” to spread his story and start to develop a devotion to him among the kids.
Funk also recommended the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt to help parents understand how social media affects children’s and teens’ brain development. Parents may find it helpful to organize a reading group and discussion about the book. (Here are a few ideas to get you started!)
When Funk began the first chapter of SCPN, he didn’t expect it to become so wildly popular and grow so quickly.
But what he found was that “a quiet majority of parents were just looking for someone to stand up and take the lead on an initiative like this.”
Thanks to SCPN, Wait Until 8th, and similar initiatives, we know how to respond when our kids complain that they want a smartphone or social media.
We can stand strong and confident, knowing we're doing what’s best for their growing brains—and that thousands of other parents are right there alongside us.
