Have fun, IRL: Parents should make a pact to get kids back to real-life play

Children must engage with the real world – from playing games to wandering to the ice cream store – and test their social waters. — 123rf

PARENTS may shrug that it's too late to reverse the epidemic of smart phones. But if we all banded together, couldn't we save childhood?

My oldest child just turned 11. Now is the time to be begging my friends – the parents of his closest buddies – to sign a pact: We will resist the temptation to hand them their own smart phones or let them join social media, at least until they're 16, even in the face of indignant cries that Everyone Else Has One.