Most phone conflicts happen because expectations were never said out loud. Choose the rules that fit your home, add your own, and print a signature-ready agreement you can put on the refrigerator.
These free resources are here to help you think clearly and decide wisely about technology in your home. They are not a recommendation that any child should have a smartphone, social media account, or any other online access.
They do not set a score, age, grade, or milestone that automatically means your child is ready. A high score or completed checklist does not override your own judgment, your family's values, your child's unique needs, or professional advice when you need it.
By building, downloading, or printing this agreement, you agree to treat it as a guide for reflection and conversation — not as a prescription from Form & Verity, From Guardrails to Wisdom, Andrew Simmons, LPC-S, or Andrew Simmons Counseling, PLLC about what decision you should make. You remain the parent. You know your child, your home, and your circumstances best.
This is not a scorecard. We are not trying to become a family that consumes the right content and avoids the wrong content — we will all fail that test. We are asking God to form what we love. Grace comes before the rules, and stays after we break them.
"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." — Proverbs 22:6
What it is saying: Proverbs is wisdom literature: it describes how life generally works under God, not a guarantee He signed. The call is to train — to actively form a child in step with who they are — rather than only to restrict. It does not promise that good parenting produces a certain adult.
For our digital life: So in this house we teach and hand over responsibility in stages instead of only locking things down — and we hold the outcome in God's hands rather than our own.
"I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless." — Psalm 101:3
What it is saying: Psalm 101 is David's pledge of integrity as a king: what he will look at, what he will welcome into his house, and what he will refuse to tolerate among those closest to him. It is about the ordering of a whole life and household before God.
For our digital life: The psalm says nothing about screens. But David's question — what am I willingly setting before myself, and what am I letting into this home? — is exactly the question a family with devices has to keep asking.
"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely... think about these things." — Philippians 4:8
What it is saying: Paul is not issuing a content filter. He is telling an anxious church where to aim the mind — toward what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable — as part of a whole life being kept in the peace of Christ.
For our digital life: Our devices place things before our attention hundreds of times a day. So the question is not only 'is this allowed?' but 'what are these repeated hours cultivating in us — what are we coming to want, admire, envy and fear?'
44 rules selected
Sign it together, read it out loud, and revisit it every few months as your child grows.