Wait Until 8th pledge has surged among local parents

When Mark SooHoo dropped kids off for camp at Wilmette’s Gillson Park recently, he spotted a scene that could make parents worried about kids’ smartphone use want to tear their hair out.

“Gillson is a crown jewel of the community. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the community, one of the most beautiful places around,” he said. “I saw all these kids sitting there, at this amazing park, lined up on a bench; all of them were spaced out, with heads in their phones. What a lost opportunity.”

As far as SooHoo and many parents across the North Shore are concerned, that kind of scene makes Wait Until 8th, the nationwide parental movement to keep smartphones out of children’s hands until at least the end of eighth grade, even more important.

SooHoo, his wife Annie and a bevy of local volunteers plan to staff a table at the Wilmette Block Party, scheduled for downtown Wilmette on Saturday Sept. 7, to spread the word about Wait Until 8th. 

This will be their second appearance holding down a spot at the block party. The Wilmette couple introduced Wait Until 8th to interested listeners at last year’s event, an effort led by Annie SooHoo, whom her husband praises for making the program a reality, and being “the brains of the operation.” 

The idea was simple: After 10 families in any grade at any school pledge to keep their children smartphone free until a certain point, the pledge goes live, and the parents can connect with each other. 

That kind of network helps prevent parents from feeling as if they stand alone in their effort. Importantly, it also allows them to assure their child that they won’t be the only kid in their class without a smartphone.

The program provides lists of smartphone alternatives for parents so that they can still stay in contact with their youngsters; “dumb” flip phones or smartwatches that allow calls and possibly texts so kids can connect with their friends. 

Even before last year’s block party, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an advisory on social media’s impact on children and teens.

Much has changed since then, as more research on the effect of smartphone use and the internet in general appears to show their pernicious and damaging effects on young people, SooHoo said. 

Back then, Wait Until 8th asked parents to pledge keeping their children free of smartphones until at least the eighth grade. Today, the target date of holding off on smartphones until kids are at least high school freshmen (and a target of no social media in general until they are at least 16) is based on new data.

And the publication this past March of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” — which posits that today’s teens suffer more anxiety and mental illness as their smartphone use increases and their independent play and exploration plummets — really moved the needle, SooHoo said. Other Wait Until 8th parents agree. 

“(The book) is sad and scary, but it’s also hopeful that we can kind of reverse the trend and we can change things for the better,” said Hannah Tuttle, who is the lead Wait Until 8th parent at Wilmette’s Central Elementary School.

Tuttle, who created the local group’s Instagram account, added, “Even as an adult, if I’m on the phone too much, I notice it affects me. I can’t put that in the hands of  developing children.”

Wilmette parent Leigh Slovitt, now the program lead at Harper Elementary School, said Haidt’s book can start conversations about Wait Until 8th’s concepts. She had heard about the program before walking up to the SooHoo’s table last year. She was relieved to feel that she wasn’t alone in her smartphone concerns.

“My hunch was that I would be part of a minority that wanted to delay. I was happy to learn, as soon as I started talking about it, that I was actually part of a majority,” she said. 

The Wilmette group has grown; last year at this time, roughly 100 families had taken the pledge. Today, 550 families have done so, with pledge networks in every Wilmette District 39 school. Almost 250 people follow the Instagram account and roughly 400 are on the group’s email list, SooHoo said. 

The movement has spread even further; more than 500 parents in neighboring Winnetka schools have taken the pledge, while 220 parents have pledged at Kenilworth’s Joseph Sears School, and 169 families have done the same at Saints JFX School in Wilmette. Those numbers mean Joseph Sears is the school with the third highest number of pledges in the nation, while Saints JFX has landed sixth spot, according to information from Wait Until 8th.

Jamie Filipovic, the program lead at Joseph Sears, said “When we heard this, we were saying ‘‘Whoa, this is exciting.”

A majority of parents at the school are familiar with the program, she said. Her family has talked about phones, and her children “know we plan to hold off giving them smartphones and access to social media. We encourage them to go knock on their friends’ door, and go out and explore.” 

The program can work well with similar programs, such as high school policies that limit smartphone use, something New Trier High School has, SooHoo said. (New Trier is continuing to assess its phone policy.)

Ultimately, Wait Until 8th is about flipping the script to make it easier for parents to take the pledge, he said. 

“You always hear ‘I don’t want my kid to be left out,’ but we say that you actually do want them to be left out of bullying, to be left out of negative body issues, to be left out of all the bad things smartphones let into their lives,” he said. “And you don’t want them to be left out of the real world.”

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