A Mom Put This in Her Phone Contract—Was It a Good Idea?

A mom asked a question at one of our live events that sparked a conversation on our team. 

She created a phone contract with her kids that included mutual phone checks—meaning she could look at their phones, and they could look at hers. Then she asked: “Is that ok?” 

In the moment, Mandy said yes—affirming the mom’s desire to build trust and model openness. But afterward, our team kept talking. Should phone rules go both ways? Are there situations where that might not be the best approach? 

In this episode, Mandy and Merideth unpack both perspectives—exploring the balance between trust and leadership. They discuss real-life considerations like privacy, spouse conversations, work-related information, and the kind of content that can unexpectedly show up on a parent’s phone. 

They also zoom out to digital safety—why “deleted” doesn’t always mean gone, the risks tied to sharing images, and how AI is changing the conversation for families. 

You’ll walk away with practical guidance on creating a phone contract,  involving your kids in the process, and adjusting boundaries as they grow. 

Create Guidelines - nextTalk 

Random Phone Checks? - nextTalk 

Free Guide: Phone Contract (Faith-Based) - nextTalk 

Is my kid ready for a phone? - nextTalk 

Free Guide: Family Pact Kid Version (5+) - nextTalk 

Free Guide: Family Pact Teen Version (13+) - nextTalk 

My kid has a phone with no guidelines. How do I go back? - nextTalk 

Something Is Off with My Teen—Now What? - nextTalk 

Build a Safe Place - nextTalk 

Transcript

Welcome And Event Question Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Okay, I love this because you bring up a couple points that on the spot I didn't really think about. So I want to dive into those. Sure. Because when you said uh text between you and your spouse, so where my mind went, I got asked one time, is it okay to send my husband a nude photo? I got asked that question. Here's my response. Welcome to the Next Talk Podcast. We are a nonprofit passionate about keeping kids safe online. We're learning together how to navigate tech, culture, and faith with our kids. I was recently at an event and got asked the best question. And the next day, our operations manager texted me because she was at the event and she sent me this paragraph and she was like, you know, great job last night. The QA was awesome. The parents were amazing. But I was really shocked at how you answered that question. I don't know that I agree. And so we got to talking about it, and I was like, okay, I want to do a show on this because I just think it's great. Well, here we are. Here we are. Here we are. Welcome to Next Talk where we talk about everything. Exactly. So this is Meredith. She's been on the show before. She's our operations manager. She's like the behind-the-scenes guru that touches every program at our organization. She's her level of detail is awesome. She's really the engine that keeps it going. Try to keep it to keep it going. But Meredith, if people don't know you and they haven't watched your other show, tell us about yourself, a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Meredith, I've been at Next Talk, I guess, on staff for three years, but I've been a volunteer in some capacity since the very beginning, which would be 10 years. You and I have known each other about 20 years, I think now. Yeah. I have three kids. They're all young adults. They're awesome. I talk about them in the other podcast. Um, love working at Next Talk, love pouring into families and looking at all how all our programs help families. And I love the opportunity to go to your events because I don't get to go very often. But when they're local, sometimes I can sneak in there and go. And um that the one we're talking about, the families were super engaged. They had tons of questions. It was awesome. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

One fun fact about Meredith. So when I moved to San Antonio and had zero friends, we got involved at a church and I joined a mops group, which people who don't know what that is, that's mothers of preschoolers. And now they've rebanded rebranded and they're called Mom Co. But it's like a support group for young moms. Yeah. And uh my church had one of those. And so I was like, okay, this is where I gotta make my friends because I have nobody here. And Meredith was one of the first people I met, and she called me and she's like, Hey, I need you to be a volunteer leader. Yes. If you're gonna be my friend, you have to volunteer in some capacity. Like, who are you? Who are you? But it was funny because at one of the mop's meetings, she was like, Mandy, I need you to get up and like, we're gonna recognize birthdays and new babies and that kind of stuff at the meeting, and I need you to like introduce it. It's gonna be like three minutes. And I was like, No, I'm not gonna do the mic. Like, I am not doing that. And I was up the whole night before. Like, mind you, I was not speaking or any kind of content. It was just You were just regular old Mandy Majors back then. So I joke with her all the time. I'm like, you're the one that pushed me into you did it too. You got up there, it was crazy. It was she's been like a mentor to me. I mean, she really helped me when I was younger. I had prenatal depression with one of my pregnancies, and like the mops group just surrounded me. I was so it was bad, guys. And so it's just neat to see how God was orchestrating it all back then. It's really fun.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

We had a very special mops group too. We did, we a lot of growth. A lot of loss too, and like traumatic crisis events, hard times, but it was um the fruit of it, and seeing like our children that were the mops babies then all grown, and and we meet people all the time in Next Talk who were from Mops, yeah, and have kids that are grown up now or kids having kids, that kind of thing. It's it's amazing. That's how I felt when I I think you mentioned it when I ran into Robert Emmett a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

I was like, the mops dad, you know, because he because we were underneath that church, and so um Robert Emmett was the pastor of the church where our mops group was, and he grew this church from like zero to 25,000. I mean, God grew it. Robert would be like, I didn't grow anything, God didn't.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

But I got so excited because it just reminds me of that time of our lives when we were young parents, and I feel like we like grew up, like that's when we grew up, you know. Yeah, even though we were parents.

Kids Access To Parent Phones

SPEAKER_02 4:35

So yeah, well, and and a lot of our core next top team came out of that leadership. So, like our kids, you know, went to kindergarten. We we stayed in touch a little through Facebook and stuff. We weren't meeting, and then all the stuff started happening in fourth grade, and that's when I went to my church and I'm like, okay, we got mops. Do we have anything for this kind of parenting? And that was organically how God grew next talk and everything. It's awesome. So a lot of cool history there. We didn't even plan to go into that. But let's let's get to this question. That's who we are now. So we're at this church, you know. I've given this presentation and we do a QA after. And the QA is my favorite part of the events because almost always a dad is leading the question, which I love. I love how engaged the dads are. And they're really great questions. And it's good to hear like what people are thinking after the presentation and what's going through their brain. And I think it's also good that parents feel safe in their church, like saying, Hey, we're struggling with this, or how would you handle this? Or, you know, um, it's it's almost like we're creating a culture in the church where they can talk about these hard issues. For sure. So I love that. But the question we're tackling today, so this mom, she said, I did a phone contract with my kids, you know, on their phones, and I did all this stuff in it. And one of the things was that my kids can look at my phone whenever they want. And she was like, Did I mess up? Should I have done that? Um so my immediate response was awesome, like be the model. Like, right? If you want to look at their phone, let them look at your phone. I think it's great. I don't think you did anything wrong. And I kind of still stand by that, even though we've had some conversations in the end. But right, it was yeah, it was a good response. But I do think that that Meredith had some good points as to what she was like, I feel like there should have been some disclaimers added there. So I I kind of want to dive into this because it is a touchy subject of like, we are the adults and we can use phones differently, you know, like we may have them in our bedrooms, we don't recommend it for kids. Like, there may be different rules for parents than kids, and why we need to explain that so they understand the why. But tell me your immediate response when you heard it, because this is what you texted me. What was your gut like? Oh, I don't know about this.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Yeah. I well, again, my children are older, and so it's easier to look back and say, I wouldn't have done that or I would do that, you know. Obviously, my children are older. But I my immediate gut was no separate rules. You know, I'm the parent, I pay for the phone, I say who looks at it, who doesn't look at it, and I get to look at yours. But I do commend the mom for having the guidelines. And it's and I did commend you in your answering, you were like, it's your family, it's your choice. Like, and we stand by that in next talk, right? And so I thought that was very good. And also, if you in thinking about it, when she made the contract, it was a rule she wanted. And we also talk about not changing, not just uh flippantly making a rule or flippantly saying something and then changing your mind on it. So if she was going to change it, she would need to have a sit-down and a renegotiation of her contract because you can't say in the beginning of it, yes, you can look at my phone anytime. And then when they want to, you say no. Yeah, you gotta mean what you say and say what you mean. Yeah, she might have maybe received some pushback from it at home, and that's why she was asking for some validation on it, which you validated her, and that's that's great. I mean, and and you developed the contracts and used them. My kids being a little bit older, we didn't really have the contracts set up um in the same way. It was um like random phone checks happened, but we didn't have it in writing the way some parents do now. And so for me, I was like, yeah, no, but I think it made me think about um hus uh text between my husband and I that I wouldn't want my kids to see. Made me think about work, and that nobody wants to see some of that stuff, like it's mundane. But I thought to myself, would my kids want or be able to look at my phone if they wanted to? And I would say 99% of the time I would say, Oh, here, yeah, use my phone. Yeah, but um, and also looking at the ages of kids, um, I know we've had some guests on here. I think it was Christina who does a lot of screen recording. And so her kids are on her phone. And um, talk about how when we um are first using social media, we recommend it be on the parent's phone. Yeah. So for me, it just wasn't a hard and fast yes or no. It was kind of a negotiation tool. Like if they were using social media, of course, they're on your phone when they're little and they're learning how to do it or whatever, watching videos on your phone. Like I think it kind of goes without saying at a lot of ages that your phone, your phone needs to model who you are. Yeah. And that goes without saying. But when you're negotiating with kids, it maybe isn't always uh something that I would have put in a contract as Stephen.

Spouse Texts And Digital Footprints

Work Privacy And Safety Limits

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Okay, I love this because you bring up a couple points that on the spot I didn't really think about. So I want to dive into those. Sure. Because when you said uh text between you and your spouse, so where my mind went, I got asked one time, is it okay to send my husband a nude photo? I got asked that question. And here is my response to that. And again, I don't know if it was right or not, right? But here's my response. Morally, it's fine. Like you're married, you know, that's married privileges right there. Um, from a technical standpoint, from like an IT digital footprint standpoint, it's not something I would recommend. Uh, because in in in our line of work, we see that almost anything can be recovered. It's never really gone, nothing ever really disappears from technology. Exactly. So it's not something I would do. Now, having said that, now with AI, I mean, anybody can make what they want of anybody at this point, and anybody could have a nude because of that. So there's, I don't know, but it really did get me thinking about just even banter back and forth between a spouse, you know. Uh, you do have to be careful of that if you have young kids using your phone. So I think that's just a good tip to think about. The other thing was the work stuff. So I do feel like that is something I should have addressed from the stage when she asked it, is because do you or your spouse have a job where there is highly sensitive information in there? Right. And that you have to be careful of that. Your kids can't see it, it could scar them for life. And so that definitely is something that probably should have been addressed. I'm assuming she didn't and she knew that. And so that's why she was like, I want to be the model. Like they can look at my phone just, and I love that. I love open opening. Yes, I do too. I loved the openness because we always say if I go and I look at my kids' Instagram algorithm, like I scroll through and you're gonna see what what they're clicking on because videos are gonna pop up that recommend. Right. For my son, it's always sports, it's just sports, sports, sports everywhere. If my son picked up my phone and went through my algorithm, like I would want him to see the things that I'm looking at that, you know, and so that's why when something bad pops up in my algorithm, like I don't want to stay there because I want to keep moving.

unknown 12:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Because I don't want the algorithm. So I do think that's um the openness is great. But I also see what you're saying is is that they're a child, you're the parent, like we don't negotiate some things as well.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Well, and that's part of what's going into the contract. Like that's one reason why I think our family packs are so good and our and people ask all the time for a copy of our cell phone contract that they can edit themselves because you can pick what you want to put in there. Yes. But just what's important for me would be really think about what you put in there because you can't go back on it. You can't expect them to hold the line with what you say, and then you be like, oh, well, no, you can't look at my phone right now because I got to clean it up first. Well, well, no, that's saying that's right. And so I really like um, I really liked how um hard she was working at having the open communication. I admired that a lot. Because at first my gut reaction was like, no way, like, no, I'm the mom or whatever. But when you really think about it, you're like, man, there's nothing that was more important to her than having that open communication. And her phone is not more important than that. And so I really thought it was a good message when I, you know, when you and I were talking back and forth about it, it really settled in on me that, like, hey, she's super committed to getting this right. Her relationship with our kidda was more important than what the heck she's putting on her phone or in a group text. Or it was really, really good.

Contracts, Modeling, Social Media Training

SPEAKER_02 13:43

She's she's living by what she's preaching to them. Yes, right? Like things on your phone are not a diary. Like you have to have integrity. Every text, every post, every everything that you're sending, you have to have integrity. And so she's living by that. And I think that's so good. I think that's so good. But we can get put our guard down. I think, especially with our spouse or maybe with our best friend. You know, I know with even in the our staff group chat, like we're screenshotting stuff on Twitter or stuff that wouldn't be a problem. Some new trends that we didn't want to know about. We have to send and we're like, oh, here's this. Yeah, what in the world is this? So we we do have to be careful, I think, and be aware if you have young kids. And I and I do recommend that when your kids are younger and they want to have more media. I always suggest like starting on your phone. Like their first group text with their friends should be on your phone, or or maybe a family iPad that you can monitor or something like that. But but their first group text should not be on their own personal phone or device because you need to be in there. You need to be monitoring when they're first starting out a whole lot more.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

For sure. Yeah. Well, and it makes you think too, like, well, it ties in a lot with your presentation, which is why she asked it. But you're talking about like look in the mirror, you're talking about modeling good behavior, you're talking about our relationships we have with our phones. So if you do have those things that you can't show people, even if it's your kids, and a lot of it, maybe you need to be thinking, you know, and it's not work, it's a group text, right? Where everybody's ranting about their children. Is that something that you need to look at in the mirror and be like, is that right that I'm doing that? And and maybe remove that, and then your family can have more access to your phone, right? So to me, it's kind of like where we talk about what's your relationship like with your phone. Well, maybe if you have too much of a relationship with your phone, that's what makes it an issue at all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

But well, you're learning together. I mean, this is this is what Next Talk is is that we're learning technology together and it's constantly changing and we're constantly evolving. I love how you mentioned the family packs, the cell phone contract. That is all on our website under free guides, and we have a faith-based version and a non-faith-based version. And also what you said was once it's in the contract, it's in the contract. Yes, but also you your guidelines should grow with the age of your kids. Right. So you may have one contract in place, you know, when they first get a phone, and in two or three years, you may say, okay, guys, we we have some new guidelines now because your original contract said, you know, don't no downloading of new apps without parent approval. And um, you have to report this and this to me. And now you've kind of grown up where you're discerning that a little bit. So we can change this. So let's have another sit down and determine our rules. For sure. And I think it's a really great conversation starter to involve your kids in these conversations. So maybe you and your spouse, behind closed doors, you can say, this is really important that this is in the contract to me. Like these are the things that I want to hit. But then also ask your kids because they may actually have something that they want to be held accountable for that you don't even think about, that they will be honest about. They'll be like, well, I think this needs to be in the contract because I have struggled with it. Right. And it wouldn't have even been on your radar. So use it as an opportunity to create conversation when you when you create these contracts or agreements on what they're going to report to you from their phone.

Renegotiating Rules With Teens

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Yeah, one thing I thought was really good with her question was that it was about a conversation. She's look sat down and this is something they've negotiated out together, and it's what worked. She's clearly heard something probably from somebody like me being like, it's my kid, and I gave him the phone, you know. Yeah, those reels out there that make you feel like you're doing everything. But I thought it was, I thought I always think the QA is so great. And I thought that it was really great. Because when she asked, I thought, oh, I wonder what she's gonna say. And then you said, I think that's awesome. If that's what your family has negotiated, that's what you and or and I was like, huh. And and it really is awesome because that's what her family has come up with, that's what's working. And each child might need something different. So you don't, you know, when you are quote, judging people by their decision making, you don't really know what. I mean, my kids never really wanted to look at my phone, they didn't think there was anything interesting, but you may have a child that's super curious that says, Well, hey, if you're looking at mine, can I look at yours? And if it opens up the communication, then that's the spot you're in.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

One thing that I love about our team, and we really try to model this well on our our team culture, is we want our our our work culture to be similar to what we're trying to do in the home. And that is create a space where we have a core foundation that we completely agree on. And for our staff, like that's we have a statement of faith, like we believe the Bible is true and accurate, and that's our statement of faith. So we have though that foundation, but then there are these things like this like, do we, you know, the gray areas of do we let our kids look at our phone or not? Right? Like we can't find a direct answer from scripture in there. And those are the things that we call like non-negotiables, to where I love when we have disagreements on our team about that. Because it's like, and I'm like, huh, I never would have thought of it that way. And so that's where we came up with the phrase, your family, your choice, too, because there there are there are a lot of gray areas here that you are gonna need to determine what happens in your home. I think the key is though that whatever you do, you bring your kid along and engage in dialogue about why that's your rule and why you're gonna put that boundary in place.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

For sure. And I think it validated that mom and dad are the leaders of their house. Because it's she didn't come in and say, My kid is nagging me about this one decision, so I'm gonna let them look at my phone too. She said, We put in the phone contract a rule that XYZ. And then she's like, What do you think of that? And so I it validated our mission in the sense that you know, we want our parents to be the heroes in their family. We want our, we want kids bringing things to the parents, we want um them guiding their family, them to be the safe place. So it's it was really nice to see that she was in that spot and just wanting to be like, What do you think of it, Mandy Majors? And so it's it's funny because I at first was like, huh, which is why you do the QA, I will add, because I would have been like, huh, to her. I don't know. You know, I would have gone into a 20-minute podcast on it. But um, it's so important that we validate parents at where they're at and when they're pouring into their kids in this way.

Firm And Kind Through Gray Areas

SPEAKER_02 20:23

I sensed in her a real sweetness of, I want to get this right. It help me. Am I getting it right? You know, there was this like validation is the good word for it. And I saw myself in her all these years along the way making guidelines, not knowing if they were gonna work or not, or you know, am I doing the right thing here with my kids? We just want to do the right thing for our kids. It was great. So I I think the one thing I want to say is it's okay though, if you mess up. Like it's okay if you implement a guideline and it's not great, and then you need to talk about it and maybe redo it. Just walk them through the process with you uh uh of that. And for sure, and don't be so afraid of making a mistake. Like, this is just get out there, have the conversation. As long as you're being respectful and humble and having conversation, it's a win. It's a win no matter what. For sure. Love it. You got to add anything else? I think I'm good. Okay, so the next event we go to, and she no, this is not okay. We'll be back.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

I think it's good though just to have an opportunity on our podcast to talk about varying views because I don't I think it's important that parents listen and and hear it and discuss it and read the Bible and dig in and look in the mirror and figure out how they feel about different things as they step into this space. And so it's the podcast is just what we talk about after an event where we're like, man, that was a great question. And and it really made us think because it's not cut and dry.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

You know what it reminded me of? A reaction video on Instagram recently um to um a psych, I think it was a psychiatrist or psychologist, and he said uh parenting can be described in two words firm and kind. And I do feel like we're constantly finding the balance with that, right? Like we gotta be firm, we gotta set the rules, but but we wanna be kind. We wanna we wanna foster the relationship. We don't want to create tension in the home, you know. We want to pick our battles. Sure. And so it is a constant balance of that, and you're gonna get it right, and then you're it's gonna be awesome, and you're gonna get it wrong, and you're gonna have to apologize.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

And right, and that's part of healthy relationship. For sure. And being kind to other parents too, and not, you know, and being like, oh, well, that's that's her rule. Okay. Or, you know, I thought that was super, it's super important. Anytime with your Q ⁇ A's and when people contact our help desk, all that kind of thing, you're always gonna be met with kindness with us because we've been there, we've seen it, nothing is off limits and nothing catches us off guard at next talk whatsoever. And people are really um digging in there and working hard to build these relationships and to keep their kids safe.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

That is true. Because here's the thing if you're attending one of our hard-to-hear presentations, I mean, it's hard to hear, and or you're contacting us, reaching out, or you're listening to the podcast, I'm just gonna make an assumption about you, you're a good parent. You're just trying to figure out how to parent the digital world. For sure. And so that is like you are always gonna be loved and accepted here, like you're doing your best. This has caught us all off guard. You I get it. I'm 10 years old. I was blindsided.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

We're still caught off guard occasionally.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Exactly. And our kids are grown, like our kids are all adults now, between five of them. Wow, between the two of us. Gosh. Anyway, so um, Meredith, I've loved having you on. Thank you for being here. Thank you for challenging me.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

I will that is also part of being operations manager at Next Doc.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

What I love, what I again, what I love about our team culture, like like we don't surround ourselves with people who agree with everything we say. Like, I don't think that's healthy. And so I we love being challenged in a respectful, like this is what respectful disagreement dialogue looks like. And um, it it makes us better. It helps in the mirror.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

We find a common ground on what we could agree on, uh, you know, well, I would do it this way, and I would, oh yeah, I both agree on that, you know, and that's that's important.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Absolutely. And I think too, the foundation of the Bible truth really helps, you know, because we've agreed on that. And I always, you know, we always have to be thinking about that when you when you think about your friendships too. Like, like there should be some solid friendships that you have in your life where you have those core beliefs where you know, okay, we're on the same page here. And there will be others that you don't, but but but it's important that you have those friends that are like coming from the same perspective. For sure.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

It's even a bigger blessing if you get to work with people who have the same. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Amen.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

All right. Well, thanks for having me. Thanks for being on back to work. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

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