Savannah Guthrie put her legal skills to work before giving her 11-year-old daughter Vale an iCloud account.
“I actually drafted a contract for her to sign,” the former attorney told Jenna Bush Hager on Aug. 20.
While co-hosting Jenna & Friends, Savannah shared the set of rules Vale had to agree to before accessing her digital locker.
“It was basically like… I know that Mommy and Daddy can read my texts. I know I will not put in a text anything I wouldn’t want grandma and grandpa to see,” Savannah said. She added that Vale also understands not to do anything that could land her in the news for the wrong reasons!
Though Savannah reserves the right to check her middle schooler’s messages, she said she almost never does.
“I trust her,” she said.
Vale and her brother, Charley, 8, do not have devices, “and God willing, they’ll never have one,” Savannah said.
For now, Vale borrows Savannah’s phone, which can get a bit confusing. Savannah noted that she’s close with the moms of Vale’s two best friends.
“Those girls were texting on our phones a lot because they didn’t have their own,” Savannah recalled. So the moms moved their conversation to WhatsApp. Savannah titled the chat Moms Strike Back.
“And it’s a picture of the three little girls with an X through it!” Savannah said with a laugh.
Last year, Savannah shared a photo on Instagram that outlined The Anxious Generation author Jonathan Haidt’s phone-safety measures for kids, which includes:
- No smartphones before high school.
- No social media before 16.
- Phone-free schools.
- More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
“We can do it if we stick together,” Savannah wrote.
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