Our eldest daughter is soon moving to a secondary school a short bus journey away from our house. Many of her friends already own and use phones regularly. For a while, Emma and I resisted but as she will be making her way to the school independently, for her safety and our piece of mind, we thought a phone would be a good idea.

When we sat down to discuss the idea, we all felt that we should have an agreement around the usage of our phones. Emma and I already do this. We have a loose set of rules we follow; no phones at the dinner table, no phones in bed, common sense, really. Of course, we also have the guidelines and rules as part of our phone contracts with Vodafone and Apple. Our daughter felt that it would be fair and make sense if she had the same.

I remembered reading Cameron’s phone contract he wrote for his son. With that as inspiration (thanks Cameron!), Emma and I set about noting down the various conditions we felt would give the right guidance. Making it clear what was advice and what was a rule and consequences of breaking them.

What would you change?

The contract is on Github. What would you change? What would you add? Please, fork it, add to to it. I’d love to know what you think. Wisdom of crowds and all that.