{"id":297422,"date":"2025-12-03T21:25:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/297422\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T21:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:25:15","slug":"a-smartphone-is-off-my-11-year-olds-santa-list-heres-why-im-putting-my-foot-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/297422\/","title":{"rendered":"A smartphone is off my 11-year-old\u2019s Santa list \u2013 here\u2019s why I\u2019m putting my foot down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Under my son\u2019s choices of \u2018books\u2019 and \u2018sports equipment\u2019 came an \u2018iPhone\u2019 \u2013 but I\u2019m prepared to be Scrooge on the issue\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"New stats show 96pc of Irish secondary school children aged 12-15 own a smartphone. Phone: Stock\/Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/tyImages_1271979337.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">New stats show 96pc of Irish secondary school children aged 12-15 own a smartphone. Phone: Stock\/Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Christmas is upon us again and it\u2019s the season to say no. Grinch, Scrooge, the mean dad in Elf \u2013 I\u2019ll take all the insults out there to hold my ground on the issue that unites parents across the land.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Up against me is my 11-year-old with his PR-savvy Santa list, with \u201csome books, David Walliams is fine\u201d bumped to the top and a filling of sports equipment before getting down to the gadgets and the killer punchline: \u201cPlease get me an iPhone even though my mam and dad won\u2019t let me. It will help with homework!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under my son\u2019s choices of \u2018books\u2019 and \u2018sports equipment\u2019 came an \u2018iPhone\u2019 \u2013 but I\u2019m prepared to be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[106541,12770,2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-297422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-daily-features","9":"tag-latest-news-ticker","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}