Does Paying You Child To Stay Off Social Media Work? Experts Say…

Published: December 12, 2025

By India McCarty

Could paying your child to get off their phone actually work? Experts say yes — but to keep certain details in mind.

“Well, we already use incentives for parenting, so think allowance for chores, or extra privileges for responsibility, so rewards aren’t automatically bad,” ABC News parenting reporter Bethany Braun-Silva said. “The key difference is intention.”

She explained that, by creating this deal with your children, you are “empowering them to make a thoughtful decision about something we all agree is addictive.”

Braun-Silva cautioned parents against creating an arrangement that is “purely transactional,” explaining, “That’s where it crosses into bribe territory.”

She also encouraged parents to ask themselves, “Is this a temporary training tool to build a muscle, or a way to avoid conflict?”

For parents who might be struggling to get their child to agree to this kind of deal, Braun-Silva counseled framing it as a “challenge or agreement, not a restriction.”

“A lot of families are reporting a deeper connection [after putting this deal in place],” she shared, listing “more creativity, better sleep, and kids who are actually learning financial responsibility” as benefits.

Brooklyn mom Jennifer Abbott is one of many parents who have said this kind of agreement has worked out, for both her and her children. She told her children — son Beckett, 12, and daughter Evie, 11 — they would each receive $1,800 if they stay off of social media until they’re 18.

“It’s all or nothing,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “They’re both pretty pumped about it.”

19 year-old Eli Dunaway had a similar agreement with his parents, who told him he would get $1,600 if he stayed away from social media until he was 16. He shared that, by coming up with an agreement together, it made it feel like he was part of the decision-making process.

“They could have said, ‘You’re not having this, end of discussion,’ but having that deal made it easier for me not to go behind their back and sneak around to get Snapchat,” he explained.

It’s not surprising that parents are willing to do just about anything to help their children avoid the pitfalls of social media. A 2019 study from Johns Hopkins found that young people who spend three hours or more on social media each day are more likely to suffer negative mental health impacts.

“We need to find a better way to balance the benefits of social media with possible negative health outcomes,” the study’s lead author, Kira Riehm, shared. “Setting reasonable boundaries, improving the design of social media platforms and focusing interventions on media literacy are all ways in which we can potentially find this equilibrium.”

It might seem unorthodox, but for many parents, providing their children with a financial incentive to stay off of their phones really works out.

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