What should you do if your nine-year-old child wants an Apple Watch?

A nine-year-old girl wants an Apple Watch - because many of her classmates already have one. Her mum has trouble with it and asks our team of experts for advice.

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One question - three opinions

The majority of children in Year 4 have an Apple Watch. Now our daughter, 9, wants one too. I find that impossible. I don't want to monitor my child. And I'm not prepared to spend so much money on a watch. What would you do?

Patrizia, 31, Schaffhausen

This is what our team of experts says:

Nicole Althaus
Exactly what you instinctively do: If it were my daughter, she wouldn't get an Apple Watch as a fourth-grader. Because she doesn't need one any more than she needs Balenciaga trainers. I'm surprised that the majority of ten-year-olds are already wearing the latest gadgets on their wrists, but I can understand the pressure my daughter feels to imitate them. If the pressure has not subsided by Christmas, her daughter can add the watch, which costs almost 300 francs, to her wish list. At least then she will learn that not everything in life comes true immediately.
Peter Schneider
Even with an Apple Watch, monitoring is voluntary. So you don't have to. However, you would have to spend money if you wanted to buy your daughter an Apple Watch. The fact that everyone (i.e. almost everyone or at least 51 per cent, at least if you don't count all the non-cool people) has one is of course a bogus argument, especially because it has a kernel of truth. Do you perhaps remember how happiness at that age depended on such things (instead of noble immaterial pleasures)? Incidentally, a current model of the (cheapest) Apple Watch SE currently costs a little under 200 francs on Ricardo.
Annette Cina
You have a clear stance, so you can act accordingly. Your daughter's wish is also understandable. Belonging often has to do with having similar things. Children talk to each other about what's cool at the moment. Not being able to have a say means standing on the sidelines. Talk to your daughter: Why does she want this watch? Is it about belonging or about the usefulness of the watch? Sometimes it helps to negotiate what can be bought and what can be given up in return. Sometimes it helps to wait until the hype is over. This shows that you take your daughter seriously, but that you have your own attitude towards it.


The team of experts:

  • Annette Cina, 51, works at the Institute for Family Research and Counselling at the University of Freiburg. In her own practice, the psychologist, psychotherapist and mother of three counsels young people and adults. Her research focuses on the prevention of child behavioural disorders, couple conflicts, parenting and stress.
  • Peter Schneider, 66, is a psychoanalyst, columnist and satirist. He used to be a professor of educational and developmental psychology at the University of Bremen and is still a private lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Zurich. Father and husband of an adult son and an adult wife from and in his first marriage.
  • Nicole Althaus, 54, is editor-in-chief of magazines and a member of the editorial board of «NZZ am Sonntag», columnist and author. She initiated the mum blog on tagesanzeiger.ch and was editor-in-chief of «Wir Eltern». Nicole Althaus is the mother of two grown-up children.
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