Parenting’s New Frontier: What Happens When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone?

TOWARD THE BACK of my top dresser drawer—the one for pajamas—I have an iPhone 4 in a lime-green case. I bought this now-obsolete phone, refurbished, years ago, as a gift for my son on his 11th birthday. But it was never charged, never turned on, never brought blazing to life as I hoped it would be: with group texts, Instagram, Super Stickman Golf.

So the…