ENTERTAINMENTJenna Bush Hager Refuses to Give 12-Year-Old Daughter Mila a Phone: 'It’s Because I Love Your Brain'
On 'TODAY With Jenna & Friends,' Jenna Bush Hager revealed why she's holding back from gifting her pre-teen a phone.
Dec. 18 2025, Published 4:06 p.m. ET
Jenna Bush Hager has strict rules when it comes to her kids’ phone use.
During the Thursday, December 18, episode of TODAY With Jenna & Friends, the host, 44, called herself “team get off the phone, get into the real world.”
Bush Hager gave an inside look into her parenting style during a discussion with Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price, the authors of The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World.
Jenna Bush Hager broke down her opinions of kids' smartphone use.
“[Guest co-host Willie Geist and my] kids’ schools have a phone ban, which has drastically changed the environment and our children….” she revealed. “We know there’s so much at stake here. Our kids, especially pre-teens, which I have, and I’m holding out, I’m one of the only…there’s wiring of the brain. I always say to Mila, ‘It’s because I love you. I love your brain.’”
Bush Hager resonated with the writers’ mission to “get kids excited about living full lives off-screen,” to fill their lives with “fun and freedom and friendship.”
Jenna Bush Hager discussed her parenting style.
The media personality praised a particular post the authors shared that will be “really helpful when [she’s] ready to give [her] daughter a phone.”
“You put this beautiful contract up. You read it, it’s like seven pages long, and you’re like, ‘Is she ready?’ Jeez,” she said.
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Jenna Bush Hager has three kids.
“That contract…was great for laying out all the complexities, like, ‘Here are the things you have to think about…’ think about all the things you’re going to put in place if you’re going to do it,” Haidt explained.
“If you’re still given a phone, the fight continues, because you need to keep it away,” Bush Hager noted.
Jenna Bush Hager is waiting to give her 12-year-old a phone.
The Today host further reflected on her 12-year-old’s tween years in a January interview.
“[Mila] is in her tween era. But she’s a sweet tween,” she shared. “If you just think and say like, ‘Gosh, you’re so sweet. Look at how empathetic you are, look how amazing you are.' Sure, they’re going to every once in a while show their tween or teen self, but really, it’s like that loving kid that was in her still there. And there’s, you know, some changes and she’s the sweetest, kindest, [most] empathetic girl. And I’m so proud of her.”
Jenna Bush Hager shares children with husband Henry Hager.
The TV star teased that she “better have had a role” in the way her kids treat others.
“Parenting was hard last night. [My husband] Henry’s like, ‘Wow, parenting is really hard,'” she reflected. “And it is. But yeah, of course. I hope that the way Henry and I treat people is rubbed off, you know? And she witnesses that, but she’s a good kid. All of them are. They’re all wild, too, but they’re good.”
The mom shares Mila, 12, Poppy, 10, and Hal, 7, with her spouse.
