Psychologist Abraham Maslow described a person’s needs and motivations as hierarchical, where the need to be and feel safe is a prerequisite to the needs to be and feel connected and then competent, before a person can “self-actualize” — move into state of being where growth and becoming motivate ones decisions and provide fulfillment.

Now consider a cellphone. On one hand, a phone can contribute to safety when it allows a teen to reach someone in an emergency and access maps or other important information or when a parent’s routine monitoring results in helpful conversations in which parents can both tolerate and calmly talk about “unacceptable” behavior in your teen or his or her friends.

On the other hand, cellphones can promote an unsafe environment if a teen is doing unsafe things online or if parents secretly monitor the phone — perhaps doing so just to “catch” them doing something wrong — and, as a result, trust at home is deteriorating.

Regarding connection, a cellphone can obviously be a powerful way for a teen to stay connected with friends, but it can also be distancing when there are no limits at the dinner table, in the car, late at night or during other family events.

Too often, parents are taking phones away because they are fixated on their son or daughter’s competency (school work, etc.) and not appreciating the fragility of their teen’s sense of safety (perhaps in the relationship with parents) or connection (belonging among friends). Taking a phone away in this case just worsens safety and connection, and any hope you had in improving competency collapses on top of a pile of unmet needs.

So, if you are going to take the phone away, make sure you have thoroughly considered, in order, safety, connection and competence, and make sure your decision is promoting these needs, not undermining them.