I also have an 11 year old with an Apple Watch and it has been such a good introduction to connectivity as well as social media (iMessage/texting...)

She has gained a lot of independance because we are able to track her with the watch, and she is now proactively communicating with it to let us know where she will be etc.

I'm not enthusiastic about the teen years with TikTok/Instagram,etc but at least she will have been onramped gradually and hopefully it's a natural progression.