No phone for secondary school

@gldd I also work in a school, and the trouble is, the parents that don't check will never be the parents that don't allow their kids smartphones. And while I can see the damage (I agree with phone bans/restrictions in school-which is why DD knows if she ever gets caught she can say goodbye to that phone to a long time because I'm not picking it up) , I can't agree with a full ban on smartphones for under 16s(let's say) because it fucks everyone up.

On tech tycoons thing, we also need to be realistic to what kind of resources these people have. Their kid won't be the kid (often on their own)waiting in the rain at the bus station for an unknown time waiting for a late/broken down bus , with no idea when it's going to arrive,if it will arrive at all. Or going out with their friends at 11. Or arriving in an empty house from school. Or spending a few hours on their own at home because parents have to work.Their kids might have a tech free , free range childhood, but it's in a strictly controlled and restricted environment,with people of similar backgrounds, with a lot of funds to back up their principles.

The saying I heard recently is ‘ you’re not allowing your child to have access to the whole world, you’re allowing the whole world to have access to your child’.

I don't disagree with you on some of these points. Clearly some parents will be managing their children's usages responsibly.

But if you read what the teachers on this thread are saying, most parents (not you, i'm sure) have no idea what their children are doing on their phones and they're increasingly having to deal with the fallout. There is an epidemic of mental illness among young people, with a wealth of correlational, and now experimental, evidence that this is linked to smart phone use in teens and pre-teens. (https://www.afterbabel.com/)

The fact is that giving phones to children has led to a shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. Do you think this is a good thing?

These devices and software have been created by design by behavioural psychologists to hold our attention as long as possible. Adults can barely put them down, do you think its a good idea to give them to children with developing brains?

The creators of the hardware and software (and tech whistleblowers) are on record as saying that they designed to be addictive, and are bad for child mental health. They send their children to technology-free schools (no, not even phone free schools, screen free schools! - see Waldorf School of the Peninsula). Does this not bother you?

Do you not see that there might be a wider problem here?

I have posted on quite a few threads about children having phones, and a familiar theme does seem to be an “all or nothing” approach. E.g you either let you child have a phone and thus access to all social media and everything on the internet and all the evils or you don’t let them have a phone.

DS is 11, prior to the first lockdown had be brought up totally screen free and it was something I was really quite adamant about. Now, 4 years on he has an Xbox, a kids fire tablet, and an iPhone. Each one of these devices is heavily locked down. As I’ve mentioned on other threads he doesn’t even have the app to access the internet on his phone - parental controls allow me to remove it completely, he also does not have any social media, no WhatsApp, and any app he wants to download has to be approved via my phone by me putting in a code or using my own Face ID. He originally had access to FaceTime and his friends would have group calls whilst playing games together on his Xbox, but as friends of friends were being added into these chats I just simply limited his access. This allows him to still keep in touch with his friends (who all live miles away owing to his school being 26 miles away), organise gaming sessions, I can track his location on the school bus, he can call us if he is running late, as a family we all go out multiple times a week and play Pokémon Go together, the list goes on. All of these things benefit him in various ways, socially, from a safety perspective etc, but also allow him to have those benefits whilst being protected from wider harms that can occur from social media use and unfettered access to the web.

So much of what we do in life now revolves around technology, I would rather DS have a carefully supervised introduction to technology now, that can be built upon slowly with age and responsibility, than bar him from it until he is 16-18 and then expect him to suddenly understand responsible use.

I’m in this exact same predicament. I absolutely hate the idea of my, soon to be, year 7 child having a phone. He has access to screens and I allow him to play Minecraft, Roblox and Fife. He has an email account. I don’t allow Fortnite and he has thankfully missed out on a HUGE amount of bullying by me making that decision, but now we have the phone decision rearing its head. I’ve already said if I get a phone it won’t be ‘his phone’, it will be a utility phone that makes us contactable if the coach is late or he has an after school detention etc. I honestly don’t know what this looks like in practice though.

im grateful for the poster who linked to smartphone free childhood. I’m going to go and look that up now and join a local group.

I just bought one for Year 6 child who's starting secondary in September.

He's the last in his year to get one.

At the end of the day, he'll be going to a school in another town and the school bus to the villages is notoriously unreliable. Sometimes it just doesn't turn up. I won't risk him being stranded, especially as no public transport comes through our village.

Check with school. Our Academy Trust does not.

You can restrict what they use the phone for. They don’t need to have social media accounts but there are many other uses for a smart phone. The word is filled with ever changing technology and it always will be for them.

I don’t agree that it means they are ‘growing up to fast’ - that’s just a comparison to when we first had smartphones. Because they didn’t exist when we were the same age.

So I think YABU when saying this about children other than your own. Because it’s actually none of your business. YANBU to make your own choice with your own children.

Petition: Ban smartphones and camera phones for under 16s
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/655473

@gldd

Online gaming is NOT just on smartphones or because of smartphones. Hell that has even a thing (LAN parties anyone?) before I even held a smartphone in my hand. How many people have several consoles and devices for gaming, for themselves and their kids?

Porn... same. They can find it on the ipad, on the laptop, on the smart telly, on their parents devices etc. Actually, I would really like to see any and all porn more stringently regulated, including having to sign up for it /register a credit card, even if it's free to make access a bit trickier for everyone, particularly young people.

Sleep deprivation... no phone At nighttime. I used to stay up late into the night reading a book , same effect.

Attention fragmentation- not that many notifications if not many/any apps and limited access.

Not going to.... uhmm yes you can. Some people choose to.

Plenty of independence. Knowing where your kids are is not curbing their independence. Whenever something happens the first thing people ask is where are the parents and why don't they know where their kids are/what they get up to.

And so on.

The tool in itself is not damaging. The way it is used can be. Like a kitchen knife. Since we're talking about children, it's up to the parents to manage,supervise and restrict that usage while also teaching children how to use it safely. Like you would do with any tool.

@SuziQuinto
they already need access to apps now and have to borrow parents phones/tablets if they don’t have their own.

In the US you can buy a lightphone - basically a minimal smartphone with no internet or social media (but which does allow calls, texts and group messaging). I wish they would make that available over here.

He shouldn't be on Whatsapp.
He won't need apps for homework - check with the school.

BINGO.

It is worrying that they have no sense of personal safety, they have no idea what is going on around them or who is around them. It is truly scary.

my son is y6 and heading to high school

I agree with you but reluctantly agreed that he’d miss out socially if he didn’t have one. Even now most of year 6 is using WhatsApp to socialise, arrange things etc.

also he will need access to apps for homework.

How about:

online gaming replacing in-person interactions
pornography, whenever, whereever they want it
sleep deprivation (what can I look up on my phone!)
attention fragmentation (what notifications do I have!)
inability to suit quietly and wonder
cant go to a concert, music, play, performance without recording it
no true independence (my parents are tracking my every movement!)
never get bored (being bored is important)

I could go on

It's already happening. Any schools not implementing this are behind the times and not following recommendations.

I'd like to see a ban on phones in schools but doubt it will happen.

Potentially denying them social opportunities - perhaps you're right.

But also potentially denying them poorer attention spans, cyber bullying, anxiety...

Well then surely the point still stands, especially if they are interacting like this anyway, why not let them have a smartphone?

I think there's a lot of hype about something that is actually not that big of a deal. Times move on and some people get worked up and stuck in the past.

@MsPossibly so like people have for years( since the end of Victorians) , but through various devices? You know like reading a physical book with music on, or doing homework with music on and so on?

"Two systematic reviews have shown that media multitasking is associated with negative effects on cognitive control, academic performance and socioemotional functioning in youth."

That could be simply listening to music while reading wikipedia.

The problem is it's very difficult to lock a phone down (in the UK) to not allow any social media, WhatsApp, internet access etc.