No phone for secondary school

simply amazing what people here will try to start arguments on

Up to what age? 16?18?

In my school, phones are not permitted at all. We have calculators in classrooms so they are not needed for that. Phones are handed in a secure bag in morning registration, kept locked in the admin office for the day and collected at home time.

Loads of sympathy for the teachers having to deal with this issue in schools@TitaniasAss.
But there will always be exceptions to 'phones not permitted at all'. You just can't say that. There are around 32,000 children with Type 1 diabetes and increasingly they are going to be managing their condition using a smartphone as a medical device.

If you don't want your child to have a smartphone, don't buy them a smartphone.

I think most parents these days want their child to have a phone of some kind so they can call and text if they need to. Obviously that doesn't have to be a smartphone. However, there are obviously lots of other handy things that a smartphone can do which I'm sure some parents feel makes it a useful all-in-one device for their child to have. And they don't have to be expensive at all.

As an adult, I use my smartphone as a watch, a calculator, a library, a music player, a radio, a payment card, a source of travel information and updates, a torch and a creative tool for snapping interesting pics etc. Since those things are also really useful for a teenager travelling independently to/from school, I can see why parents feel they're a reasonable thing to buy. Not essential, of course, but certainly very handy indeed. I guess it's just a personal choice, there's not a right and a wrong here.

My kids wont be having phones or internet. Kids need to get dirty, climb trees, ride bikes, read books and socialise.

I think more restricted and age appropriate smart phones will come but we aren't there yet. For now I think one of the best things you can do is use parental controls as much as possible, and insist on the phone staying out of their bedroom as much as possible.

Don't give them the mindset that it's their phone, their new toy, so much as that it's something provided by you but that they get to take out of the house and use like a front door key or their calculator or their shoes. So don't make it a Christmas or birthday treat (something I regret doing with mine who are now older). While they're young, you provide the phone, you are in charge of what goes on it, no accounts on apps are created without your knowledge and guidance, and you check it regularly. It can still be a place where they can contact friends or be contacted but it doesn't have to be a sort of private link to the Internet that's attached to them 24/7. (Truly private conversations with friends can only happen in person anyway, because phones are not private - you never know who else a friend might be showing your messages to.)

One year 7 specific benefit we found was maps - walking home with new friends who live in a different direction and then needing to walk all the way home later by themselves. Also being able to see where your child is or their lost phone is. Those two together can allow for more freedom and independence (keep the location thing for emergencies though, don't kill their feeling of independence by using any knowledge you have of where they've been for anything less than an emergency).

I understand your feelings OP and I think the tide is turning, but it will be towards restricted phones for teenagers, not no phones, and having no phone at all doesn't completely work now. Right now what you can do is try to mimic those phones of the future by setting up your own limits and controls. A proper phone of their own, with no parental oversight, can be for later.

@gldd some of the messages (including the one where they just gave up and said to find alternative arrangements)from the bus company. I'm not making it up, it's incredibly frustrating and stressful.

Oh and all solutions to a very late/broken down bus need to be done within a certain time frame , unless she's already on it, otherwise she will be late to school which obviously stresses her out and it's not ideal.

@gldd I'll expand on the bus situation, not to be a pedantic git, but to expose various situations and circumstances.

First of all it's a school bus, it doesn't take cash or card, it's a specific QR code one. If she misses it there's not a next one.Like I said, I can by pass that (and have) by printing it out and laminating it, but I had to keep doing it and it was an extra thing for DD to remember(at a school where they get detention for forgetting a calculator/ruler/green pen/black pen) so yes maybe that was laziness , inconvenience.

Now on the actual bus issue. She is the only kid taking the bus at our station (only person there actually) so there's no one to ask or interact with. Sadly , despite costing £££ the bus often breaks down or is late. I'm not talking about 5/10 minutes , I'm talking 30/45/60 and one time even messaging to say make alternate arrangements. DD can track the bus and see where it is and get updates. She can adjust her leaving time by tracking it so she's not out for an hour in the rain. She can ring or message me if there's an issue, or a friend's mum for a lift. Once, when it broke down on the way back with no ETA for a new bus, she looked on google maps and saw there was a train station to our area a short walk away, so she and two friends did that after checking with me if it was ok.

It was a great piece of mind (for her as well as me)when she went for a 3 minute walk in primary to a 30 min drive on the aforementioned bus.

As for the different phone, the cheapest ones are £40 . Now , I can definitely afford that, but a lot of families can't so it makes no sense for them to buy a new , separate device, plus a tablet/laptop/computer when they can just pass down an old one. A lot of posters just assume these extra devices already exist in most homes. If that's the case , then kids are just at as much risk as from a smartphone ,so once again it comes down to parents to manage and restrict use.You might think that argument is ridiculous, but it's reality for a lot of families.

I don't understand why tablets,laptops,computers,gaming devices etc are ok and normal but smartphones are the root of all evil. Or why , if restrictions can be put on these ,the same can't be said for a phone and make it the parent's responsibility. Again, I'm not being obnoxious, I honestly don't get why a phone is more dangerous than a tablet with the same rules/restrictions.

Tbh, now that I think (and I'm constantly thinking and reassessing)about it I'd probably agree to a no smart phone rule for under 10s ,bar any medical needs.

I would argue that it's not necessarily healthy for the independence and agency of a child to be tracked by their parents (see 'Free Range Kids' by Lenore Skenazy). I appreciate that many parents might want to do this though, and it's an interesting issue. Nonetheless, you don't need a smart phone to be able to do this (Apple Air Tags, others)

Yes, they don't need their own smartphone and they certainly don't need to take one to school.

None of the parents in our school are like this. Thank goodness

Same. I like to know my daughter is home safe

From the Guardian yesterday - whatever anyone thinks, it seems very likely tighter restrictions of some sort are in the pipeline.

The balance of risk tends towards favouring political action to reinforce boundaries around childhood when it has been invaded and commodified by advances in digital technology.

It is easy to see why companies that profit by monopolising the attention span of young minds want unchecked access. It is far from obvious why that access should be granted.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/10/the-guardian-view-on-smartphones-and-children-a-compelling-case-for-action

I think it's about installing appropriate usage of the phone into your child.

My Dc have had smartphones from starting secondary. They get the train to school so the app allows them to access timetables, scan tickets. If train is delayed, they access the bus app. If they don't have cash, they access their monzo account. If they're delayed, I can track their progress on Life360 app. They manage their sports fixtures on the Spond app and their homework on a different app.

What they don't have is access to social media apps. We use text and WhatsApp to communicate and thankfully, keeping them busy with sports and after school activities doesn't give them the time or desire to dive into social media.

It may be none of my business, but it is both a wider societal problem and a collective action problem (making changes doesn't work in isolation). So, there are reasonable grounds in my eyes for discussing this more widely than the household.

Should I not be concerned about young people that are not my own when their is an epidemic of mental health problems that have been linked both correlationally and experimentally to the shift to phone-based childhoods?

Hey, shouldn't it be my business alone to drive my car as fast as I please in front of a school? Actually no, it's bad for children if I do. That's why we have speed limits. Do you see the similarity?

Totally, my point was just that the study I mentioned looked beyond social media use to general digital media use and its effect.

Oh and schoolwork is don’t paper and pen. Apart from doctor frost. Have to check an app for their homework.

Phones have to be in lockers at our school.

They have a phone so they can contact me should the bus not turn up. So that when I am at work I can call them after they are off the bus and make sure they have got home safe.

I have two bereaved children if I am late home they panic so they can call me to see I’m ok.

times have changed and teens are ever more social. I have a 12 year old who’s got a better social life than me which she organises by herself via her phone.

my kids also do sport regularly so they are not stuck to their phones. They even spend time with me.

people say it weren’t like this in our day but if phones had been around at that time you would have had one. I was never allowed anywhere with my friends, I am jealous of my kids freedom part of which they have because I can easily contact them, track where they are. Their friends also have my numbers and know they can call me if they miss a lift or anything.

Due to the recent government advice I think all schools are supposed to be cracking down on them in school. If they are seen, they are supposed to be confiscated. Often they say it should be switched off in their bag during school hours, although realistically which young adult is going to do that...

It is a little annoying that most homework is now platform based and homework diaries are being phased out to cut costs. I hope that when ds goes to secondary he will access this sort of thing from the home computer.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to be able to operate at school without a smartphone but then your child becomes different to their peers and that's no fun - unless you have a self-assured child who can ride that wave.

You can get feature / dumb / flip phones that have no social media but a simple version of WhatsApp. See KaiOSx on Nokia (8000 4G, 6300 4G, 800 Tough), plus others

My sons autistic and in mainstream. His phone stays in his bag all day and he doesn’t use it at school but it’s handy if there was any transport issues etc.

on some occasions they are encouraged to use their phone in lessons to research something 🤷‍♀️

homework is also sent on an app!

PaperDolls, thanks for your thoughts. I've enjoyed discussing this with you.

I would've thought that the parents who dont check their kids thoughts being the ones who who never ban phones - well that's a good reason for legislative change.

Yes of course the tech tycoons are better resourced and live in a different world. But a kid waiting in the rain for the bus - so they get wet! The bus doesn't arrive - so they have to use their initiative, or maybe actually talk to another human being and then gain some independence and agency in the real world! Would that be so bad? Arriving in an empty house from school - why is this a problem? What does a smart phone solve here? Almost none of the 'problems' i've seen described on this entire thread could not be solved with a simple feature / dumb phone, or a bit of understanding from schools or businesses. Do you think if the bus company only had half their customers with phones they wouldn't ease their mandate of QR codes only, and bring back card payments tomorrow? As I see it, the harms and risks for children and young people of a phone-based childhood replacing a play-based childhood far outweigh the benefits.

I'm fairly hard line on this whole issue, but i'm as yet undecided on a full ban for under 16s. I would probably rather have stringent, independent, and enforced age verification for social media and adult content (with the responsibility being on the tech companies). At the moment it's a free-for-all, and kids are clearly suffering.

I'm not at all for no-tech (I work in a technology-adjacent sector). But on this one i'm with the Amish. You might think that the Amish are anti-technology - that isn't true. They carefully consider new technology and then decide if it aligns with their morals and values. If it does, they adopt it. If it doesn't, they don't. I don't like smart phones at all, and don't have one. If another adult wants an always-on experience blocker in their pocket, that's their business. But there's no way we've carefully considered whether children should have these things. I hope that's beginning to change.

Thanks

Oh and to answer your actual question, of course I can see there's a problem. My opinion (I stated I might be deluded) is that we as parents we can find a balance between no tech and unfettered access to internet and that we should definitely try.