To be shocked that 97% of 12 years olds have smart phones?

Oh I am tired of the harm inflicted on children by this very poorly evidenced moral panic about smartphones, that apparently justifies searching their property on a regular basis and punishing them for owning an essential tool of modern life.

All so they can have wholesome, phone free teenage years like in the days of yore. Drinking pints of cider and black until you get kicked out of the pub for being underage then having sex in a graveyard.

Where are his parents in this?

Why has got his phone in his room at night?

All of that is resolved by some active parenting.

I 100% agree. It's undeniable that smart phones have their use in the modern world..it's getting developing brains hooked on them that's the concern.

Can I come with you? 😂

But yes I agree with all of this. I don’t get my son have anything to entertain him on car journeys either. We did a two hour round trip somewhere in the holidays and he spent the journey there mainly asleep; but the journey back either looking out of the window, chatting to me or picking songs for us to listen to (luckily he has good taste in music 😂)
I didn’t receive one complaint. Likewise when we go out for lunch or whatever. He has an incredible attention span and will quite happily while away a couple of hours building complex Lego. The TV is not always his go to (although I must admit I am not perfect and he probably does watch too much of it)

I am terrified that’s all going to go out of the window the day he gets his own device. Be it a switch or a phone or whatever. I just want to protect him from it as much as possible while allowing him real world freedoms such as playing out with his friends without a parent hovering over him.

Mine had smart phones at that age. Knowing what I do now- if I had another youngster they would most definitely not have a smart phone until they were older. I feel like kids aged 10- 16 now have been part of a huge experiment the consequences of which are only now become apparent. Equally I think babies and toddlers are now in an experiment of being given screens since birth. The horrible consequences of that will emerge in about 5 years.

I'm shocked by that figure. My DC will definitely not be having one at 12. Someone made the point on another thread that everyone would be against us giving kids access to gambling machines at a young age because we know they're designed to be addictive and they are damaging. So are smart phones. Calling parents lazy for banning them is absolutely ridiculous. More like the other way round. The vast majority of stuff kids are accessing on smart phones is complete and utter brain rot, or actively damaging and completely ruinous to their mental health. No one is saying kids can't have devices to keep in touch. You can message each other on a non smart phone FFS! Your DC doesn't need a smart phone to do a 40 min bus journey. It's this sort of shit that makes me want to get off the modern world completely, run away and live in the woods.

That's very true @Errors. It should still get checked though!

I haven’t really thought this through so would welcome opinions but I wonder how realistic it would be, if they wanted to start texting their friends, that I just let them do it from my phone for a while. They can tell their friends it’s their number? Much harder for it to be secretive this way and at least you’d have full access to what is being said.

Me too, without a doubt. It’s my biggest fear as a parent!

@Errors I just find it all really frightening and not sure how it was allowed to get to this point, I’m hoping there’s a huge change in the next few years

I don’t think you can see from their own phone if they have deleted WhatsApp messages, only if others have deleted them from the chat?
But to be fair, it does seem like you’re not just letting them do it mindlessly and perhaps your kids wouldn’t write anything they wouldn’t want a teacher or parent to read. But their friends might not be parented as well as yours are. It only takes one kid in a group to send one link to a horrible video or TikTok or a meme that you don’t want them to see and the damage is done.
I don’t know, maybe I sound hysterical but I am terrified of these things! My child is only 6 so I don’t have to worry about this just yet. But he’s already asked for a switch for his birthday and I’m just not comfortable with him even having that.

Now that the OP has explained that this is an ultra religious school chosen by parents with extremely religious beliefs I suspect that the rest of the parents think like she does so I don't suppose the children will have smartphones

It s not an environment I suspect most of us would want to bring up children up in but clearly there's a need from some sections of society

Mine have my old phones - so yes they have smartphones. However, it was easier to give them my old handset rather than buy a whole new phone.

In my experience younger kids don’t really think about or bother to, but a load of deleted messages in my kids phone would lead to a conversation … and if it’s a grp chat those things can spiral so they won’t delete everything…
We tell our children DO NOT write anything f in a message that you would be ashamed or embarrassed about if a parent or teacher read it.

I spend a LOT of time in the USA, have US family etc and I can tell you now that all the naice, MC kids had phones much earlier than mine ever did.
I’m according to US stats 42% of US kids have a smart phone by age 10 and 91% by 14…

I agree with you but I am skeptical that even telling your kid they’ll be getting their messages checked regularly is going to work. They can just delete the ones they don’t want you to see.

I overheard a poor lad in a queue behind me chatting to his grandma the other day. I don’t think he was much older than ten.
She was asking about his sleep and if it had gotten better since he stopped using his smart phone at night. He said yes it had but he was still having to take melatonin. He went on to say that some mornings he wakes up to over 300 WhatsApps from his friends on a chat they all have and that his phone was pinging so much up until 3am that he had to put it in another room. It breaks my heart.

They aren’t going away, so as many parents of teens have said it’s about managing the use, time they have phones , talking to them about safety etc, making sure kids have alternatives and hobbies.
The internet exists, there are many m, many ways for children to be exposed to all sorts of stuff, good and bad, with or without phones.
Loathe them as I do sometimes.
We have a no phones rule on holiday for example. So if we’re away they hand over the phones, and we use a camera to take pics. Or borrow an adults phone.

@Oblomov24 I'm a primary school teacher, and have unfortunately had to deal with a lot of WhatsApp issues (mainly in Y6). The chats occur outside school, but parents get so worried they usually contact us. The problem stems from a small group of parents not checking their kids' phones, not restricting WiFi, no parental controls etc. As a result, some 10/11 year olds are sending each other messages at midnight, swearing, sending dodgy videos, using derogatory language about each other's mums etc...you get my drift. I don't understand why parents would give their child a phone, then never check it! It seems crazy to me. We aren't there yet with my eldest DD as she's only 6, but the day she gets a phone, she'll be told in no uncertain terms that it'll be getting checked regularly!

I don’t think I suggested that did I?! You’re putting words in my mouth.
I would suggest something like giving a smart phone at 16 but keeping it locked down as much as possible until 18 if it’s possible. Slow exposure.

You wouldn’t start giving increasing amounts of alcohol to a teen so that they don’t go crazy when they’re legally allowed to drink at 18 would you?! There are loads of examples of things that kids cannot have access to until they’re mature enough to use them properly.

You can also explain in the years running up to them turning 16 just how bad smart phones are. Educate them on social media use etc before they start using it. It’s common sense!

I don’t get the argument of giving something harmful to a kid of 12 to avoid them suddenly having access at 16. It makes no sense.

Do you think other kids at the school all have them and my DD has just not mentioned it?

Without a doubt.

means the parent has allowed the app in the first place. Once you allow the app itself that’s where the issues start with say WhatsApp. You cannot lock down WhatsApp so you just don’t allow it.

All apps are approval only. So they send the request and it comes to my phone and I accept or decline the request.

Web pages are set with the age restrictions and you can ban key words and such as well.

Someone will probably come along shortly to tell you that you can completely lock them down but I am skeptical. There was a poor guy posting on here the other day who thought he had his 12 year old son’s phone locked down but he was on a WhatsApp group that received some incredibly indecent images. Things you do not want a 12 year old to see (think along the lines of child porn)

To me, the very fact that they need locking down shows how addictive and dangerous they are in the first place. My child is around the same age as yours and I am really hoping the tide changes before he gets to that age and that smart phones stop being the norm for such young children.

@Errors

How do you imagine a bunch of 16 year olds gaining unlimited access to phones and social media, at the same time as having freedom elsewhere in their lives is going to work?

It would be a total disaster.