DO NOT give your kid a smartphone this Christmas

Have you considered a watch? My friends give their children a phone watch. It takes calls, it can text and it have a built in GPS so you know where they are if walking home from school. It has no access to the e internet.

Imagine what the consequences would be for the poor kid for doing that though, given he has the kind of parents who think it's normal to literally track his every step.

I don't have children, so this topic has hardly anything to do with me, but I watched the two-parter Swiped the other day. The conclusions from the University of York study are alarming. But as a sixty something whose smartphone is her constant companion, I look at it and have a sense that the horse hasn't bolted, it's stampeded and taken its entire family with it. If I gave up my phone, my life would quickly become more difficult and harder to manage. The world I grew up in was very analogue. We took it for granted that we'd have pens and paper, a TV in the lounge, telephone boxes on street corners, address books, wall calendars, phone books physical music formats and bulky machines taking up space in our houses to play them on, that shopping and banking and going to the library meant leaving the house. The world has changed so much that oldies like me sometimes struggle to remember what it was like, let alone children who might never have played a vinyl record or have used a public phone box. (Good for them there though. Yuck!) It's impossible to imagine going back, so how does society move forward with the mental of its young people in mind?

If he doesn’t want you to know where he is he can just switch the phone off!

Yep, or leave the phone at a friend's house when they go out. Then if anything happens when they do go out, they can't contact anyone.

If he doesn’t want you to know where he is he can just switch the phone off!

Does the person teaching need an iPhone, though? I don't have an I phone, so would be no good for me?

I agree with you OP, YANBU.

My ds1 is in y5 and loads of his peers have been given smartphones for their 10th birthdays or will be getting them for Christmas.

I'm grateful that ds1 is still asking for Playmobil for Christmas 🥺 I might get him a brick phone for his birthday next year. Both him and my ds2 have refurbished, heavily locked down iPads which I do restrict access to, but I even regret getting them those. The Apple parental controls don't work properly and they are so addictive.

The secondary school they will be going to is 500 metres from home, so any risk is extremely minimal. Children are more at risk from what they see online, bullying via WhatsApp groups etc, impact on attention spans than anything happening to them when they are out and about.

I absolutely do. It’s not that she didn’t do well. She did 11 and got all 9s, 8s and a couple of 7s. But she wanted and was aiming for all 9s. But because she also spent so much time on her phone she also spent most of the rest of the time revising. She was absolutely exhausted and nearly burned out. She could have got those results with a few hours a day of “good, focussed” revision. She’s still sour about it so hopefully when it comes to Alevels she’ll have learnt a lesson!

But he doesn't need a smartphone to do those things

I've not bothered reading the link but at the end of the day we are in a different world and era now compared to the 1940s, most things are done online and I'm sick of trying to be made to feel guilty about it or live in the past. Times have changed

I agree. Ds 1 has a phone. He's in year 8. It has been very useful. Ds2 is in year 6 and has had one for his birthday in preparation for high school. Their school is a bus journey away. Plus, my eldest can ring when his after-school activities have finished, as the school bus has gone by then. For example, his activity finished early last week, so I collected him earlier. DS2 has hardly looked at his phone. Just because they have one doesn't mean they'll be obsessed with it. He's got messages and voicemails from his grandparents. I keep telling him to check it, but he doesn't. He doesn't have any social media or WhatsApp. I think that is problematic.

You only need an apple air tag to do that, no iphone for child is required.

The 'evidence' isn't actually overwhelming at all, though.

Maybe just mind your own business and let other people parent their own kids.

Obviously having maps in this situation is useful. But you can ask someone, like the driver.

Paper maps don't tell you where the bus stop is when your normal train has been cancelled, or which alternative to use when roadworks/accident etc means that your usual route has been terminated early etc.
For kids using public transport for school or socially this sort of situation frequently arises.

The irony of an Instagram reel on overuse of social media.

Like everything in life too much, without supervision is bad.

But controlled circumstances is healthy and normal.

Chocolate is bad for everyone, and children, but most people allow it. Some people allow unlimited Chocolate and that is clearly really bad. But most normal parents allow Chocolate on some situations and recognise its a normal part of life.

We live in the world we live in. Smartphones are part of that world.

Only if we want it to be. "The world" is made up of humans who have a choice.

I agree completely. I wish I could turn back the clock too.

If you don't mind me asking... did it affect their GCSE results?

My children benefit from the independence their phones give them.

What kind of independence do they benefit from that children in pre-mobile phone generations did not have?

If kids need to contact you, get a brick phone.

There is no need in 99% of cases to track your kids. Quite apart from anything else unless you’re literally checking in every 2 minutes you won’t notice if the bus has broken down/ they’ve walked in the other direction for some time. Especially if they have a brick phone- they can contact you in an emergency.

If you really must track kids get a watch. But I don’t think its healthy at all, absent SEN etc.

To me all of this tracking/ contacting us is just an excuse for parents who don’t want to say no.

There are also a lot of posts on MN "ordering" people to do this, that or the other.

AIBU to tell you not to let your cat out because they kill birds, etc.

I mean I think giving one as a gift is a mistake because it allows them to claim it as "their" property rather than a tool you are allowing them to use, setting the rules and boundaries and that can be taken away at any time.

I agree that it would be very difficult to be a teen in secondary school without access to a smart phone but you can absolutely lock them out of a lot of stuff and be very active in monitoring what they do and you do have to be mega strict on usage from the get go - so that it's understood to be a tool not a toy.

For us those rules include no public social media, no messaging with people they don't know, no phones in bedrooms, no phones during screen free time unless for homework, no password changes and a parent can pick up your phone at any time without warning.

Thanks for your input, but my dc will still be getting the phones I got them. We're all allowed, within reasonable boundaries, to parent as we see fit.

We live in the world we live in. Smartphones are part of that world. I don't believe it's all sunshine and roses for a teen without a phone, I think we all make our choices.

Op, I can see you think you're a magnificent parent we all have something to learn from, but actually barking orders at strangers on the internet may be less effective than you are imagining. You can parent your dc as you see fit without worrying about how I parent mine.

Or…. Teach your children not to be on their phones all the time. I never made an issue out of phones with my lot but they’ve never had to be told to put them away at mealtimes or spent too much time on them. I think if you make them so illicit, you’re making them more exciting and you will cause even more problems for yourself. Not only that, but to not have a smartphone in this day and age, is incredibly isolating. Any TikTok reels about that?