DO NOT give your kid a smartphone this Christmas

Your son is 10 so I doubt he goes many places without you.

Here's the evidence.....
https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/the-problem
My 10 year old son walks to school without a phone or a tracker. That level of surveillance is unhealthy and unnecessary. Parenting in this country has gone badly wrong.

My youngest is 10. He loves to play out every weekend, but his friends houses are quite spread out so if he had to 'call for' his friends without texting first he may have a very long walk for no reason. His phone allows him to text his friends to coordinate meet-ups. He is also able to call me when he's out, or drop a WhatsApp or text, to let me know he's ok, when he'll be back etc.. There are no phone boxes these days for him to put a 10p in and call home, so his phone is handy to keep me in the loop. I can also call him which is useful if I'm running late to pick him up from somewhere or I need him home earlier than we agreed etc..

I feel very safe with him having a phone. He's quite young but has a lot of freedom to play in the village with his friends. His phone has an emergency function on it which if he was ever in danger (hopefully he never will be) he could press to alert emergency services without having to dial a number etc.. it also has a GPS so if he was in danger or lost he could be located.

My son likes to Google things to find answers to questions, and his smart phone enables him to do that. Multiple times a week (sometimes a day!) he says something like 'mummy what's X or y?' or 'why is the sky blue?' or whatever other questions 10yr olds have frequently than I don't always know the answer to!! I can advise us to look at Google together and he searches for the answers to his questions on Google on his phone, then explains the answer to me!

Son also uses his phone to edit videos. He's got some great apps which allow him to create great animations and other interesting videos. He shares them with friends when out and about and sometimes they create animations together and WhatsApp them to me and other parents to show us!

He loves photography and takes loads of photos of wildlife when he's building camps with his friends. Some are pretty good! His smart phone enables his interest in photography and when he gets home from.his adventures he can edit the photos and create some fab pictures!

He can also photograph stuff and use an app to turn those images into a 3D figure which he can print on his 3D printer. It's incredible.

I think phones are great. We just need to be v v careful in how we educate our children about their safety and how we monitor their use.

When I was 10 I didn't have the tech they have now. I had fun outdoors with my friends just as my children do now. But times have changed from the days of the red phone boxes. There is no need to go back in time. Let's embrace the positive changes and look to guide our children in using tech in a safe way to enhance the activities and interests they enjoy.

@WhiteLily1 'Firstly, please do tell me how you can access porn when you have no safari, no internet browser, no social media, no ability to access VPN, cannot add apps or change any setting at all on your phone without gaining permission and a parent entering a pass code. Please do tell.'

All I said is children can access porn even if they are not on SM. You have changed my statement quite a bit in order to disprove it.

'Secondary school communicate via what’s app and snap chat now.
They don’t call. They don’t use normal text. For the most part if you don’t have one of these apps, you ain’t speaking to mates outside school, or arranging anything with them, or being part of a group.'

Snapchat and WhatsApp are social media. Strangers can contact you on WA and the reason Snapchat became so popular is because you ca share multimedia and the photos disappear quickly, often very private photos.
I don't know how old your children are but you can't know the content their friends have been sending them, and even whether they actually know all these 'mates' in person.

'As sad as that is, that’s the reality for kids today.
You can go on about the good old days and what kids should do, but I am pointing out the reality - I have 3 teens, who have dozens and dozens of mates and aquatiences. Believe me, I know.'

My dc are much younger but I do think the tide is turning. People protect their children from many things now that weren't seen as harmful at first - like being in the car with no car seat. Sadly, some children will be the unfortunate Guinea pigs before majority of adults have all the proof they need and are on board.

Agree my y8 / 12.5yr old ds dropped and broke his phone over a week ago

Currently has my 11 year old iPhone! The OS it supports isn't high enough for the OS needed for any "modern" app

So he only really has a phone - has to call and text to arrange socialisation

He is a changed child .. just generally happier and more engaging.

Only downside- all his school stuff is on apps so I guess we have to relent before Jan 7th

Really scary though the change

My 11 year old DD recently got her first smartphone. We did a lot of research on parental controls beforehand, agreed clear rules and ensured she understood the purpose of those rules and what the consequences would be if she broke them.

She is not be allowed on any social media other than WhatsApp and no group chats unless we approve them.

We insist her phone stays downstairs at night, no phone at mealtimes and we use a parental control app to ensure she cannot use the phone for more than an agreed amount of time per day. Parental controls have also been set up to ensure she can't view websites with explicit content or install any apps without one of us knowing and approving them.

She knows that a condition of having the phone is that we will check it whenever we want to, and we do.

I do think a lot of posters are assuming that owning a smartphone means a child will have unlimited and unrestricted access to the internet and to social media. I work with children in a safeguarding role so I am very aware of the risks around social media and the role that the online world plays in the abuse and exploitation of children. Its something I deal with every day at work and I have seen first hand the damage that unrestricted and unsupervised access to devices can do to children's lives. But even I believe that with the proper controls, monitoring, education and boundaries in place the risks around smartphone use can be managed effectively.

Define irony.....

Oh wait!!

Dd is a vulnerable autistic pre teen who will be getting the bus alone and that's exactly the reason she won't be getting one. We've already had an incident where a kid in her class tried to film her to take the piss. Do I want them harassing her on whatsapp as well? No.

She will have a dumbphone, she could call if needed, school let you know sharpish if they don't turn up.

Thing is, technology will move on. 20-30 years ago it was 'video games' that were bad for kids and causing knife crimes and violence. There will always be something that's frowned upon in society, no matter the generation. Making something taboo increases the appeal in my experience, much better to adopt a sensible approach and let our kids use smartphones in moderation- they're part of culture in a modern society, so demonising them doesn't really help.

@WhiteLily1

I’ll tell you a story which will answer all
of your questions. This is a real life incident from schools (in fact we see variations of this on a weekly basis)

Kid A has fairly responsible parents who monitor their smart phone usage, limit screen time, no socials apart from WhatsApp (which parents think is safe).

Kid B invites Kid A to a WhatsApp group with a load of school friends and some other kids they don’t know as well. There are students in this group who have unrestricted access to socials, the internet, etc. These children send pornography to the whole group which is then viewed by all the children before they know what it is.

Or (common variation) Kid B knows how to bypass the restrictions on the phone and helps Kid A get round them to view adult content.

Or Kid A adds someone who they think is a friend from school but it’s actually a whole group of kids who are using a fake profile for targeted bullying.

I could go on and on and on. Your kids have seen porn, just accept it. It goes round WhatsApps, they show it to each other. They bypass phone controls for each other.

The questions is not how much your trust your kid and your parenting. The question is how much confidence do you have that everyone else has the same rules and that there won’t be a friend accessing porn to send to your child. It is stupidly common. Most parents are in utter denial about it.

You know out of all dd14 friends. The only one who lies, slags her mum off, meets boys, chats to boys online, leaves her phone at her friends. Is the mum who checks her phone and doesn't let her go out if her room isn't tidy.

@Kibble29
Exactly. It's all about fitting in.

I always know where my kids are. They tell me stuff that I don't even want to know. So I'm 100% confident. When I first put it on dd sometimes turned her tracking off but still had her phone on her.

Absolutely this.

I also work in a school and deal with the effects of smartphones day in, day out. Parents who think their children aren’t affected by it all are completely delusional. Cognitive dissonance at its most extreme.

Walking to school as an 11 year old is far less trepidatious than letting them loose on the delights of the internet tho

Not a parent of a vulnerable autistic pre teen, whose only means of school transport available to them is two public buses then.

No one's saying they can never have them- just that 16+ is a much more sensible age to make good choices, understand risk etc.
And of course internet use on a family laptop for schoolwork or other personal interests will happen too. No one is suggesting they live in a cave.

I'm told by a 12yo relative that there's a rich seam of 'how to get round your smartphone controls without your parents knowing' videos online and anyone who thinks their kid won't try that is either deluded or has a very unusual child.

I would have been trying to get around it, 100%

It's also what they're not doing when they're on them- some of those kids on the swiped documentary were doing 10 hours a day. No reading, no drawing, no running around, not even regular TV with a proper narrative. I found it really sad they had no idea what to do with themselves.

I said no one needs to be tracked. Not no one needs a phone

If I knew then what I know now, there is no way I would have allowed my DD to have TikTok and Instagram SnapChat etc before she was 16. It's simply not possible to monitor every reel, post etc that the algorithms throw up. Giving a smartphone is not just about parenting/monitoring, teaching kids how to use the internet safely, taking it away at 9pm. It's about our DC being exposed to all sorts of things unexpectedly, and not necessarily having the maturity to deal with it.

I am so glad my eldest only accessed the internet via search engines and not apps when he was a tween. I bloody love the internet, the ability to track our close family and text rather than phone, but letting kids have full access to whatever they fancy won't end well. Put your fingers in your ears and hum if you like. There was a time when smoking around DC and not using car seats was a thing. Times change, and I think adults in future will look back and chuckle that parents allowed them to look at all sorts of inappropriate nonsense on their smartphone.

No one actually need a phone at all/ not even you. But it’s nice to have no? Makes you feel safer and I’ll bet has helped you out of a tight spot when you for example forgot to turn the oven off or needed to tell someone you were running late and not to worry.
Its incredibly handy to see you child has boarded the bus / arrived at school and you can get on with your day.

Firstly, please do tell me how you can access porn when you have no safari, no internet browser, no social media, no ability to access VPN, cannot add apps or change any setting at all on your phone without gaining permission and a parent entering a pass code. Please do tell.
Secondly, yes all you are saying is correct but we don’t live in a world before internet and smart phones (in some ways I wish we did- smart phones anyway!) but we don’t.
Children are friends because they meet them at school or clubs primarily.
But then find that they are locked out of literally every communication outside of school. We ain’t in Kansas any more Dorothy as they say. Secondary school communicate via what’s app and snap chat now. They don’t call. They don’t use normal text. For the most part if you don’t have one of these apps, you ain’t speaking to mates outside school, or arranging anything with them, or being part of a group. As sad as that is, that’s the reality for kids today.
You can go on about the good old days and what kids should do, but I am pointing out the reality - I have 3 teens, who have dozens and dozens of mates and aquatiences. Believe me, I know.