to wonder why parents don’t monitor children’s internet access?

If she didn't have a phone, the other girl wouldn't be ringing her...

This ⬆️

Good 👍

I agree checking after she's seen something she shouldn't is too late. My son is 12 he has no social media, has safe filter on his Google search and no access to You Tube. Roblox has never been allowed, he cannot download any apps without out permission and his phone is checked everyday.

She's not keeping her kid safe, she allows her nine year old a phone, an iPad & Internet access.

Confused how checking your child’s phone what she HAS been watching may be slightly too late?
I know you say in your post that she has restrictions etc… but checking what she has already watched, or who she has already spoken to is too late?
you can’t unwatch hardcore porn or something else awful? How do you explain that?
I have a 10 year old DD. She has an iPad with no internet access (totally restricted/can’t search anything). She has an iPod touch for music and can message (when connected to the internet) with 3 close friends. We know the families well. We see this as good practice to be able to message friends.
i very aware that this world means internet access and social media is coming… but not yet, and as soon as you let it in, you’re letting in the potential for lots of things out of your control to go wrong.

i don’t have the answer really, it scares me!

The issue is her daughter having an iPhone and an iPad aged 9. The other girl shouldn't have had that conduit to harrass her.

Tragic for the family. However, someone somewhere slipped up with the care and supervision of a child here. It's not a given that tragic circumstances lead to misuse of SM etc.

It's not always "a learning curve", @Lonelydave . I deal with parents of hitherto trustworthy and well behaved children, who, because of opportunities the internet brings, have become mired in some of the worst aspects. I've had parents in tears in my office, because they believed they were monitoring or thought they had adequate controls on to protect their child.
It's taking up too much school and teacher time and is absolutely toxic.

I really judged the parents of a girl behaving like this at my daughter's school.

Then the girl,'s dad died.

It turned out her dad had been gravely ill/dying for months.

It's easy to judge other people but sometimes they are fighting battles on other fronts

I totally agree with you.

The issue isn't your daughter having a phone it's how the other child is using their phone

I agree to a point, but again, it's a learning curve. If used correctly and the child has a good relationship with their parents, and hiccups or bumps will be sorted out.
It's the ones who slip through the net, now that's nothing to do with the internet, it's to do with that child's relationships and look at the world.
Going back to the beer issue, some people when early teenagers get wasted and end up in hospital, many don't.
I'll play devils advocate, but this over arching concern for the few which something harms, is a bit tiresome. The media and social media will only go ott on the 'bad' story, the one where a teenager managed to order something they shouldn't have over the internet and then ended up in hospital - arrgh horror of horrors! A teenager did something bad and something bad happened to them.
This has happened for millennium, and will continue to do so.
We can't ban stuff just because it has a few, a tiny amount of bad things (in the overall big picture).
A parent and childs relationship is key here, just as we need to take a bit more time helping our elderly parents with technology.
Its a learning curve for all of us.

9yo with phone and ipad - why on earth? Far far too young.

I voted YABU because you gave a 9 year old a phone. Staggered you let her on an adult YouTube account too. Most 9 year olds can clear history. It isn’t her school’s job to monitor her activity online and they won’t. They are not responsible for spats outside of school.

Check back in in 2 years she’s got bored of playing Roblox with you and is at high school . Feel free to lecture re parents monitoring internet access then.

Alcohol isn't going away either. And they are going to have to live in a world where it is present and need to navigate it/learn how to deal with it.

Lets just give them a drink then? Banning it will just make them drink more right? Plus navigating drinking is a key part of adult social life, it will be important for them to make friends, there will be peer pressure.. all their friends will be drinking. If they don't drink or can't drink, they will likely be left out of plans and pushed out of social situations.

The only difference between drinking and unfiltered/unlimited internet and devices for young minds is that the internet has physical harms as well as mental health damage, whereas smart phones/internet are (almost) entirely on the mental side of their health.

5-10 years ago, before we had the increasingly large body of evidence about the harms that these technologies cause to developing brains, you could have laughed at this comparison. Who compares an IPhone to a beer? But its becoming a lot less funny now that we know, objectively, how much damage addictive digital technology does to young people's mental wellbeing.

I mean there's threads on this site where they discuss 20k a year boarding schools. What people talk about on threads is irrelevant to a cost of living crisis

Absolutely second that - let them be kids they definitely don’t need a phone at that age. My daughter just turned 9 and no way is she having one.

@didistutter56you have opened her world up to this abuse by giving her a phone. Agree any use should be monitored but she shouldn’t have a phone at this age.

Hmm. Primary age children with smartphones/tablets and internet access? I thought there was a 'cost of living crisis'?

Judging because a 9 year old knows what YouTube is is a little extreme don't you think. They go to school and other children talk about things there's a kid in my son's class with his own YouTube channel and constantly asks the other kids to watch it.
Unless you're rapunzeling those kids in a tower they're going to know what YouTube is

I know. Very troubling. Laissez-faire parenting re: the internet does not have happy outcomes

Any child with an ipad, might as well be using a mobile phone.
The school is open to dealing with SM bullying issues because they have to be, the good part is there is usually evidence, unless using Snapchat.
I don't know any 9 y.o that doesn't play roblux. (Before everyone jumps in, I'm from a WC area).
Anyway I hope the school nips it in the bud, bullying in any form is awful.

But none of you know what’s going on in private browsing/incognito mode

all these ‘lovely’ children who are really uninterested in social media….inly looking at history of ‘something is wrong’

oh dear!

Yup. I am a firm believer in giving kids what they are capable of doing and then letting them... do it. So my (almost) 9 year old has a kids watch to call me on and that's the end of his online life.

My 12 year old got a phone at 10 and I did look through it now and again that first year as she was figuring things out. She's autistic and it's been amazing for her - truly amazing. But she doesn't have social media on it and is very uninterested in it in general (she's a young 12). My son is another situation and we will be delaying as long as possible as he is definitely one to push limits!

My 10 y.o DS doesn't have a phone, I check his ipad regularly, YouTube history and apps, we're all linked to the one Google account.

My 16y.o phone and computer is set up to the family account too.
I genuinely only check if there is something wrong, she is a very quite girl, loves history, doesn't do social media.

Neither have access to the bullying app snap-chat.

You wonder why parents don't monitor their kids internet access, I wonder why parents give their 9 year olds a phone and internet access 🤷

Everyone parents differently