To think parents are not teaching any independence?

My 12 and 10 year olds get the bus to school. 10 min walk to the bus stop, an hour on the bus and a 5 min walk the other side. Yes they could do it without phones… if their bus pass wasn’t on their phone.

Tbf that’s a bit like sneering at the parents who gave their kids a few coins to use a phone box as a back up. What if they lost the money, what if the phone didn’t work etc. That doesn’t mean that giving kids a backup curbed their independence.

I would hope that they’re using a pc/laptop/tablet for their homework rather than a tiny phone screen.

I'm a teacher and my two secondary teens WILL be taking their phones to school. Three weeks ago, the rail network suffered a day of cancellations due to a communications issue. They spent an hour at the station waiting for a train. The doors didn't open at their stop and they ended up in the next town and rang dad to pick them up. They got home at 6.45. If they didn't have their phones, we'd have NO IDEA where they were.

I just think this whole ban phones from school premises is over zealous. It’s like when schools ban football for everyone, just because one or two kids can’t play nicely. No mobile phones should be on at all during the school day but it does help parents to keep in touch with their child when school finishes. Yes we all used to make it home without phones, but we have the technology now to know our kids whereabouts. Roads are more dangerous now for example.

If schools didn't set all homework online, maybe kids wouldn't need a smartphone.

Yes it still is, now the attacks and fights are filmed and shared.

I know the difference between dumb phones and smart phones.

No bus pass or timetables (public route) on the dumb phone.
No mapping apps on the dumb phone
No sharing images on the dumb phone

My two have ND and physical health issues in the equation.
I've had times where one DC's knee had given out on the walk home and he needed me to collect him.
The time that a smart phone was most valuable was during a storm when trees were blocking the bus route causing lengthy diversions, delays and congestion. Autistic DS was able to show mapping of where he was in an unfamilar neighbourhood. That precise communication kept him calm and functioning and avoided autistic shut down in a stressful situation that went very much off-routine.

It's not 1995. The pay phones in school and in public are gone. There are fewer places like corner shops and pubs to ask for help. Printed information like bus timetables have gone. I don't have the volume of small change to handle cash fares for 4x journeys per day (and it's not 30p per ride either). If they've stayed to 4:20 for an extra-curricular, the school office is shut by the time they get to the bus stop and realise there's an issue.
The world expects that the people participating in it has a smart phone and it's equipping teenagers for independent life for them to use phones as functional tools.

If school want my teenagers to put phones in pouches or hand in, that's fair play, but they do need that tool to navigate the real world in the gap between school and home.

While cyber bullying and phone addiction is very much a real problem, the solution is managing those specific behaviours, not removing tools and impairing the participation in society of people who are not a part of that problem.

As a parent I've done a lot more to build my teenagers towards independence (and at an earlier age) than DM did for me.

And if it happens on the way in? I also got one or two calls from the school “your daughter is not in”. Explained she is on the school bus, but it broke down on the way or that it was delayed and she had to make alternative arrangements, but she’s on her way ,which I knew because she let me know. Imagine getting that call and having no way to figure out where your kid is.

I can guarantee my parents wouldn't have got me any kind of phone. I can hear it now. "Too expensive." Meanwhile, every other kid in my class probably would have one. Story of my childhood.

Tbf the school hasnt been great (lack of school trips in general) but yeah I do think most of it is on the parents, my own DD was very shy and not very confident but we worked hard to improve this and she is loads better, she will happily skip onto that coach and be fine when shes away. I do worry what some of her classmates will do when they go to secondary, I dont think they will cope at all

Back in MY day, many of us didn't have landlines at home (my parents finally got one after I'd graduated university), so availability of payphones was irrelevant.

I was smiling at a recent thread where people described how often they phone/message their undergraduate kids (many every day). As we had no phone, I wrote a fortnightly letter home. My best friend at university did have a phone at home, but only rang parents on arrival at the beginning of each term and then did letters home.

My parents did similarly long walks very young alone to school and back and to the shops etc and they survived. However mobile phones were not accessible then like they are now, if they were then I am sure most parents would have wanted their kids to have one. There were many times my grandma was worried sick about a late return for whatever innocent reason happened. People didnt have them because they didnt exist and yes of course most were fine. But why reduce a child's chance for help or ability to tell their parents something...just because years ago...no one had them and therefore today's children dont need them?! Not many people had fridges way back then, or house phones or indoor toilets, why do you have one now? You can survive without it! Technology evolves and so does society's needs. Non smartphone phones are the solution. Not banning them entirely because 'we survived back in the day'.

Back in the day we just had ourselves and we survived. This is a low benchmark, but also ignores the reality of the school bus in the 80s/90s. Extremely common to witness or experience bullying, violence, verbal abuse and sexual harassment/assault.
I can understand why parents worry about the bus ride, it is often the wildest part of the day. Once in school, there's supervision.

My DSS’s mum recently went ballistic because we let him and his friend get the train home from the shopping centre they had been in all afternoon. It’s a ten minute train journey, we talked him through what he needed to do, and we picked him up at the station our end. He is almost 14

This is absurd. Absolutely everyone but the girls from strict south asian immigrant families were going about themselves at that age when I was a kid. I walked two miles to my friend's house and we'd get the bus to the shopping centre and hang out there. This was normal.

YABU - payphones were common when we were teenagers so we could still call our parents. We were also all on a level playing ground as there weren’t phones even if people wanted or were allowed them.

I think the school should say non-smart phones only. So the old school Nokia type phones. Any sight of them at school and they’re confiscated for a week.

I agree, make life more convenient. It's only a problem when kids are lost not knowing what to do because their technology isn't working or their phone has gone dead or they can't find the info they are looking for. Problem solving skills that don't rely on phones are important.

Independent teenagers tend to have quite a lot going on besides school and the bus home. My son often picks up stuff from the supermarket for me on the way home, stays late at school for various reasons and goes out after school with his friends. It is useful to be able to contact each other so we can coordinate what we are all doing. I know that back in the dark ages we all managed marvellously without phones and cars and central heating but the world has moved on.

Yes there’s an awful lot of ‘what I did to entertain my child today’ on Instagram; with elaborate daily crafts and everything being set up.

She does have a plan B and C indeed. I also print physical stuff whenever possible.However, why make life more inconvenient deliberately?

And then schools get blamed for not teaching them independence!

Connected to this, no problem solving skills. Inability to communicate to sort things other than online. Minor obstacles seen as insurmountable. Hugely inflated emotional reactions to the day to day rough and tumble of life. Not being able to sit with being uncomfortable ie finding something hard/challenging.

It’s also making parenting far less enjoyable.

The expectation that we now supervise our kids 100% of the time for at least a decade followed by another decade of intense handholding and lifts is so incredibly restricting it’s putting people off.

My parents had loads of time to watch TV, read and do housework as we played ‘out’

In my opinion it’s more than not enabling kids to be independent, it’s about the life skills that aren’t being passed on. Things like packing their own bag and thinking about what they may need, how to clean up after themselves, being left to play without hovering over them and directing the play, dressing themselves and manners. Just what I see daily in my job.

The future is bright!