To think parents are not teaching any independence?

I still carry cash and a bank card and have a physical bus pass, and buy an actual train ticket.

I actually find it a right royal pain when I'm boarding a bus, or waiting to enter or leave a station and the people in front of me are taking forever faffing with their phones at the barriers.

20 years ago we carried cash and had physical bus passes, technology means we pay with our phones now

Are all these schools banning phones also going to stop putting homework on apps?

I was responding to the claim that the world was more dangerous. It isn't.

Crime is down. Traffic accidents are down.

It isn't just that kids are no longer in the public sphere. Keeping kids in doors does lower those statistics but the world is still safer for them.

There are fewer criminals who do less violent crime and better traffic management and vehicle safety features than 40 years ago.

Of course if you bubble wrap something it is less likely to get damaged. But in the case of kids being kept at home they lose vital experience that benefits them in many ways and is important for development into competent and confident adults. Keeping them "safe" by bubble wrapping them is counter productive for a long healthy life and increases risks for them when they are older.

What is a gagool?

I've related this before on here. I think it was on one of my own threads about the kindness of strangers.

My oldest son was around 3 and he got up one day and decided he was going to get himself "ready".

So he did. He put all his own clothes on, which included a Micky Mouse gagool and wellies. 😂

We set out for the village shop. Him all chuffed. We met a dog walker and my son shouted at him "Mr, I got myself ready today!"

The man stopped, said "You are kidding wee man, that's brilliant" gave him 10p, and shook his wee hand.

I am basically tryimg to say that no child should be unable to put on a coat!

Agree! I think it makes you a brilliant parent tbh as you didn't make her go.

I do wonder if one of the reasons things are safer (particularly in the case of accidents) is because kids aren’t allowed to roam with no checks anymore.

The world isn't more dangerous, though. Or, at least, the UK isn't. Crime is way down. Traffic accidents are down. Child deaths and serious injuries are down. Out and about in the UK is far safer now than it was 40 years ago.

Not that I think kids shouldn't be able to have a phone to use once they are out of school, but cultivated anxiety about how dangerous being out in public is is part of what's hurting kids mental health.

suggestionswelcomed

He’s 11 and had a note given in earlier in the year to say he could wait across the road in the playground. I think he assumed everyone would go over as it was sunny but everyone just left.

I agree, but we let him go at his own pace. He was diagnosed as DT1 at 11 years of age and I think he just felt safer with us.

He is now an independent adult with a great life. I'm glad we didn't push him to be what he didn't want to to be.

My kids high school with 1400 students has a hanging sheet with numbered pockets at the front of each classroom. At the start of the lesson the kids put their phones in a pocket each and then collect them at the end of class.

I thought it would be fraught with issues, but there have been none in my kids classes and no "reminders" in the weekly email.

Of course, that still leaves kids with phones at lunch and in break which I know some people are unhappy about. But, again, we've seen no issues.

Some people would probably take that deal 😄

My boy is 30 now.

Bought his own house with his GF when he was 23.

He did move in with her a bit when he was about 17 and she had a flat, but we ended up seeing him more as he missed us 😂. My oldest son was like "Jeezo, I got more peace when he actually lived here!"

My oldest was more ok with sleepovers etc.

He's completely invested now in his fiancee, their cat (though the cat is not invested in him, she hates everyone except her owner (fiancee) and my husband for some reason.

My son was never "afraid", he just loved being with his mum, dad and big brother. I don't get what is wrong with that? He now loves being with his partner more.

Your child is 8 years old. Even my eldest preferred us to anyone else at that age.

Maybe you have to hand your kid back?! 🤪

😂😂

So those without kids get to keep their phones?!

what about tablets and laptops (which you can also doom scroll on). Are you going to confiscate those too??

To be fair, people who are interested in spending time with their children will do so. People who don’t, won’t, and haven’t even when all they had for entertainment was a gramophone.

How will that work if everywhere you turn you need your phone? I need a phone for the railcard, to enter football stadiums/gigs/theatre, to park the car.
Those things are impossible now without a smartphone.

Liking your house better is normal if your parents provide you with a happy and loving home, thats how it should be, baseline. Resilience is about stepping out of your cosy, familiar comfort zone and socialising with friends in their home to open your mind to how other families live and managing experiences like going on a school residential that aren't 100% homey, cosy, pampering familiar. If kids never step outside of that they will not become independent and the world is more likely to appear like a scary place as they grow up. My dc did non school residentials and sleepovers since they were 8. The first night away was with brownies at a museum.

That only works when there is plentiful public transport to get home so that the pupils have time to retrieve their phones at the end of the school day. At DD's school there was only ten minutes to dash to catch the school bus. If they missed it they were stuffed.

My incredibly independent student DD simply didn't want to go on school residentials until she was in 6th form.

She wasn't afraid. She just didn't want to go. It doesn't make me a shit parent.

Some schools now have lockable pouches that the kids have to put their phones in, that are locked by a teacher, on the way into school. The pouches can only be unlocked at a specific station, which is only switched on at the end of school.
This seems like a sensible compromise.

Except there was a thread about this a while ago where posters were saying the students were taking in second phones, or finding ways to unlock the pouches. One poster was quite unconcerned about the fact that her daughters were among those circumventing the rules.

When I was school age, many of my friends didn't have phones at home, so it didn't matter how many public phone boxes there were.

Some schools now have lockable pouches that the kids have to put their phones in, that are locked by a teacher, on the way into school. The pouches can only be unlocked at a specific station, which is only switched on at the end of school.

This seems like a sensible compromise.

The fact my child is confident in surrounding that aren’t just her own is not worrying at all, as you say they are all different but a child afraid to be anywhere but home is far more worrying to me than a child willing to be independent and enjoy new surroundings and adventures. Isn’t that the whole point of this thread the fact some people think today’s kids aren’t independent enough because parents haven’t prepared them?

Yes. 24 hour times are often given without the decimal point.