To think parents are not teaching any independence?

Around 16 years ago I was attacked in broad daylight by a gang of teenagers ( I was also a teenager )

They pulled out a knife and I tried running into a takeaway for help. They locked the doors

By some absolute miracle, a security guard was watching on his cctv, he ran down from his office and came to help me / rang the police. But he risked himself doing so.

It's half and half isn't it, I think some people might help and others wouldn't.

You can’t just say that parents aren’t teaching their children independence. You can’t speak for all parents.

Surely independence means being about to find your way around, manage your money, cook for yourself, use a washing machine, change a bed, know how to ask for help and so on.

We’ve created a world now where it’s virtually impossible to get by without a smart phone. Most bus and train tickets will be on a phone amongst many other things. Even homework’s is all set online now.

We have been used to being able to contact people now for a long time and there aren’t pay phones around like there were in the 80s and 90s. So I think it’s perfectly understandable that parents want to know that their children can contact them on the journey home, if necessary.

However I can also understand that phones are causing problems in schools. Perhaps schools should have a handing phones in policy.

No internet until 18?!? What planet do you live on?

I also worked at a university (RG, no less!) and a student complained that her access card was blocked. Turned out she had a very overdue library book and had ignored emails and a letter because nobody had told her to read them.

Yes I've read since and realised it's just smart phones, not all mobile phones. I agree with that, I don't think kids under 18 should have access to the Internet or any social media anyway. I think smart phones cause all sorts of problems with kids these days.

I didn't like the thought of my DD not having a mobile to ring me on at all. She's autistic and I'm already dreading her going to high school and me not being able to get to her quickly ( primary school is currently a 7 minute walk away )

Like the girl who ran into Zara for help only to be refused and made to leave the shop where she ended up beaten and put in hospital by a gang of girls? People these days are far less willing to help. Then there was the girl who was raped by a shop worker when she asked to charge her shine so she could call a taxi. And what about the 15yo girl who walked into a deli to buy a sandwich for to be murdered by the shop worker?

These are just some of the cases I remember.

It’s easy saying ask for help, but how safe is it to ask for help?

I dunno, my child's primary school has a little box on the teachers desk, all the year 6's put their phones in the box, a reception lady comes and takes the box then brings it back at the end of the day and the kids grab their phones as their leaving, it doesn't seem a difficult system

Since coming across this thread I've googled it and it's a ban on phones that can take pictures, videos, social media ext..... which I completely agree with I think that's great, a ban on all phones meaning my child couldn't contact me was a very scary thought.

Our son had the same experience, he was also one of the very few students who didn’t need teaching staff to teach him how to do up his own coat.

I regularly see posts on our local FB group such as “DS 20 is looking for work in X, Y or Z please message me.” He’s an adult ffs and if he’s not on the group, then he can join it and ask himself. Ugh.

My great gran said the same about reliance on cars, but she had a fully stocked village shop, a post office, a bus service and a guaranteed place at the village school. None of those things exist in that village anymore.

Not sure as I'm all for no phones in school but as there are no public phone boxes now, what do kids do when buses bugger up or there is a change of plan? Wouldn't like to think my eleven year old gd would have no way to make contact when she starts secondary in September.

Same here only mine was a 2p only I didn’t spend it

There were loads of working phones about.

I wouldn’t be happy about my child (not relevant now as she’s 30) not being able to contact me before and after school. I do agree that they could be dumb phones or switched off during school day.

They have to.

I presume they make exceptions if the phone is used aa a medicsl device such as CGM?

Our youngster did his whole table’s washing up in food tech because “no one else knew how to”

We were howling when he told us. He obviously got value points and a pat on the head from teacher. Even so.

I am definitely joining a FB uni parent group for the batshittery!

DD felt we where fairly mean as parents when she was younger. Getting her to do jobs round the house, making her cook dinner once a week from 16 and insisting she got herself to collage and back (she did high school as well but was much closer). We'd insisted she got a job at college and learn how to save and do a week's shopping. I'd made her pay for some of her own personal stuff to help her learn how to budget.

When she started uni last year she said thank you for teaching me how to cope as an independent person. She realised a lot of her fellow students didn't know how to do a lot of the things she could, as their parents hadn't taught them and had done everything for them up to that point.

Wow!

And you could knock on a door in an absolute emergency- not saying that it was always the best idea - but more adults nowadays wouldn’t answer a door to a couple of teens - they expect them to have phones and regardless of where their parents are they are solely their parent’s problem at all times.

So adults saying “phones are bad” are also adults who wouldn’t help a teen in need.

There are a lot of people who are happy to spout off judgement about modern parenting without even having children themselves. Which is fucking odd. All they have are some rose tinted memories of what they remember or think they remember about their childhoods (irrelevant that world no longer exists) we don’t know how their parents felt or thought.

Phones are not the problem in regards to instilling independence. Parental anxiety or overthinking or not believing their child is capable or just assuming there is danger everywhere.

There are clearly thousands of teens with independence they have been meeting on beaches and rioting through town centres. And that is the darker side of phone use but that doesn’t go away when dumb phone teens reach 16, plus their mates will know and see stuff you could easily be lulled into thinking because they don’t have a smart phone they are “safe”.

Sometimes kids need to know the dangers to navigate them.

My parents never had to talk to me about flash mobs. But we have had to with ours.

For university? Jeepers. I'd hope not!

I used a pay phone probably daily as a teenager, none of them are there anymore

When DD started university there wasn't a parents FB group, nor did I expect there to be one.

Schools can have the rule that when in school hours the children cannot have any phones however outside of school hours il choose what my child can and cannot do.

Some schools think they can tell parents and children what do outside of their responsibilities and perceived authority.

My children have left school now, however it would have been a no from me, ds2 in particular was so badly bullied he ended up having multiple hospital trips and broken bones, the school never once called us even when he was knocked unconscious and on another occasion told ds his broken arm and wrist was all in his head.

When schools have an adequate safeguarding system in place, parents will trust the schools, however they don’t and therefore parents don’t have the trust in them, so need to make provisions to safeguard their children.

I wouldn’t be happy with that actually. My DD is 15 and has always got a bus (public not school) to school since she was 11. She has needed her phone at times when the bus has broken down/got stuck in traffic/she’s decided to get the later bus because she’s doing something with friends etc. It’s also getting dark by 4pm in winter.
She also has the travel app on it and lots of them have e-tickets on their phones.

“Back in the day” nobody had a mobile but we did have payphones everywhere and always had emergency loose change for the phone. There were also more places like police stations, post offices, libraries where you would have felt safe to go in and ask for help.

My DD has to have her mobile off in her bag during the school day, which I completely agree with. I don’t think it’s up to school to say they aren’t allowed it outside school hours though

I used to print and laminate DD2's timetables for her so she could out it in her blazer pocket, but other than that it was only available on their phones, as were several other apps they needed for school. I noted that recently since DD2 left school they have gone over to giving out paper diaries/log books. I don't know what they do about homework but I wonder if they will go back to paper for that as well instead of using a myriad of apps!