To think this is a stupid rule - no calls home on scout camp!

My children are at Poacher and I am delighted they've left their phones at home - they can tell me all about their adventures when they get home at the weekend and will have a far better experience if they're engaging with friends and activities rather than tiktok. Also - there's very limited electricity so no way for 7000 participants to charge their phones (and cheap powerbanks are a potential fire hazard and shouldn't be left in hot tents at all). Sounds like your son is having a great time and will have lots to tell you about when he gets home. You can follow Poachers social media stuff on FB and IG if you want to get a flavour of what's going on - it looks like an amazing experience!

My dd is in a different country for a week on a residential and no phone’s allowed. No calls home at all. No contact. She’s a few years younger than your ds. It’s normal I think. We went away without devices for years didn’t we. We survived

They are in a field for a week, where are they going to charge phones? What happens if the phone gets lost or wet or broken? There are 101 practical considerations, on top of the safeguarding issues, and the fact I'd like my Guides/school pupils to enage with the activities and each other, or indeed go to sleep, rather than messing about on a phone.

If there is an issue you need to communicate, you can contact the leaders. If the leaders need to contact you, they will.

Can you imagine managing 7000 children and 7000 phones?

The only phones should be with the children who use them as a medical device.

I recently got back from a cub camp (rising 8-10) where our newest leader commented that they couldn't believe that none of the children had asked about, wanted, needed screen time while we were away. They're too busy having fun!

You've got all your mates there messing about and playing for a whole weekend, it's not necessary! We build in quieter activity opportunities for those who need to decompress. It's the point of a scout camp that you're not on a screen.

We have a hard no on phones, iPads, even smart watches. Anything that can be used to do private communication is an absolute no. I wouldn't be comfortable talking away a group of children who had unfettered internet access.

The multitude of excellent reasons why children, camp and phones do not mix well has already been well covered (safeguarding, bullying, logistics and emotional wellbeing)

In my experience children do best when they are immersed in the moment at camp.

Where homesickness is an issue, that tends to be in the quieter moments of mealtimes (when blood sugars are low before raising) and bedtime (when hyper-tired). Usually food and the next activity, or a good night's sleep gets them over a hiccup and back to enjoying the adventure. Only once have we had to send a child home as she was getting emotional each meal time and bedtime (but still loving the majority of the time doing the activities) so we agreed with mum to pick up at a time that maximised the best ratio of highlights to slumps. Girl didn't know this arrangement until quite late in the day as we didn't want her to start dwelling on home during the activities all day and ruining that for her.
It's also social development and bonding when the children support each other through wobbles, and phoning home takes that development from them. They know they can get the leaders (and do) when it's a bit much, and that's usually enough.
Everyone else has always got past their hiccups (over the last 20+ years)

Instant access on phones doesn't help because it loses the immersion and just creates a much wider range of issues.

This basically

A total lack of phones is part of the point of Scout Camp, I think. The leaders will tell you if there’s any issue, so no news is good news.

Wanting to hear about the fun they’re having is just for your benefit and can easily wait til he’s back.

@Besidemyselfwithworry it’s parents like you that make volunteering so much harder. If you don’t trust the Leaders, don’t send the child. If you do trust them, abide by the rules and stop whinging.

I organised a weekend trip to London and a parent secreted an AirTag in the child’s bag so they could track him. I hit the roof because of all the issues it could have caused.

Apron strings need to be cut.

From the present point of view, I think that no mobile phones is sensible for all the reasons given. Presumably there are means of contacting the organisers/leaders in an emergency and vice versa. Look on it as a digital detox for your son.
Life is far too instant these days, just look at all the members of the audience filming concerts, for example, but, in effect, actually missing the experience.
Your son will come to no harm having to remember all the adventures he has had and telling you later.
Or are you afraid that you have no control over his activities?

I'm sure the other leaders will welcome you with open arms as a leader so you can implement phones allowed on camp rule. Then you can deal with kids moaning they can't charge their phones, other kids complaining about being bullied, having photos taken of them they don't want, parents calling you in the middle of the night saying they are coming to pick their child up who has phoned them instead of talking to leaders, dealing with safeguarding when a scout shows another scout porn on their phone, consoling a scout who has lost or broken their phone, dealing with the parents who blame you for all of the above.

These are all things that have happened when kids have brought phones on camp, despite being told not to.

Can I urge you to get more involved with Scouting yourself. There's just not time for mobile phones on a camp at their age. If you went to camp yourself you might understand.

Agree with all previous posters, I wouldn’t be happy if they were allowed phones. Leaders do not need the extra responsibility of checking everyone still has their phone or safeguarding around them, not worth it at all. They will live a week without a phone and it’s good for them to not rely on this. If you were a parent and I was the leader having to hear about this complaint I would feel fed up and wonder what the point is

Well said.

OP, there are very good reasons for this.

Maybe not separation anxiety but good old fashioned 'living vicariously through their children'.

not rtft

Been a scout leader on camp. I absolutely did not want scouts:

• being able to take and share photos of fellow campers when in bed and vulnerable
• boys messaging girls and vice versa to agree to sneak out of tents to meet up
• spending hours on screens
• having sleep disturbed by screens (they are hard enough to persuade to sleep)
• playing music that we all have to listen to
• constantly mithering about charge

As for holding their phones myself: I don’t want responsibility for £4000 of other people’s tech, and last camp we were on my tent leaked overnight and lots of my stuff ended up soaked. Also that means more camp conflict on handing out and collecting phones

If there’s a problem, we’ll call you. The one scout who was badly homesick, I called their parent on my phone and let them talk… because I could frame what was going on and the actions the leaders were taking parent knew all this before talking to the homesick scout and was better able to support them to stay.

usually there’s a scout shop that sells postcards and a postbox…..

We had 90 children (4-18) at our camp earlier in the summer just from our scouts group across 2 days, cross the whole camp it was about 500+.
Children at camp that we didn't have consent to share photos of, these children wore wrist bands as it wasn't possible to know all the children that could have shared images.
Before any photos were shared they were scrutinised for any children in the background wearing wrist bands and these photos were deleted. It would be a logistical nightmare if all the children had phones. I was with the squirrels (4-6) who were only there for the day and only the leaders took and shared photos. The adult volunteers we had couldn't.

Of course it’s a sensible rule for a plethora of very good reasons. None of them need a phone.

he’s face timed me on it and he was so excited to tell me what he’s been up too it was really nice to hear from him.

Would have been just as nice to hear all about it when he comes back on Saturday.

however his mate has gone just for the day, he had a phone and he’s face timed me on it and he was so excited to tell me what he’s been up too it was really nice to hear from him.

His mate facetimed you ?
He couldn't wait one day?

Don't like the reasonable rules? Dont go.

I let my daughter take hers. She gets dreadfully home sick and the only way I could get her on the trip was having the comfort that she could ring me if she wanted to talk to me like she has done when being away from home previously. As I suspected she didn’t need to ring and it didn’t come out of her suitcase. I’m not sure she would have gone without it.

I suffered with home sickness terribly at her age too, there was a pay phone we could call home on. I did each night for 2 minutes, which was enough. Why they aren’t allowed to at least use a pay phone to touch base with home baffles me? If I’m away I quickly check in with my DH each day.

No it isnt odd and if you kept up with the news you'd see all the stuff about restricting use of phones. You should be pleased that no phones are allowed on this trip. Sounds like he is having a great time.

I went on residential camps as a child that were two weeks in duration. Never had a phone, but was allowed 1 phone call home in the week.

Camps are about sports, activities, socialising and learning. Not about phones, social media and home.

YABU.

I did a one off school trip with 80 12 yr olds recently. We didn’t really have a policy on phones (not in the UK) so went for a compromise of allowing them to bring them but they were only given access during the long (10 hour) bus journeys and for 30 minutes at the end of the day to call home.

It’s hard to say if it was the right choice or not. Mostly well behaved kids so they were ok to hand them back, but it was an extra task we adults could have done without. Speaking to parents - some kids didn’t bother, others were really upset / made homesick by talking with parents. Some of them blurted out all their complaints to their parents, who then called out leader to complain / all worried .

i personally would have told them to leave them at home. Many parents agreed. But a significant minority actively wanted them to have phones - there was quite the argument about it at our pre-trip meeting with parents 🤦‍♀️ And the problem is of course that phones aren’t just phones - they are cameras, music players, video players etc.

DS joined Scouts at 10, he'd never been to Beavers or Cubs, he was the only Scout from his school year, so the youngest one.
He went to Kernow Jamboree that summer and was fine. Nobody took phones from our troop. He's done a week's holiday with his troop every year since with no phones.