DD school trip in 2 hours. Woke up to a lot of ranty msgs from another parent

[BackwardsGoing]

Who has just twigged that the kids are not allowed phones for their 2 nights 3 days away.

School has communicated this in emails, letters and F2F meetings for most of the year.

Ranty parent (RP) wants all parents to stand in solidarity against the no phone rule. This morning. While the kids are getting on the coach!

AIBU to say this is (a) bonkers (b) far too late and (c) bonkers.

BTW children are year 6 / 10-11 yo and the school has promised regular updates via Facebook.

That is ridiculous. I mean, we managed to go on school trips without mobiles in the 80’s/90’s ...pretty sure it didn’t do us/our parents any harm!

but some of dd's friends' parents have reluctantly said yes to SM due to pester power!

Ah see DD hasn’t even bothered as she knows what the answer will be

Helps that I work in social media so have been clear with her from the start what is negotiable and what isn’t!

That's interesting @JacquesHammer what do you do? I went to a parenting talk on SM a few months ago and it was shocking to hear the negative effect on mental health. Interestingly my 16 year old dd has come off Instagram and feels so much better for it. My 18 year old dd says many of her friends are going off SM. I'm hoping it might be dying a death before dd3 gets there!

Various things really including digital marketing but I also do classes/talks on online safety

@twosoups1972 She has a brick phone - just calls and texts. There is a Y6 WhatsApp group, but I said no to that. I have told her she’s allowed to moan to her friends about how mean I am and how it’s so unfair, when other kids show off their brand new iPhones with full internet access and no limits on screen time or apps. So she does, but she is (privately) quite glad to not have to manage that stuff yet.

My DD has been on several residentials and been really homesick on all of them. A teacher offered her her own phone to call me, but DD said she didn't want to as she thought that might make her feel worse. They went on a one day trip once (told not to take phones) and were stuck in traffic. Teacher then said they should text home to say they would be late....except no one had a phone!! But the school did eventually tweet an eta which was several hours later than expected. On residential trips they are nearly always late back but school are pretty good about updating parents.

Year 6 is the standard year to get phones - they have several months to get used to them before they start secondary, which are frequently further away, and many travel on their own to.

That is why there is so much about online safety at primary schools in yr 5 and 6.

Wow what did we do 20 years ago . . . . . . . .

Wow what did we do 20 years ago

20 years ago I had a mobile phone....

I've got all this to come in a couple of years. Mine don't have phones yet anyway - they borrow mine sometimes to take pictures though. I'm curious - are the kids allowed to take cheapie cameras? No camera is what I'd miss most of my phone was taken off me and I love the pictures in my attic from school trips

There's no point questioning how we all coped before mobile phones. Society is very different now. Life operates differently, for better or for worse, and without a mobile phone it is much harder to participate in certain things.

My DC and their friends all make arrangements by messaging on line and the kids without phones wouldn't be part of that, for example.

I read PLB as precious little bastard

I'm no longer surprised by this. Last year the year six residential included a massive fallout because a group of parents were outraged that sweets were banned. Parents seemed to care about the lack of a midnight feast much more than the dc. It was only 2 nights away ffs.

@Bluerussian
Does the ban on mobile phones extend to the teachers accompanying them?

Why should it? Teachers are adults, do you really think the rules for pupils should also apply to them?

France has banned children under 15 from using phones on all school premises. I wonder what the reaction would be if this was proposed in the UK?

(A bit ironic given how/where/when Mr Macron met his wife!)

How do they think kids coped on school trips before mobile phones?!

Obviously us oldies were supplied by our parents with three homing pigeons a day so that we could keep our Muvvers totally aware of everything that was happening on an almost minute-by-minute basis.

France has banned children under 15 from using phones on all school premises. I wonder what the reaction would be if this was proposed in the UK?

Quite happy. DD’s school currently has this rule (with the exception of lessons where they’re permitted to use them e.g playing music for a drama performance, videoing for an ICT project)

namemcnamechange

'Jeez. I’ve just had to let my 8 and 10 year olds go on a residential without phones. They aren’t even allowed to call home. We just get the odd text from school saying what they’ve been up to. It is tough admittedly but what makes me laugh is “that” parent will be the one kicking right off when phone gets broken or goes missing '🤦🏻‍♀️

What 8 yr old and 10 yr old have a phone? They don't need one until they're walking to school on their own(and lots of us managed without one even then!)

*Wow what did we do 20 years ago

20 years ago I had a mobile phone..*

Yup! Me too! Same number I have now even ;)

My kids are a bit older now but all school trips when younger were without phones and they survived .
Now they can take them but often don’t and if they do I get no contact from them at all !!

Wow what did we do 20 years ago

If having a phone can protect my DCs from going through some of the crap I did as a child then I will be thrilled.

My ds was anxious about not having his phone when he went away in year 6 simply because he has massive sleep issues and used it for an audiobook to settle each night. I simply had a chat with the teacher, checked they were happy for me to get the cheapest MP3 going, load it up with just stories and make it clear that I had no qualms about it breaking or going missing and that was fine.

I'm so glad I did, ds has autism and struggles with changes, I'm pretty sure had he had his phone I would have had a text for every bit of food he didn't like, everything that felt strange etc. Instead he came back full of everything he had achieved, all the amazing adventures he had and then I heard about the horrible food, but as an afterthought not an upset text.

I am a very unnatural mother. DD went on a Scout hike and overnight last weekend and I wasn't in the least concerned not to have ANY update about her survival...

My DD (y6) went on her school "journey" they could take ipads for the coach and then nothing while they were there. Teachers sent photo updates. I don't think they needed an ipad for 40 minute coach journey but not up to me.

I hate Social Media for kids, I know that DD and her friends love to take selfies of each other looking silly, but I don't think these photos need to be posted anywhere. DD has a Nokia which she hates and we are trying to keep her off an iphone for a bit longer. I trust her to be sensible now, when her and her friends have such simple tastes, but don't really fancy her chances with more sophisticated teens. It's a scary world out there .

iPads for 40 min journey? what's wrong with singing age old songs about school and teachers all the way?