Is your Year 6 child on WhatsApp?

[EffYouSeeKaye]

I’m assuming they must be, as my ds is the ONLY one in his class who isn’t, so he tells me. He has a phone but no SIM. He has a few family members saved in his contacts and he can iMessage/ FaceTime them.

I am trying to hold out for high school before allowing him a SIM and to join WhatsApp groups with his friends but I’m starting to think I am some old dinosaur and being unreasonable.

I’d appreciate some more opinions on this, as I’m feeling a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place.

My yr 6 ds is probably the only one in his year without a phone. We seem to live in an area where parents have no qualms giving their 8 year olds the latest iPhone and access to whatsapp/instagram/YouTube/tik tok etc. My ds was once bullied by some girls in his class who up loaded videos onto YouTube saying they hated him, they were 7 at the time He is hoping to get a phone for christmas, but he will have no sm or WhatsApp etc, he's only really getting it for the walk home so I know where he is etc.

Phone with SIM, no WhatsApp (although I’m not sure why as it’s no different to iMessenger.) Definitely no Snapchat or TikTok.

I've only just got WhatsApp and I'm 50-something.

My Year 5 children got smart phones with SIMs for their 10th birthday and have WhatsApp. Some of their class do, and some of their class don't.

I wanted them to have phones and be able to contact friends well before senior school. At the moment I know all the kids and my children are happy to talk about playground spats and share their phones with me. I can talk about their phone use with them as they understand it's part of me keeping them safe. I want that to become firmly embedded before senior school means I don't know the kids and I feel more distances from their social lives.

They've had the phones (and WhatsApp) for about three weeks and we've already had several discussions about how tone of voice is missing from messages, how it's not appropriate to message "out of hours" in case you wake someone, how you often have to wait for a response because the other person is busy (and that it's not appropriate to send many many many messages in the meantime!). I am glad that I have time to do this learning with them before senior school.

Seems to be about 50/50 so far, which is what I thought. Apologies to whomever it was that thought I believed him when he said he was the ONLY one without it. I should’ve added an eye roll there perhaps...

I do appreciate that WhatsApp isn’t all that different to iMessage & FaceTime. He is allowed to use those at the moment, but only with the few family contacts he has saved. I haven’t let him add any friends’ phone numbers yet, nor have I given out his details to anyone outside of the family.

I am leaning towards his 11th birthday. He will still be in year 6 but with just a short while to go until high school, to let him try it out with his smaller circle of friends and let the novelty wear off a bit. I was having a bit of a wobble and thinking I’d bring it forward to Christmas but you have collectively reassured me that there is no such urgency or pressing case for allowing it sooner.

I shall stick to my guns. I wish smartphones didn’t exist or at least that they were given the same treatment as cigarettes & alcohol for children. However, that’s not the world we live in, it seems.

Dd is now in Yr 7, but WhatsApp groups in year 6 only started in March when lockdown happened- her phone pinged constantly for about 6 weeks. It was good that they all kept in touch and the novelty quickly wore off for dd.
So now she's in secondary school WhatsApp groups she rarely checks because she's over it 😂

My year 6 DD doesn't have a phone. Will probably get her one for her 11th bday next summer before she goes to secondary.

My son in Year 8 has a phone but not WhatsApp. He asks occasionally but understands why he can't yet have it.

I'm amazed how blase people are about WhatsApp tbh!

My eldest didn't until the summer before secondary school.

She was immediately overwhelmed by the level of contact and pinging and the first thing I taught her was how to mute groups for a year.

I check it very regularly - it's pretty important as some groups can get out of hand. Think vile misogynistic language, swearing, links to porn, bullying. They are 11.

DD's boundaries are clear, don't gossip behind people's backs, don't say anything in there you wouldn't say to someone's face, she's to tell me if there's anything she doesn't feel comfortable with, and I'm to check it whenever I want. That's the rules or she doesn't have it!

My DC did. It have until he was year 8

Read this ... it might help you decide parentinfo.org/article/whatsapp-a-guide-for-parents-and-carers

I know year 4's with tiktok and snapchat. I judge the parents. Absolute madness.

My two got phones on 11th birthdays so partway through Y6 (one spring term, one summer term) but neither were allowed WhatsApp until they were 13. When DD hit 13, WhatsApp minimum age was 13, hence why I waited until then as I was not going to teach DD that it was OK to break the rules. Then a few months later (GDPR-related I think), WhatsApp changed it to 16. But I wasn't such a mean mum that I made her delete it, so DS has also been allowed it age 13 - except he's not bothered to get it as he's not one for big groups so just texts his friends.

Given what DD told me about what went on in Y7/Y8 on WhatsApp, I'm glad I held out as by age 13 she was mature and confident enough to deal with it if necessary.

So no your DC won't be the only ones without it and, whilst they may occasionally feel they are missing out, in my view they aren't generally mature enough at age 10/11 to deal with some of the online behaviour (bullying, swearing, general rudeness/vulgarity).

@Newuser991

With regards to reading the messages you know WhatsApp cannot be traced.

Nothing shows on a bill.

Messages and calls can be deleted.

If you use text they show up on an itemised bill.

@newuser991 The parental control app Safe Lagoon lets you see WhatsApp messages and media. And sends regular screenshots to your phone, so you'll see things even if they get deleted (I guess there's a chance of missing them if the deletion happened very quickly, but you'd see most things)

Interesting reading thanks. My dds are yr 6 and are getting phones for Christmas- we said 11th birthday and that's 2 weeks after Christmas. They walk to school by themselves now so they need a way for us to contact them.

I'd say about 50% of their class have phones and from what I hear it's mostly roblox messaging.

They have their own shared email address which we got in lockdown but dh has full access and checks. They only have a few email addresses which were pre arranged with other parents.

I am wary about whatsapp mostly because there is a bit of a 'mean girl' group which Dd2 especially is really keen to fit in with and I'm not sure I'd like her in a group with them.

On the other hand the football team she's just joined set up a group which she can't join which is a shame as part of the reason she joined was to make friends and they are all in different schools.